Comic Panel Slow Read #32
From Supergirl: Being Super #2 | Art by Joelle Jones, colors by Kelly Fitzpatrick, letters by Saida Temofonte, written by Mariko Tamaki
As a (mostly) daily exercise for 2017, I’m trying to slow down my reading and look deeply at one particular panel of a comic for about 15 minutes in order to really study its construction.
This is a heartbreaking issue that gives us a realistic portrayal of how teenagers — not superheroes, but real people — deal with overwhelming grief.
Kara is drawn like a real teenage girl with a skinny, but normal body type. Here, she sinks into the embrace of her mother, whose broad, bear-like body is nurturing and even heroic, while Kara’s is passive and lifeless. Every part of her mother’s body radiates energy and care in comparison to Kara’s completely expended body. We can’t really see either of their faces except for Kara’s pale cheek, but her mom’s curly hair and bent arms and legs are active in stark contrast to Kara’s flat hair and flaccid limbs. That one arm hanging limply at her side and the way her mouth is buried into her mom’s shoulder are visceral, powerful little details.
The diagonal drift of the smoke frames them and guides your eye in the direction you would read their dialogue. The way all the other background elements have dropped out entirely focuses you on this emotional exchange and makes you feel like everything has gone completely silent around them. No one else is there at this very moment.
It’s a great touch to have Kara’s track uniform be such a callback to the Supergirl costume that she is yet to wear at this point in the book. Meanwhile, her mom is wearing a very “mom” looking pair of shorts. The way that pocket folds open because of how she is kneeling is a great touch of realistic physics.
