Promethea: Temporal Analysis (example 3)

Promethea Annotation #3: Dividing Space and Time

This annotation focuses entirely on the following two-page spread.















Issue 5, pgs. 16 & 17

The frames and gutters on this spread are largely decorative. To clarify, there are actually three dividing gutters in this spread, though one is located directly on the crease of the book, making it invisible. The space of this spread is continuous; the "panels" do not excerpt pieces of the space as they typically function. Instead, it is as if the space is a background image, with the frames laid overtop. These frames serve one purpose: to clarify the time that the characters are experiencing. Each "panel" contains a section of dialogue that is spoken as the characters walk. This point is emphasized by the edges of Margaret/Promethea's wrap in the first panel, which flutter in front of the gutter and across into the next "panel". This point in time is happening before the events of the next panel, and so take place farther in the foreground. It is fairly safe to assume that the conversation progresses at a typical pace, thus giving the reader a reasonably solid conception of the temporal progression across the spread.

Since the content of the Immateria is essentially created by those within it, it seems logical that time would work much the same way. In this spread, time seems to move almost as a wave, following Margaret and Sophie as they walk. As they continue forward across the page (and farther into the background), the environment around them seems to progress as well. The skulls on the ground in the first panel turn to eggs, which then crack, which then hatch into bats. "Sphere of influence in which things progress". Note the growing flowers. Echoing the barbed wire from previous pages. Trail of movement, stars. Panel 3 into panel 4, trace the arc of their flight in the flower.

The Four Horsemen are an issue all their own, and lend to the temporal ambiguity of the space. Are they present for the entire duration of the spread? Do they appear when they are spoken of in conversation? Is this an image projected in the sky by Margaret's thoughts, a peek into a different time, or is the image purely there for the reader's benefit? The latter seems unlikely, as that idea seems to take away from the deep, immersive world JHW3 envelops the reader in.


So...if this is a continuous space, then what the hell is going on with this bat? God damn the bisected bat!

Promethea: Temporal Analysis (example 2)

Promethea Annotation #2: The Story of Charlton Sennet

In issue 4, Sophie decides she needs to learn more about Promethea and goes to the library to research one of the men known to have manifested her through his writing. The final panel on page 7 shows Sophie opening to the first page of chapter one of a book about the man's life. Page 8 is a sudden contrast to the previous spread as we move from the flowing illustrations of a hybrid of 1999/immateria to a dreary day in the early 1800s, featuring a desolate man surrounded by fairies. This image begins an 8-page sequence portraying the man's accidental summoning of Promethea into his servant, Anna, and their subsequent affair. The text tells of the timelessness of their experience together, saying, "Each kiss endured while mountains wore to dust. Whole lives passed 'twixt each measured bedboard squeak. So lost were they in their transcendant lust that they knew not the hour, not the day, nor week." JHW3 portrays the contrast between the way time flows when Anna is herself and when Anna is Promethea through page layout and design. On those pages where Promethea dominates, or where the world of the fantastic holds sway, the images usually completely cover the page, bleeding off the edge in a show of continuous time and space (see pages 8, 10, and 12). The layout and shape of the panels on these pages are non-traditional, featuring panels layered overtop a larger image, placed in whatever way suits the background, and usually more than one shape of panel per page.












Issue 4, pgs. 8, 10, and 12

This smooth, expansive style is markedly different from the techniques used on panels where Anna is merely a servant and the material plane is dominant. These areas have more traditional layouts, leaving the gutters between their evenly spaced squares and rectangles empty and white. Panel 1 on page 13 shows this contrast more sharply, placing the two styles directly against each other on the same page. Panel 1 on page 9 is similar. The familiar layout automatically switches the reader back into a more typical mode of comprehending the passage of time by providing a measured, even pace.















Issue 4, pgs. 11 and 13

JHW3 deliberately combines these two conflicting stylistic ideas on the penultimate page of Sennet's story, as a human Anna gives birth to a baby that is only "half real", an idea created between two people and born from the Immateria. While he retains the empty white gutters, the panels take the shape of three vertical columns of varying sizes, bringing back the odd layout and panel shapes.















Issue 4, pg. 14


All images are copyright Alan Moore, J.H. Williams, America's Best Comics, and everyone else involved in Promethea's creation. Not me, in other words.

Promethea: Temporal Analysis (example 1)

For my final paper in my class on Narrative and Time, I've chosen to look at Promethea, a 32-issue comic series written by Alan Moore and penciled by J.H. Williams III (hereafter referred to as JHW3). This series does an incredible amount with time, and my hope is to focus specifically on JHW3's art for my analysis. The pencil work of Promethea is truly groundbreaking for many reasons, but what really fascinates me is the complete breakdown of traditional panel structure, layout, and use of the page. To keep the scope of the paper small enough, the plan right now is to work with just the first collection (issues 1-6). There is so much that happens artistically later in the series, though, that the temptation to look at it all might be too much for me. We'll see.


Promethea Annotation #1: Misty Magic Land

The Immateria is a plane of timeless, fluid imagination, constantly bending to the thoughts of those inhabiting it. Time in this world is not only linear, but circular, square, mobius-stripped, dizzy, and possibly hole-y as well. JHW3 transitions the reader into this world of flowing matter and questionable time by loosening the straight lines of the panel frames (page 7, panels 2 & 3), turning the panels into wavy, gelatinous blobs (pages 10 & 11).













Issue 3, pgs. 7, 10, and 11

Page 11 also shows one of JHW3's ingenious uses of layout to portray both temporal and spatial clues. As we drop down the page, following a fairly linear progression of time, we see each nested panel taking us closer to, and finally deeper into, the Dark Woods. Spatially, the effect is of the woods enveloping the characters, as the panels get larger as we progress down the page. The sequence is odd temporally in that, unless there are points of silence that are not shown, such a journey could hardly take place in the amount of time it would take to recite that amount of dialogue. At the start of the conversation, they are far from the Dark Woods; by the end, they are deep within and ready for a confrontation with the Big Bad Wolf. This illustrates the unstable nature of time in the Immateria.

The Misty Magic Land sequence begins with the transition on page 7, sustains from pages 8-21, and ends with Sophie and Stacia's escape on page 22.


All images are copyright Alan Moore, J.H. Williams, America's Best Comics, and everyone else involved in Promethea's creation. Not me, in other words.