Elements by G#ROM

G#ROM. Elements. Grandpapier, 2009.

I wrote about the Belgian webcomic site Grandpapier back in August when I first started reading it. In September this comic starting appearing irregularly. There are only five pages so far, but the comics tagged “to be continued” so I expect more will be appearing.

I’m not sure there’s much to say about the comic, but I think it’s really attractive and wanted to share it. Each page is a six panel grid. The panels are subtle shaded variations. I’m pretty sure this shading is natural paper tone, as each panel looks like it is a separate piece of paper. The images are drawn in what I think is blue ink. They are sparse images, fragments, half recognizable landscapes or objects or emanata. I suspect they are the product of a redrawing and redaction of some other original comic panel, sort of like how I did my piece in the Abstract Comics anthology. Whereas I abstracted while I redacted, G#ROM’s pages look like they retain the a visual style of the originals. The images are beautifully straddling the border between representation and abstraction and show a fine hand with the brush or pen.

Elements (and the title does hint at this redactive work) is a non-narrative comic. There is no change or transformation event to bring to mind a narrative. Yet, I can still read the pages as comics, and as I read I can enjoy the images, the colors, and the mark marking.

Here’s page four as an example. If you go to the Grandpapier site you can read it at a higher level of magnification (Recommended).

Click for larger view.

While you’re at the site, you might also read his/her Recadrage, an 18 page abstract non-narrative comic that also uses the original paper as a strong visual element.

[This is part 20 of a 30 part series where I am writing daily reviews for the month of December.]