I went to Bristol Comic and Zine fair earlier this month, and I picked up a lot of goodies. One of the most immersive things I picked up was a copy of B. Mure’s Ismyre [1]. I was lured in by its promise of a fantastical narrative featuring magic and a city of anthropomorphised creatures. Also, I will admit, I have been a growing fan of the artist’s work and wanted to see how they translated their illustrative talent into the comic form.
B. Mure did not disappoint. Furthermore, I found, despite the relatively short length of the comic, I was taken on a story where my emotions were tugged at in many complex directions. I wondered how this was done. Ismyre is drawn in a relatively loose and rough manner – or at least made to look this way – so I was left impressed by the emotional journey it had taken me on. Looking over it again, I now see that a lot of these emotional arousals (by which I mean the emotions aroused in me by the work) are down to B. Mure’s colouring technique.
B. Mure appears to use watercolour to colour their comic. In the majority of panels, we see yellow for light and warmth and blue for shadows and coldness. Indeed, these are quite natural pairings of colour and emotional expression. The brilliant contrast between these creates a beautiful night-time atmosphere and adds realism to the otherwise simple line-art. Yet, B. Mure also uses colour to create much more depth than this, and it is through his use of layering and additional colours that B. Mure is able to create deeper emotional resonance within panels.
Here, it is suiting to draw parallels to the aesthetic theories regarding music. It has been noted that when there is a mixture of major and minor keys in a piece of music, and we look at the combining and positioning of these as a whole, we can feel aroused within us more complex emotions [2]. In contrast to this, it is noted how a piece of music strictly in either minor or major key, can only allow us at most to feel either happy or sad, but nothing more. Instead, it is the inter-relation of these keys that can give music the ability to tell a story.
In Ismyre, colour is used in the same way as chords to express the emotion of the panels and it is the layering of our base colours – set out as blue and yellow – that contribute to more complex emotional arousal in the reader. For example, the first page is only made up of blue and yellow. Each panel represents a small moment of time, and the scene is played out relatively slowly for us to absorb the beginning of the story, and start to become familiar with the main character, Edward. It presents quite a simple series of actions and the emotional pulse of the page is quite subdued: we feel calm and relaxed.
In contrast to this, we also see panels where colours are combined and overlayed and thrown together in a way which, in comparison to this first page, force a deeper complexity. They do this firstly by literally forcing the reader’s attention to increase – there is more to take in as our eye cannot flow over the page so easily anymore – and secondly by increasing the emotional arousal felt by the variety of colours displayed.
So now, we have a greater response to the images displayed and we are spending more time considering the artwork itself. This extra time contributes to the increased response felt, and the colours aid the complexity of the emotions aroused within. On just the second page, when other colours begin to be introduced, our focus is snatched up quickly as we feel the shift in Edward’s mood: from a subdued contentment to a curious intrigue and the notion that something mysterious is going on…
This arrival of new colours hints at the arrival of a deeper plot and, as a reader, we know we are not simply going to watch Edward carving at his table forever but that a mystery is unfolding. This happens again and again in Ismyre, and although you may argue that the contrast of simply using two colours and draw a scene into clearer focus through the clear division of the colours, it is still true that these scenes are often found to be seeking out one key emotional response, reflecting that of Ed. But when something more pivotal is occurring, or when panels are crowded with other characters or emotions are charged and changeable, we are introduced to more colours.
I can’t wait to read B. Mure’s second book set in the town of Ismyre, Terrible Means, and to see whether the use of colour is continued in this way, and I would highly recommend Ismyre for anyone interested in fantasy, magic and strange worlds full of mysterious and intriguing characters.
[1] Ismyre by B. Mure (London: Avery Hill Publishing, 2017)
[2] Music & Meaning by Jenefer Robinson (Cornell University Press, 1997)
Bookish Ponderings 