Tracing Pages
Traced Pages here
Stitches and Spinning are both graphic memoirs following the developmental years of David Small and Tillie Walden, respectively. Small grew up in Detroit and regularly became ill during his childhood. His parents and grandmother, who rarely showed David affection, regularly abused him mentally and physically. In Spinning, Walden’s upbringing consists of various trauma in addition to the difficulties of high school’s social pressures. On page 289 of Spinning and 275 of Stitches, Small and Walden are both traumatized and lose someone meaningful. Although both scenes portray traumatizing events, these pages are structured very differently.
In Stitches, David Small became close with his step-grandfather, Papa John. Papa John was popular in their town and would take David to see the trains, which David enjoyed. On page 275, David’s grandmother and Papa Johns wife, who lacked sympathy and apathy for David, attempted to murder Papa John by setting their house on fire while he was locked in the basement. Papa John survived and David’s grandmother was sent to the state insane asylum. David had to experience the trauma of his abusive grandmother trying to kill one of the only people he felt close to. In Spinning, Walden had an SAT tutor who she believed was a friend of hers. On page 289, Walden goes to her final SAT study session and takes her sweatshirt off because of the temperature, revealing that she is wearing a tank top. Her SAT male tutor then sits next to her in an attempt to sexualize her, making her rightfully uncomfortable. He begins to use playful tactics to touch her and becomes increasingly aggressive until she is finally able to fight him off. Walden was scared and hurt by this experience because she “thought [they] had actually been friends.” In these texts, Small and Walden were each betrayed by individuals that were expected to have enough apathy towards them and others to act differently.
Page 289 of Spinning and 275 of Stitches portray traumatizing events while being structured very differently. Page 289 contains four rectangular panels in a basic two-by-two formation with short and distant text bubbles for Walden. Additionally, the frame for three of the panels is the same and witnesses the event from behind Walden with no shading in the background. These details were included to slow the readers pace and emphasis the discomfort and fear felt during the situation. To contrast, page 275 of Stitches has five panels varying in four differently-sized rectangles with dense shading for the background. This page also uses lines to represent the motion of the grandmother lighting the match in the center of the page. These details and the absence of text bubbles make this scene feel quick-paced. Despite the opposing structures of the pages, both scenes portray intensity and significance.
These texts use different methods to portray intense situations to determine the pace and effect the scenes have on the readers. This page in Spinning has large panels with distant text bubbles and a lot of negative space, causing the reader to slow down and play close detail to the significance of Waldens interaction with her SAT tutor. In Stitches, Small uses smaller panels and the absence of text boxes for the reader to rapidly view the scene and display that time was a pressing matter during the situation in addition to the grandmother’s actions.
