The graphic novel that really interested my was Exits by Daryl Seitchik. There were several things that drew me to this comic, but I really liked that the main focus was a girl who I could relate to. I think that the topic of mental health, and mental health struggles, is interesting especially when explored through visual and linguistic aspects. The reason I want to read this book is because of my own struggles with mental health. Seeing how someone else characterizes it will be interesting for me to explore. I read a little part of this story last semester in another DTC class and I it left me intrigued. Unfortunately, the library does not have a copy of this book, so I ordered it off of Amazon. It hasn’t arrived yet, so the pictures that follow were found online (which is why one of them is too small). Once I receive my copy of the book, I will replace this pictures with photos that I take and resize myself.

This first example showcases a subject-to-subject scene. I like this example because it goes between the boss and the main character of the book but in the last panel it breaks the subject-to-subject theme. I think that this exchange is definitely one that many people relate to and that experience makes it easy to understand the back and forth of the comic. Reading this set of panels feels like a quick “shot” in a movie, where each panel is only a few seconds long, and just briefly captures the feelings of each character. All of the panels are the same size, making everything come across the same, giving the reader the sense that the feelings in the panels are flashing across the page. This is enhanced because as this set doesn’t show how one character moves compared to themselves until the last panels. In the last panel, the zoom on the bosses face enhance his feelings. By breaking the back and forth, the last panel adds intensity on the bosses feelings.

This set of panels does an interesting job of showcasing the passage of time in a way that I feel like could be confusing to the reader. I know that I struggled to understand this without fully being able to see what came before and after it. Despite this, I think the passage of time is shown because every panel showcases a different moment. As Scott McCloud explains in Understanding Comics, the passage of time isn’t always a linear progression which we expect. By focusing on a location with the people and activities happening on it changing, Seitchik conveys a sense of movement through time. This change is ambiguous and is not clearly defined for the reader, meaning that they have to take a little bit of extra time to understand more deeply the development of time that is showcased in this set of panels. The reason I chose this moment is because of this ambiguity.