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character, Chico D, into a martyr and also a hero; yet the message of the story is that he is not a hero but a victim. This double attribution, of victim and hero, is consistent with Bitterkornix's sympathies, illustrated throughout their work, of identification with or at least concern for the underdog. Especially indicative of this stance is Joe Dog's adaptation of a text by Jello Biafra, Na!: van die Wit Skrik. It is a factual story, with a serious subject. (A general rule is that the more Afrikaans used, the less whimsical the comic tends to be.) The artwork is busy, nervous and scratchy, with few clear negative spaces. Remnants of psychedelic artwork, especially in terms of lettering, are present [fig 16]. This is sparse enough to contribute to the tension, not distract from it. Figure 16 Dog Na!: van die Wit Skrik p3 There is new artist featured in issue two, a woman, Ina van Zyl. Her work stands out, as it does in Qif (an "Afrikaans sekscomic" produced by the same artists between issues 2 110
and 3 of Bitterkornix). Her work is separate, but is introduced at this point in the analysis because it is useful for an understanding of all the artists' work to compare them. Van Zyl is less interested in deconstruction than synthesis. She wants to express her vision of reality, without overtly examining the methods. So in the end her work is more conventional, by sticking to narrative forms, than Botes' and Dog's, which have a greater appearance of conventionality. They use narrative forms in non-narrative ways in selfreflexive examination. Die Besoek is a story of inner happenings, serious, with deeper, more pervasive humour than those by Botes or Dog. The tone is introspective, fragile, innocent, and naive. The story, as personal as some in the first issue, is striking in its intimacy. Joe Dog's Nag van die Wit Skrik is as personal, but not as intimate or direct. The story is less fantastical than the other contributions to the comic. This has something to do with the cartoony character of the men's drawings and Van Zyl's more realistic drawings, reinforced by an everyday setting. Her work lacks the decorativeness that is characteristic of early Bitterkornix. Verbal interruptions are kept to a minimum, and the dialogue is factual and sober. The verbal aspect of her work is typified by the brandnames [fig 17] which are realistic; the story is told in pictures, so the brandnames, like the words, are what they are. This is very unlike more typical Bitterkomix stories (A Perfect Little Consumer, for example) in which brandnames are altered and every word refers to several ideas at once. In Botes and Dog's comics, words are skittish and elusive in the employ of frenetic crossreferencing. III
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A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SOUTH AFRICA
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dialect differs from the language o
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"Does he paint? He fain would write
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1. INTRODUCTION What I am attemptin
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existence ... until food gets short
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is making comics respectable in the
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Most of these comics are produced a
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2. DEFINITIONS AND TERMINOLOGY The
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In addition, extraverbal sounds, or
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The decision as to whether visual l
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For the first two decades of the tw
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Wertham's book The Seduction of the
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Undergrounds were amoral, sexual, s
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coalesced into comics intended for
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3. ANALYSIS Four different groups o
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incomprehensible passages are incom
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positive shapes, even or especially
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3.2. KOMIKSOC The confessional aspe
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,0 ::l£~) \e B . f"'CM P'!~t .....
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Figure 2 Franklin After the Plagues
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Sididis's Tripping uses comic conve
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example of how the appearance of a
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M\..I.A i H !lVIE ou~ rut", """" ""
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The artist only solves this problem
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text. Yet the frames function in su
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of the text, which is the reason fo
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omb) are lost in an attempt at pers
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a single emotion, depicting various
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Figure 19 Breytenbach Eddie Jumped
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Content is sometimes allowed to esc
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Sorfa's technique saves, lives up t
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Figure 23 Casey Showcase: Item 1 pI
Page 66 and 67: Two people, a scriptwriter and an a
Page 68 and 69: Sorfa's collaboration with scriptwr
Page 70 and 71: Casey's understanding of blacks and
Page 72 and 73: From the whimsical, poetic scripts
Page 74 and 75: This same regularity forces pace to
Page 76 and 77: In previous comics, my 'visual writ
Page 78 and 79: The comic was drawn full-size on A4
Page 80 and 81: Text shifts between narrative, spee
Page 82 and 83: Teo iNTE.N5E · Figure 38 Sorfa Spi
Page 84 and 85: ' .. Figure 1 T. Begg The Battle of
Page 86 and 87: The text of Bone Staircase, by Freu
Page 88 and 89: of solid blacks and a subjective vi
Page 90 and 91: Rue, by Sididis, begins well. The f
Page 92 and 93: completely resolved. Possibly his p
Page 94 and 95: seems to pick out elements, without
Page 96 and 97: The awkwardness of this comic is a
Page 98 and 99: 3.4. BI'ITERKOMIX Bitterkomix start
Page 100 and 101: From Case No. 308, the story of Tom
Page 102 and 103: Figure 3 Botes, Dog The Tommy Saga:
Page 104 and 105: 'Tj ~. (1) ..,. tj o OQ ;l ,(1) VEI
Page 106 and 107: etween form and content, but also p
Page 108 and 109: Another example is figure 8, from A
Page 110 and 111: structured. Familiar sources, conte
Page 112 and 113: Some verbal comic conventions are m
Page 114 and 115: Both artists make use of a great va
Page 118 and 119: Figure 17 Van Zyl Die Besoek p5 112
Page 120 and 121: The transitions between panels are
Page 122 and 123: simply by its silence and inexplica
Page 124 and 125: Figure 22 Botes Die Mens 118
Page 126 and 127: Verdwaalde Harte [fig 23J, also by
Page 128 and 129: Figure 27 Dog, Winterbach Rewerie p
Page 130 and 131: In Die Hero van die Bitch [fig 29],
Page 132 and 133: draws the reader's attention to the
Page 134 and 135: Figure 32 Bates Siembamba 128
Page 136 and 137: The Proverbs are selected and reint
Page 138 and 139: In Klapmuts Polisie Slaan Toe, Bote
Page 140 and 141: Ina van Zyl is more concerned with
Page 142 and 143: I ROSIE is NUUT deur Ina van ;Zyl I
Page 144 and 145: M y DEliO !r1OTHER H I..4NG UP I LE
Page 146 and 147: Botes is very good at acidic social
Page 148 and 149: The second episode of Missileman, b
Page 150 and 151: In Kanker Botes' subject is again t
Page 152 and 153: coincides with the appearance of th
Page 154 and 155: closeup, then pulls away to explain
Page 156 and 157: stories in issue 1 are in English,
Page 158 and 159: 4. CONCLUSION The comics are all pr
Page 160 and 161: The most common genres (my definiti
Page 162 and 163: the first generation whose world is
Page 164 and 165: ways of creating this entrance poin
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S. BIBLIOGRAPHY BARKER, M. 1989. Co
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Thames and Hudson. NEAL, C. 1987. T
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