Panel Bleed in Forget Sorrow

    In Belle Yang’s powerful graphic novel, Forget Sorrow, Yang utilizes the form of comics to articulate the familial structure she is showing readers through her memoir. Throughout the novel we see time and time again the rigidity and piety that accompanies the Yang family as the father is recounting the tales of his childhood. Recall the scene in which Yang’s father tells her that when his grandfather passed his oldest son on a walk through their property both men would simply nod to each other. You can also see this in the scenes where the patriarch and his eldest son fight. In order to restore peace within the family the eldest son must apologize, but his children must also supplicate the patriarch. There is a harsh strictness within the family which relies on Confucian ideals such as filial piety, and this is reflected within the structure of the artwork as well.

    One technique of comic art is utilizing gutters and spilling between frames. Yang rarely does this. Each frame is clear and separate, organized with respect to each frame that comes before and after it on the page. To me, this reflected the structure of the Yang family itself. Seldom in this novel will you find bleeds, and when you do it seems to accompany a moment of intense emotion, such as when Yang’s father tells her that the comic she produced based on his story is inadequate, or when second uncle’s wife yells at the patriarch. But this it also arose in softer emotional moments, like when Yang’s father admits that his own father did not live up to the expectations of the patriarch. These moments of emotion that seem to break the fierce organization of the art draw attention from the reader.

    Another technique around frame I noticed was in Yang’s dream sequence where she is running away from rotten egg. In this scene it seemed to me that instead of frames bleeding into the gutters, the gutters were bleeding into the frames. White space began to encroach on the black space of her nightmares, which to me created a feeling of suffocation or claustrophobia. Why draw these panels in this manner? Why not let her nightmare seep out of the lines of the frame instead of the other way around? This reversal caught my eye specifically because I was tracking bleeds. I feel that this returns to the familial structures of the Yang family as experienced by Yang’s father. It reminded me of the scene in which the patriarch is eating well, but all of his sons refuse to mention that they are going with less to eat than years before and instead insisted on isolating themselves. I saw these frames as replicating this self isolation.

    Through her design of this graphic novel, Yang illustrates on the page the restrictions faced by her father and grandfather as well as the rest of her family. In the moments where bleeds appear, or in the moments where the frames seem to be ready to collapse in on themselves, the reader is able to get a sense of how powerful these emotions are in an environment which prioritizes piety and respect are valued above all else.