I love the comics technique of having a whole continuous environment occupying the metaframe (the whole expanse of the page) which a bunch of smaller frames slice up so that characters can carry out their actions on a whole stage. it feels a little bit like how they used to solve the problem of moments in time in renaissance paintings of bible stories: just slap the same characters on the painting multiple times and figure people can keep up with reference to the source text and use of conventional costuming &c.
Sarah Jolley loves playing in this space, and I love these early examples in The Property of Hate.
I mean, these first few pages aren't quite as straightforward as space getting sliced but look at the continuous flow of that last sequence above, where the little sock snake Assok is hopping up and down the calcified sides of the dead tree carrying messages back and forth between RGB and the hero. it's such an intriguingly unusual and irregular thing for a comic to do, and yet it's immediately really intuitive what's going on, the back and forth of the conversation guided by Assok's little hops up and down. follow the bouncing sock! she plays with the diegesis in this really interesting way where Assok's hops up and down the tree can't be quite literal--after all, we see the two other characters in the exact same spots. that's, in fact, part of how the sequence remains coherent, is we can see them changing pose against the same backdrop. so Assok's movements, and the texture of the tree, must be in figurative space, giving us the impression of the movement. ironically, I think that little reliance on what I'll call a subjective diegesis makes the whole sequence feel grounded in the set, which both clarifies the arrangement of speech bubbles, cuts out the tedium of having to have Assok repeat all the dialogue, and enhances our sense of the tree as a setpiece.
that's great stage setting for a few pages later:
...when we get a more traditional example of that slicing of space, as RGB chases the hero around the coral-spike canopy of the sleeping tree. I love the curves of motion here, the way the dialogue makes up one arc along the upper corner of the page, and the characters' motions arc along the lower half, letting the two paths reach a pitched confrontation point at the very bottom right corner of the page as their argument devolves into name calling. the black gutter that divides the page into three passes in and out of the tree's shapes, emphasizing the environment not just as a 2d set they're running around on but a whole 3d jungle gym they're clambering on. and there's even this fun moment where RGB's arm has to reach back up into a previous frame-zone for a handhold as he climbs down into the next, a cheeky little violation of time and space.
the tree is so well realized as a set, in fact, that I suspected it was a 3d model originally, posed in different ways and then painted and drawn over. I asked Jolley what her process was and found out I was half right about it being a 3d model: "It is- but a very literal one. I made it out of clay! it is sitting on my shelf acquiring dust as I type this." this makes a lot of sense based on the tree's more modeled and detailed texture compared to the comic's typically more cell shaded look! the complexity of the way the environment and paneling play off each other necessitated the model: "I needed to be able to draw it from crazy angles and knew I'd have a hard time, so it made sense to just make it so I could hold it in my hands." the result is a setpiece that's got this otherworldly edge to it. it's a technique that might not work for every comic, but the expressiveness that I talked about before in Jolley's work contextualizes the aesthetic complexity of integrating a clay model with cartoon outlined figures, making it just another part of the wildly exuberant show.
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