Text - Rhodes University

Two people, a scriptwriter and an artist, produced KRMLF. It is my first attempt at a
'real' cornie, but is too decorative to succeed as one. The ·text is given a prominence it
does not necessarily require. Although the writer was well-acquainted with the forms of
comics, I was at this stage stilI ignorant of most of these; there is a clash of intentions
between verbal and visual. The comic fails because it is too even in intensity and too
tentative. The drama is not dramatic or exaggerated enough.
The pictures attempt sequential narrative, but are isolated from each other [fig 25]. Text
is placed in the gutters, further separating the frames. The last and second last pages
improve slightly, with closer transitions from frame to frame, but the first section shows
no understanding of the mechanism of transition. I have not adapted my technique to suit
a different style of narrative, or a different subject. In previous comics the pictures were
closely allied to the text; they grew out of the same impulse. I added the last page onto
the existing script, and it works more comfortably than the rest of the comic. It is laid out
in terms of the grammar of the transitions, as it was conceived visually. Blacks and whites
are used as punctuation, to direct the reader and for emphasis.
• •
Figure 25 Breytenbach KRMLF p3
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