Text - Rhodes University

The contents of issue 1 are mostly psychedelia, fragmentation, vulnerability, and taboo
subjects (drugs and sex). Often the stories do not rely on a clear, concise narrative, but
on a structure that is almost stream-of-conciousness, expressing a state of mind rather
than an articulated idea. The Astonishing Adventure of Sir Joseph Patrick, by Joe Dog
[Fig 4], is a typical example. The artist pushes the limits of intelligibility, while sticking
doggedly to the visual structure of a comic. The drawings remain realistic (bearing in
mind that realism is a relative concept in comics), and each frame is more or less
coherent within itself, but they do not relate to each other in obvious or clear ways.
Some non-sensical fragments are particularly troublesome, because they are not
nonsensical in a lyrical style, and thus cannot easily be explained as poetic in intent [fig
5]. No mood is conveyed. It is a bold, clear style, even cartoony; the implication of a
spare undecorated narrative style is that each element conveys some part of a message.
Yet these illustrations illustrate nothing but themselves.
It is as if the artist is trying to draw the reader's attention to the page itself, thereby
exposing the lack of content of his comic, and undermining the reality of it. Much of
Bitterkornix's subtlety and fascination lies here: their stories are mysterious both on the
surface and behind it, in appearing to hold so much deeper meaning and turning out to
be empty of it. In later issues this leads to more obviously formal experimentation.
Comics exist largely in the reader's mind, and particularly in the gaps between frames
[McCloud, 1994, p.68]. Bitterkornix narrow this space until it almost ceases to exist,
pushing the invisible comic to the brink of visibility, until the reader is almost forced to
believe that the comic exists solely on the page itself. The confusion generated by this
tension is perhaps the best expression of the bitterness indicated in their title; unlike most
of the other artists, Bitterkomix do not only experiment with the connection
97