What Is The Mood Of The Explainers By Jules Feiiffer

In the comic “The Explainers” by Jules Feiffer, Feiffer draws emphasis on the lack of defined gutter and contrasts between text and images throughout the panels in order to establish a sense of ambiguous progression in both time and narrator reliability.
Due to the comic having no boarders or lines between each image, the gutter is left somewhat ambiguous, which allows one image to blend itself into the next without a definite passage of time. It is only with the addition of written words that go from past to present tense that context is given to time, showing that the panels take place over a prolonged period of time, rather than a few days or even hours. The comic uses phrases like “used to” and “so after” to signify time lapses that are not otherwise obvious without a defined gutter. Instead, the line-less gutter creates an illusion in which the character changes from Superman to Clark Kent bit by bit as he slowly loses confidence. There are no sharp boarder lines to denote a change in either time or character, so the shift is more subtle and thus not as noticeable to the character.
Consequently, the choice to leave the gutter undefined eases the viewer into a similar position as the character.
While the transition from the first to the last picture shows a sharp contrast in how the character presents himself, the shift between the first and second image panel offers a far less obvious difference. Due to the temporal ambiguity purposely left in the comic, the reader is forced to interpret the plot and subsequently create his own gutter placement through closure. With this flexibility, the gutter could potentially span through three image panels in one scene instead of a single, individual image, or none at all depending on how the reader regards it. As a result, the gutter placement becomes an obligation of the reader to determine in order to acquire
closure.
In addition to using the gutter to help recount the story, the words and images are juxtaposed in a manner that allows two separate versions of the narrative to be told simultaneously. As the comic progresses, the character’s image size changes in regards to the text. In the first panel, Superman takes up a majority of the space, with there being only little room for the words to be juxtaposed beside him. By the last panel, Superman has shrunk nearly half in size from his appearance in the first panel, and he more evenly shares the room with words. Consequently, the text and images appear to be fighting each other for control. While Superman is initially presented as larger than the text, he eventually is overwhelmed by the weight of the narrative. However, there is still a gap of space between the words and the pictures, and no speech bubbles to link the text directly to him. As a result, the words and images seem to contrast one another in opinion rather than work in unison to produce a mirrored narrative.
This decision to keep the two elements separate suggests that the words do not reflect the character’s actual feelings, and instead are disconnected from his true thoughts. The words themselves tell a story that cannot be accessed through use of the images alone. With the text alone, the comic narrates Superman’s regression to Clark Kent and ultimate rejection of himself. When using only the visuals to understand the comic, however, the images tell a vastly different narrative. Through the pictures, it simply looks as though Superman is concealing his identity in his typical Clark Kent fashion, rather than permanently relinquishing the Superman side of him. By contrasting these two storytelling techniques, the narration becomes unreliable. This outcome is only possible due to the particular juxtaposition between image and text, and thus the reader must fill in the gaps to determine what the true story is intended to be. The comic emphasizes closure to the point that the viewer has to be consciously aware of it to fully grasp the comic as a whole.
Through these two elements, Feiffer creates a comic that demonstrates the strong effect a gutter has and the importance of combining text and image to convey a story. These technical choices highlight the fluidity that can exist in how comics are read and understood; by removing or limiting elements such as the gutter or adding elements such as the contrast between text and image, an active effort is required to achieve closure.