Text - Rhodes University

Casey's understanding of blacks and whites clears up Sididis's drawing, while his
pencilling gives her work greater liveliness than before. In effect, she edits his work,
giving greater prominence to some things than others.
While Bitterkomix and Morai's work seem to be aspects or episodes of the same world,
admittedly the world particular to each artist, Komiksoc's artists are more experimental,
choosing the style to suit the theme. Sometimes changes are radical, like Sorfa's change
in style in Van Newman's Hot Coklit Cainder. While the permanent artists struggle to
develop and maintain a style, their style is seldom the subject of their stories, as
Bitterkomix's sometimes dense one-pagers are.
The thread of unintelligibility running through his work became more marked when Sorfa
started illustrating other writers' scripts, producing a surreal, poetic, closed world.
Paradoxically, the more cartoon-like his characters and the more surreal his scripts
become, the more real and controlled his stories become.
Van Newman's Hot Coklit Cainder is the comic in which Sorfa finally finds his own style,
one that suits his haphazard scripts. It is the most successful love story produced by
Komiksoc, poignant and funny.
The artist is no longer reliant on outside reality; the comic has it's own world. Almost
mythological in scope and approach, its characters are fantastical creatures that are
treated as if they are real. This development is partly due to his knowledge of comics,
and the idea that 'anything can happen', as the comic's reality is extended to include
more possibilities than before. A moody atmosphere is created through judicious use of
blacks and whites, and only essential details are used to contextualise the story [Fig 28].
The lessons learned in Amor:phous Picknick are strengthened. The characters belong
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