Pewter and Unwell

Unlike the Burn Journals, Stitches is narrated in the past tense. Despite this, there's no trouble in connecting emotionally with the author or feeling the things portrayed through the book. Why? Well, it's a graphic novel.

Continuing from last time, the author of this memoir seems to have had quite a troubled childhood. The way the narrator talks about things make everything seem normal, but from the reader's point of view, "other mothers pulled their children indoors when they saw [the narrator] coming" (57) and the other kids constantly calling the narrator a "fag" or a "queer" doesn't seem too normal.

Also having mentioned this last time, the whole coloring itself seems pretty dark. Dark in both ways. Every other human being doesn't seem to have eyes, provoking an emotionless sense in the reader. It's like as if the narrator views everyone else as emotionally lacking and maybe even crazy, it might be the other way around, the narrator being "crazy" in that he dresses up as Cinderella and imagines car crashes all the time.

This all is shown rather well in the one frame in which the narrator jumps into the blank piece of paper that he always draws in, symbolizing his somewhat a need to delve into his own imagination. (Although the imagination itself isn't too pleasant, as he's seen diving into a stomach full with cartoony dumdums.

When the narrator mentions that grandma is "crazy", his mother scolds him and tells him to never say that word again, it implies that, as I previously stated, the narrator is viewed as "crazy" to a certain extent. Rather disturbing.

All this with a kid-like narration and shades of gray.