Autership: Voice in Graphic Novels

I read Britten and Brülightly by Hannah Berry for my exploration of Autership in graphic novels. Personally, my immediate instinct when looking at this was that I did not like the art style. Specifically I didn’t like the way the characters and their faces were drawn. They were very unappealing and the proportions felt off. However, in contrast to the style of the people, the renderings of the environments were gorgeous. The mix of ink line and watercolor and ink washes gave this who novel a very particular feel. Throughout the entirety of the story, it is raining, and the watercolor and ink adds to the wet, dreary, and melancholy feel of the whole thing.

The overall inspiration for this work is abundantly clear. It has a lot of noir elements to it, and is almost a stereotypical melodrama about a private investigator hired to solve what the client expects to be a murder case. There are tons of twists and turns and no one and nothing are as they seem. There are threats, there is death, there is deceit, there is mutilation, and there is a constant inner monologue narration. There is pretty much everything that comes standard in a noir-genre piece. The way Berry even stages all of her panels is very noir. The thick ink lines helps make the illustrations feel high contrast, as noir films tend to be. She adds more to the high contrast lighting to the piece with her watercolor painting, which usually as a technique is very soft, but she uses it to create very dark shadows while still maintaining that watery feel.

However heavily inspired by man noir and neo-noir this piece is, that does not mean that it is devoid of personal and original voice. It is not merely and emulation of man piece before it. In some ways, the things that happen in the story are so ridiculous and outrageous, that they feel as if they are parodying the noir style. The fact that Britten is accompanied by a talking tea bag as his partner is one such outlandish element that makes this feel slightly more whimsical and funny than the serious drama of a noir piece. That by no means makes this a light piece, however.

The main character of this story is deeply troubled by his job. Most PIs in noir mystery stories are the mysterious hero type. They are attractive and do their job well. Britten is depressed and haunted by past mistakes. He is not a hero, and in many ways is the cause of a lot of strife for a lot of people. The novel is mostly about the mystery, but it also heavily focuses on Britten’s inner turmoil and mental health. I assume that his ‘partner’ is a fragmented part of himself; perhaps it is how he use to be before his job got to him and he made so many mistakes. Now he constantly has darkened eyes and a sad look on his face. He does not smile once throughout the entire graphic novel. His numbness to his the situations around him is indicative of his depression and the style of the art, the wet, subdued way it is painted, adds to this depressive overall feel.

The tone of this work is serious. Despite how overly dramatic it feels at times, it is, at its core, tragic. It is melancholy and leaves the reader feeling a little sad and maybe even numb with its resolution. It is difficult to determine Berry’s voice generally as an author and artist without seeing more of her work, however, the personal nature of the issues dealt with by the main character makes me feel like that is something personal to Berry. The melancholy way in which she paints as well as how she draws characters are all specific to her art style, and by extension, he voice as an author. I imagine the rest of her works have a similar feel to them.

After reading the whole novel I really do appreciate the art style of it and I did get pretty engrossed in the story, however dramatic. It made me feel a bit bereft by the end, but I feel that was the author’s intension. This was a highly successful genre piece as well as an emotional one.