Unique Visual Storytelling Challenges in “Alias”

Alias was created – quite specifically – to be something different from mainstream Marvel comics of the time, and those differences create a series of visual challenges for the artwork. #JessicaJones 1/7

Most notably, Jessica Jones is a noir detective story, not a punch-em-up superhero spectacle. The majority of scenes are constructed around tense, rapid-fire dialogue rather than action sequences. 2/7

It is this exact problem that inspired Wally Wood’s famous “22 Panels that Always Work: or some interesting ways to get some variety into those boring panels where some dumb writer has a bunch of lame characters sitting around and talking for page after page!” 3/7

Where Wood’s solution is highly dramatic panels with sharp contrast and dramatic shadows, Gaydos mixes that approach with a series of repetitious images with only minor variation as verbal exchanges bounce back and forth or as moments pass in awkward discomfort. 4/7

This emphasis on what Scott McCloud terms moment-to-moment transitions creates a sense of stillness within the scenes, a sense of monotony, anxiety, even banality – all of which reflect the interior consciousness of the protagonist and the unglamorous world that she inhabits. 5/7

Additionally, Gaydos employs a wavy line for his figure-drawings and frequently selects unflattering angles for his perspective, all of which emphasize the many ways in which the world of Alias is sharply antithetical to Marvel comics, and to the Marvel house style. 6/7

The combined effect is to efficiently communicate what kind of book Alias is, to build a tone and an atmosphere that is deeply pivotal to the dark and dirty story that the series articulates. Thus, Gaydos’s contribution to that story is immeasurable. 7/7