Saturday, February 7, 2009

Vertigo Pop Tokyo 2 page 12

Seth could always give a lot of information through body language. In the upper left frame Steve and Maki's mother are standing together in the room she is offering him to sleep in, while Maki lays out a pillow for him. The mother is bent slightly forward, as Japanese women often do in an attitude of humility and concern for her guest. Steve's posture looks as though he is nervously shuffling his feet. "Mmm, yeah, it's ok." He is trying to be polite without exactly understanding what is required of him, but, as the text assures us, feeling about as awkward as it is possible to feel.
The stances of each of the players is not exaggerated, so you might not notice unless you were studying each page; they all seem completely natural.
The other interesting thing about this page is the way the two top frames work together. The point of view in the first is from the corner of the ceiling. The second is shot from about shin level, so that both of them are full of diagonal lines. But the first is an overview of the whole scene; the second is focused intently on Steve and his thoughts. The lines on the ceiling guide our eyes to him. Everything stops at his round face in the center of the rectangle.

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