Rarog 1
Rarog 3
Oksana Rarog
Mark Anderson
Freshman Composition
24 October 2018
Structural Elements of Graphic Novels.
Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley is a graphic novel exploring the influences of her family and friends had on her food relationship as she grew up. This graphic memoir is composed of 12 stories from her life. Each story ends with illustrated recipe that somehow related to the chapter. Throughout the story reader can see how Knisley provide a connection between her memories and food. There is no chapter without a food related association as she loves making food and having people enjoy it. The cartoonist Lucy Knisley skillfully uses elements of graphic novels such as figures, text, and layout to show the audience how food impacted her life.
The cartoony stile of drawing faces allows readers to see character's emotions toward food. Her drawing with dotted eyes and buttoned noses is an example of the icon used so broadly in comics and graphic novels. According to Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, the word "icon" defines as any image used to represent a person, place, or idea (63). Knisley's simplicity in drawing faces allows readers to understand her sense of humor. Her cartoony drawn style with exaggeration of eyes indicate horror. For example, in chapter 2 the scene where neighbor kid can easily kill a chicken begins with the panel she displays a crazy look into a perfect saucer-eyed take. The forth panel on the same page also illustrate exaggerated eyes that still full of unpleasant memory of a dog dragging a piece of dead animal. These images illustrated Knisley's first insight into some grisly realities behind her meal. However, in the final panel of the same page, her face full of pleasure because of her mother's pesto meal simply, giving herself the smile in anticipation of enjoyment (Knisley 24). The same way of drawing eyes is used in the chapter 5 of the book, where Lucy and her friend, who spent all of the money on pornographic magazines during their trip to Mexico, were terrified by potential punishment for attempt to smuggle pornographic periodicals into the U.S (Knisley 70).
Knisley incorporates text in a variety of ways throughout the book. To communicate effectively with the audience, cartoonist uses caption box to add clarification to the story as well as simply comments above the particular panel. Sometimes, the crucial details indicated by caption box with an arrow to make sure a reader doesn't miss what is going on. For example, the panel that depicts Knisley eating pickle sandwich has caption stated: ''Still one of my favorites,'' with an arrow pointed to the sandwich (Knisley 78). Besides many caption boxes in the Relish, the majority of comments that undeniable linked to the image stay outside of ...
