. Spinning .

It is the end of summer and the friends plan a camping trip up in Wisconsin.  John is in a good mood, got another haircut, and while we do not see his girlfriend Lita, I’m happy to see that perhaps his attitude is not completely dependent upon the relationship.

He does mention in the last panel of the first page that he remembers "seeing the lake through the trees" as they drive by.  I would take this as reinforcement of this change for him.  They drive through a storm and stop in a town to get something to eat.  Hassled by "rednecks" because one of them orders a vegieburger, they leave but one of them does take pictures of the townie hollering at them through the restaurant window. Strangely, while Porcellino chooses to give us a look at prejudice and stereotyping, it is from both sides: The townfolk make fun of John J. as being a "fuggin freak fairy" while John takes photos of the "rednecks" through the window as they leave. 

They avoid a fight and move on, stop and skateboard on the bridge at Two Rivers. Some nice sounds integrated into the panels here, the sounds of the boards (onomatopoeia) contrasting with the silence as John looks over the bridge at the river.

Almost out of gas, the pull into Appleton to fill up.  They pull out their skateboards but are warned by a girl who is a passenger in a car driven by an older man that the townfolk here hate skateboarders.  This part had this tune going through my head for days afterward.  The boys follow the man and girl to a campground where the two take off before the boys find a campsite.  Unable to do so, they camp right outside of it and John goes to sleep wondering if "that girl has sex…zzz…with the moustache guy…"  In the morning they sneak into the campground facilities to brush their teeth, then take a walk in the woods. 

In the finale of the story, the end of John’s adventurous, life changing summer, he notices "the air and the trees, and the sunlight breaking through the darkness."  This is a metaphor for his coming out of his depression and feeling of not belonging.  The world now appears real to him, and likely he feels a part of it.

For me, the story could have ended right  there, the point being made rather clearly.  Porcellino chooses to go on three more panels where the boys take off their shoes and wade in the stream in the woods, and John states "I was very happy."  This was a bit overkill and repetitious from the prior section, though it did negate some of the wariness I had at that point about the reason for his turnaround.

All in all, studied a bit more carefully than its surface story of teenage anxiety that’s been told a million times and experiences even more, Perfect Example could be said to be a precise and appropriate title.   

There is an excellent example here also of the use of graphics and text to go further into story than the idea of funny or power hero type comics that the medium is normally associated with to the unaware  (that’s me, too).  In particular, this is a memoir graphic novel that is considered nonfiction as it is based on the author’s recall of that summer between high school and college or so I assume, though he could be a junior since there was no mention of graduation and college applications would have been a bit late in May of their senior year. 

At any rate, it is a transitioning period for all of them as they leave one world and get ready to enter another, feeling the discomfort of having outgrown one and looking forward with some trepidation to the unknown.

While the drawings are a bit hokey, the simplicity serves its purpose to be be more abstract and thus easily accessible to the experience of a diversity of readers.  Certain elements of both story and comic strip effects have been used to accentuate the telling and showing of the narrative. 

Not my fav, but a good example of graphic story.

This section doesn’t start off with a mood display, though it does again start out with John waking up and planning to go out.  There is no indication of conflict of any sort, and we assume he has gotten over his heartbreak over Kristi. 

He appears also to have established more of a relationship with Mark, and the two of them go off to Wisconsin to see Mark’s grandfather.  This is a nice change we see in the way John reacts to spending time with the elderly gentleman, and we can see that he is inspired to spend some time practicing his guitar (panel shows quiet contemplation, a slight smile on the ride home). Indeed, once home, he picks up his guitar and starts putting some time into it.

One of the gang comes by and they decide to go for a ride and he reveals his confusion to his friend about his relationship with Lita.  They go see a friend who is depressed over his own breakup with his girl, and during the usual "well…who needs em anyhow?", we see a change in John’s thinking, indicated by a closeup of him in the last panel on the page (placement counts–panels are likely added or scrapped, enlarged or made smaller to get to this point, just as ending a chapter or tv drama before the commercial) with small circle eyes. 

His relationship with his mother seems to have improved, despite his longer than ever hair, and he willingly agrees to mow the lawn.  Four panels go by with just the rrrr of the mower when we see a sudden flash of insight as indicated by eyes showing beneath the shades, an open mouth, and several lines to indicate something is happening.  He realizes that his reaction to life is his own choice.

His new attitude is in place as he and a buddy go to the lake, along with Lita and her friend Anne and another John.  When invited to sit in back with the two girls, he does, and his feeling for Lita becomes defined for him (the heart shows before he actually makes up his mind to take the initiative and take her hand.  His heart leaves the spot on his chest and moves towards her.

At the lake he gets excited about life, joyfully splashes in the water and decides he wants to live.  He’s got a girlfriend.  Hah!

While this may sound like the ultimate happy ending, if you think about it, it’s not the best.  Why does he feel all his problems have been solved simply by having a girlfriend?  Isn’t this the same thing as a woman feeling incomplete without a male counterpart?  I’m happy for John that summer turned out well for him, and he realized that how he responds to people and things determines his happiness, but in responding to Lita’s interest in him–I’m not too sure how crazy he was about her, it’s likely he’d dump her in a New York Minute if Kristi showed up on his doorstep–he’s reinforcing his dependence on others for his happiness.

Maybe that’s why there’s a bit more to this story and it doesn’t just end here.

A few more points of interest on this section that I was too lazy to put in.  On all the sections, with the simplicity of the artwork, where you can barely tell the guys from the gals except for a couple of C’s (symbolic of C-cup  in adolescent dreaming?), the outdoor scenes are by contrast heavily detailed.  For example, the blades of grass are clear on every lawn.  Windowpanes, doors, bushes–they’re all there.   Perhaps it’s foreshadowing the last section where John loves mowing the lawn. There is also another use for these short straight lines besides indicating grass (pot?)

When John is feeling down as he watches Fred and Kristi together on the blanket, there is a radiance of lines on his chest and around his body as he sinks into himself, "back inside where there’s nothing alive."   He also has eyebrows and eyelashes in this closeup of his face, made up of…yep, short lines.

His real anger at being locked out of the house is also at himself and the world that doesn’t work the way he expects and wants it to.  Even his decision to commit suicide is thwarted when he can’t get inside his house.

While I see the ending of this section, where he is in Mark’s office building feeling not a part of the scene ("The faces of people and things around me, there were lights–but I didn’t see them…, sounds–but I didn’t hear them–) demonstrates his mental absence from the world around him.  He sees things (though he claims he doesn’t) going on, but just as with the parties and his friends, he doesn’t feel a part of it.  His conclusion, however, is:  "Because I saw then that life is like a dream."

First of all, he’s a cartoon character and he’s right, none of his world is real.

But, did he really land upon the concept of time and space and the immediacy, the transient nature of the present?  He may have, but I don’t believe he understands it in the same way because he hasn’t come to it from the more logical thought process of seeing the big picture, but rather as a reference to himself within a space.  I think what he’s doing here is turning the problem from blaming himself for being a jerk or a misfit, into a condition of the universe being not real, therefore, moving within it is not real.

Somehow, that makes him feel better.

It’s one thing to write "John was feeling alone, half in the world of his youth and in transition to the world of an adult.  It’s another to depend on graphics to get the point across.

There are some obvious tools available in simple facial expressions such as a smile, a frown, tears, wide-eyes and clenched teeth.  All these are emotional devices based on how we communicate without words. Slumped shoulders may indicate despair or feeling low. Porcellino has drawn characters that are easily followed in their moods by their expressions and a few of the more standard elements used in comic strip stories.  The image of the heart indicates John’s feelings for Kristi.  There are differences in mood and attitude indicated by open or closed eyes.  John’s eyes are closed when he is talking to his parents, indicating that he is effectively tuning them out. 

Panels without dialogue normally indicate a transition of scene or break in time.  Porcellino also uses them as a pause for the reader to consider a change in attitude or to emphasize a depth of mood (many frames, perhaps the character moving away from the reader/viewer). 

Porcellino also seems to use closeups and longviews to enhance the loneliness that John feels as he wonders about how he fits in with others.  He pans out to a city, a beach, a large dark area wherein John appears smaller and smaller.  All of these are tools for the graphic writer.

John sleeps till noon, doesn’t have a summer job, stays out until the early morning hours.  But he does have something going with Lita.  I love the panel where they’re laying on the couch making out, signified by "smack kiss etc."  Yet once they’re interrupted by a phone call, John is feeling down again.  He goes to a party and Kristi is there; his heart jumps out of his body (yes it does–look at the panel).  Kristi has never given him an answer and she wanders off to talk to others.  Lita shows up and it’s obvious that she likes him a lot, but he isn’t into her–blames himself for not allowing himself to be happy. 

On this particular night, John’s hair grows quickly.  His buddy Fred offers him a ride and that’s when he suspects that Fred and Kristi are a couple.

A week later Fred and Kristi pick him up to go watch fireworks.  John’s never felt so alone than being the third wheel and watching them together.  His hurting is shown by several silent panels of Fred and Kristi, John’s heart falling on the ground, and his eyes are closed.  His form and body language as drawn by Porcellino are simple visual signs of his internal stressing.

Back home (with the sun shining?) John’s frustration and anger overflow, especially as he finds himself locked out of his house.  Banging on the door, sobbing, he slides down to the ground, wondering where his family is.  Here there is a panel blank except for an image of lines radiating from a center.

A "smarter" friend finds him, takes him for a ride and they stop where the friend works.  Here is another revelation: " Because I saw then that life is like a dream."

In this last panel of this section, we see what looks like ocean waves with a crescent moon and single star in the sky.  Symbolic, I’d think, of a feeling of being small and alone.