Text - Rhodes University

From Case No. 308, the story of Tommy develops into what the artists modestly call The
Tommy Saga. The transition from Case No. 308 to the rest of The Tommy Saga is
shocking. Suddenly the artists are articulate, even flamboyant, in drawing as well as verbal
language, and the story flows easily. Case 308 is mostly narrative, but the sequels balance
narrative and dialogue. The drawings turn to a more commercial comic style, although
they remain idiosyncratic, and abound with personal references that would be very out
of place in a traditional comic. A sense remains of the artists hiding the seriousness of
their intentions behind humour and more particularly mockery, but now they hide behind
a style of accomplishment, rather than behind awkwardness and inadequacy.
Explicit attention is paid to the layout of the page, even drawn to it. Especially in these
first issues, the organisation of elements into an aestheticaly pleasing whole seems to be
of greater importance than creating believable characters or stories. This is turned to an
advantage by their superb decorative abilities. The composition is playful, with elaborate
titles and slick experimentation. Such an approach also lends itself to very self-concious
story structures, like the page-long prologue illustrated here [fig 2]. Instead of narrative,
the story becomes arrested in passages of pure elaboration of a single idea.
The artists become stylists, even when the narrative resumes, using typeface and
juxtaposition of drawings and photographs to convey essential adjectival information.
They are subversive in an educated, subtle way, deconstructing the comic as they create
it. In Case No. 308 this subversion was articulated through a deliberate inablility or
refusal to speak 'correctly'. In The Tommy Saga the vocabularies of comics and
advertising and film (and photography) are used and abused with facility, to the same
ends [fig 3].
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