Text - Rhodes University

Rue, by Sididis, begins well. The first page, certainly, is both more professional and
conventional than work he did for Komiksoc. The setting is· a pop concert; Sididis always
confines his subject matter to a very particular subculture, one heavily informed by
comics and music. The exaggerated violence of this story is derived from mainstream
comics, as is the standard layout of the first page and the action-to-action transitions
throughout [fig 8].
However, as in almost all his other comics, . it deteriorates and loses intensity. The
detailed drawings of the first page become sparser and sparer line drawings, which in
comparison look incomplete, as if areas of black have been left out. After the carefully
paced first page, narrative and explanatory detail become verbal rather than visual, a kind
of shortcut. Visual explanation depends on shifts from detail to detail; this is instead
telescoped into frantic speech bubbles, placed in rather spare frames [fig 9]. Fussy
drawing had been a problem for Sididis in Komiksoc publications, and this is a problem
he has solved. However, the most dramatic moments of the story fall flat because of
insufficient drawing and a lack of emphasis.
Figure 8 Sididis Rue p 1
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