Text - Rhodes University

draws the reader's attention to the silence of a comic, something that is usually not
noticed because of the way speech bubbles work: we "hear" the words written in the
bubbles. Part of the illusion created by a cornic is due to the deliberate masking of its
silence. Dog's instruction makes the cornic a complete thing in itself, rather than a mere
means of communication. In conventional cornics, the real cornic exists in the gaps
between the frarnes, in the illusion it creates. One of the results of de constructing a cornic
is that is exists only within the frames, only on the page. Dog's cornics do not often work
by existing in the gaps between the frames; but neither do they exist only on the page.
The real cornic in his cornic exists in the underlying idea. It exists in the meanings
generated by the placing of disparate elements. It exists in the gaps of meaning between
these elements, the way conventional cornics exist in the gaps between the frames. The
closure in Dog's cornics is not physical but intellectual. In the visual poem the inclusion
of a soundtrack completes the closure.
Jan Brand, by Dog, is a lighthearted satire of a common prejudice against cornics: the
notion that they are trash that destroy one's mind. Dog's hero, Jan Brand, however, goes
mad and achieves some kind of revelation through the reading of cornics.
Dog's method of layering meanings is exposed when the cornic that Jan is reading is seen
to be the same cornic that we are reading [fig 31]. Another aspect of Dog's writing is
revealed in the depiction of Jan's father as Darth Vader (a film character). Beyond the
characterisation of the father that is implied by this substitution, it illustrates Jan's
subordination to pop culture: he can only see reality in terms of preconceived cultural
concepts. It suggests a similar reason for Dog's piecing together of his comics from other
sources.
It is a comIC of concepts. The drawings illustrate salient parts of the text, together
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