Text - Rhodes University

Verdwaalde Harte [fig 23J, also by Bates, is a visual list of characters, each frame a
portrait of a person caught in some descriptive action. 'Every frame is captioned with a
single sentence, some descriptive of the contents, while others are more generalised
comments. All the frames are apparently unrelated to each other; but the creation of this
list in a comic format makes them interdependant. Simply because of their collection as
a comic, the frames generate a meaning between them, that is different from their
individual meanings. Each one's meaning is further modified by its place in the list, its
sequential position.
Dog and Dirk Winterbach's Rewerie is similar to Verdwaalde Harte, in that it consists
of a series of apparently unconnected frames, like thoughts passing randomly through
someone's mind. Lack of writing makes the pictures more ambiguous, but also
strengthens the connections between them, because meaning must be deduced from their
interrelationship, not from their relation to a text. Each frame is a statement in itself; but
its meaning is limited by its position in the series [fig 24J. The information contained
within a frame is subordinate to its position. An overtly photographic quality in the
drawings reduces them to the level of cliched recieved images [fig 25J. They become signs
or symbols rather than illustrations.
Figure 24 Dog, Winterbach Rewerie p2 (reduced)
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