Notes   /   26 October 2022

Instructions for a Small Group Discussion on Here and Boundless

At this point in the semester, we are transition from Here (2014) to Boundless (2017), and we’ve developed a robust toolkit for describing, interpreting, and analyzing what we see in comic pages.

Both Here and Boundless present graphic narrative in unconventional ways, so I am interested to look for points of affinity: 1) the ways this break with (or not) established conventions, and 2) the way they both express meaning through a sense of the reader’s point of view.

In a small group (about 3), first read through the first story in Boundless, “World-Class City,” or re-read it. Then, please discuss and respond to the following questions. Be prepared to share or summarize your conversations with the larger group.

1. In Here, where are we, the reader? How does being in that place evoke different emotions or express different ideas? Does it feel intimate? Voyeuristic? Invasive? When and how?
2. Skim through the rest of the book, or look up other examples of Jillian Tamaki’s art online. How is “World-Class City” different from or similar to those other works, and what does that difference of style convey?
3. In “World Class City,” where are we, the reader observing things from? How is this different from what we’ve seen before?
4. Who is the narrator in “World-Class City”?
5. Is the “World-Class City” a real place? A metaphor? How do you feel about this world-class city by the end?
6. Imagine yourself as the writer of "World-Class City" and you're preparing a script for the artist. How would you describe certain of these images in order to produce the drawings we see here?