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!