Unreliable Narrator
I've been thinking a bit lately about the literary technique of the Unreliable Narrator, as it applies to comics. If you aren't familiar with the term, the idea is that the narrator of the story (usually telling the story in the first person) is not the impartial omniscient observer that readers are in the habit of trusting. He can be confused, he can be biased, he can be misinformed, he can be misremembering, he can be lying.
I used this technique on a recently-posted JAQrabbit Tale [NSFW], in which the drunken protagonist's misperceptions are exposed on the last page when he wakes up sober and discovers that the person he just slept with isn't quite what he thought the night before. To give the reader a hint that the visuals shouldn't be taken too literally, I gave the art some wavy distortion to suggest drunkenness. Meanwhile, the dialog was accurate, offering a few subtle clues (probably not picked up until after the reveal) that things weren't really the way they looked.
I'm also using it – sort of – on a script I'm working on. In this case, the two characters are telling each other tales, which aren't entirely truthful. This time it's the art that tells the truth, while the narrative captions tell their dissembling version of the story. This isn't a true case of Unreliable Narrator, because I'm being honest to the readers, it's the characters within the story who are showing themselves to be unreliable to each other. The medium of comics is ideally suited to this kind of parallel storytelling, so it's fairly common.
And there's also the question of whether you can even trust the writer himself. Because between you and me: some of the stories I tell ... aren't exactly true to life.
What experiences do you have with Unreliable Narrators, as writers, or as illustrators? What are your favorite examples as readers? (Be honest.)
I used this technique on a recently-posted JAQrabbit Tale [NSFW], in which the drunken protagonist's misperceptions are exposed on the last page when he wakes up sober and discovers that the person he just slept with isn't quite what he thought the night before. To give the reader a hint that the visuals shouldn't be taken too literally, I gave the art some wavy distortion to suggest drunkenness. Meanwhile, the dialog was accurate, offering a few subtle clues (probably not picked up until after the reveal) that things weren't really the way they looked.
I'm also using it – sort of – on a script I'm working on. In this case, the two characters are telling each other tales, which aren't entirely truthful. This time it's the art that tells the truth, while the narrative captions tell their dissembling version of the story. This isn't a true case of Unreliable Narrator, because I'm being honest to the readers, it's the characters within the story who are showing themselves to be unreliable to each other. The medium of comics is ideally suited to this kind of parallel storytelling, so it's fairly common.
And there's also the question of whether you can even trust the writer himself. Because between you and me: some of the stories I tell ... aren't exactly true to life.
What experiences do you have with Unreliable Narrators, as writers, or as illustrators? What are your favorite examples as readers? (Be honest.)
Comments
I'd done something similar some time before that, too, again with Gaijin and Conny, to try some Manga style stuff. The kids in Conny Van Ehlsing all have very strong convictions about reality, that makes it easy (and fun) to cast them as unreliable narrators.
...but essentially ALL the POV characters are wrong about themselves in such a way that it almost becomes this. Some are better than they think, some are worse, but there's a lot of delusional about their own natures. It's a pretty good trick to pull of writingwise.
...or do I?