Essex County Story Structure

Jeff Lemire’s Essex County presents a very unique, interlocking story between its three segments.  As each story unravels, so does its characters. Each of the story’s main characters are all interrelated with each other. Their background help to create an entire story of the history of these characters and how they all arrived in Essex County.

In the Book One: Tales From the Farm, we are introduced to Lester Papineau, a quiet young boy with a very active imagination.  As the story progresses, we find out that Lester’s mother died while he was young and that he lives with his Uncle.  He later ends up meeting a now retired, but once up and coming hockey player named Jimmy Lebeuf.  Due to an injury sustained to the head, Jimmy was forced to quit hockey and ended up suffering minor mental problems from it. Later, without the consent of Lester’s Uncle, Jimmy starts to spend time with Lester.

Book Two: Ghost Stories, tells the history of two hockey playing brothers, Lou and Vince Lebeuf. Eventually, Vince ends up marrying a woman named Beth Morgan. Unbeknownst to Vince, there is a strong emotional and sexual tension between Beth and Lou.  This tension eventually culminates into Lou and Beth conceiving Vince and Beth’s daughter, Mary.  Mary and her husband have a child named Jimmy Lebeuf, Vince and Lou’s promising hockey athlete grandson.

In Book Three, the stories collide and lock into place as we discover the origin of the nurse named Anne Byrne. She is caring for Lou as he is elderly and in need of daily assistance.  Anne’s grandmother, Sister Margaret Byrne was a nun who cared for orphans with a priest named Charles Gerrard.  Against the vows of celibacy they had taken, they conceived an illegitimate child, Anne Byrne’s mother. Amongst the children that Sister Margaret cared for, was one Lawrence Lebeuf, the father of Vince and Lou. 

One day the orphanage burned down and Sister Margaret and the orphans were forced into the wintery wilderness to find a new home.  During the fire, Charles Gerrard died while rescuing one of the children, Lawrence Lebeuf. Sister Margaret and the children wandered the wilderness until they came to a town in Essex County.

Towards the end of Book Three, we also find out the real father of Lester Papineau. His mother, who had died years before, was married to Jimmy Lebeuf. Jimmy is Lester’s real father, but as Lester’s mother, Claire Papineau, saw it on her death bed, Lester’s Uncle Kenny was more suited to care for Lester than Jimmy. Jimmy left Claire during their marriage. Lester was never told that Jimmy was his real father until the end of the book when Kenny decides to reveal it to him.

I feel that Lemire decided to create such a complex and intricate story in order to build suspense throughout the book as well as keep the reader’s interest. He succeeded in making one big story out of three separate ones.  While I had somewhat questioned the real story underneath the three separate stories, it all became clear by the end of Book Three when all the story’s paths join together.  This book was extremely entertaining to read and the connection of the stories intensified the reading pleasure. 

Tablets

Tablets are stupid. I don't own one. I don't intend to own one ever.

     I don't necessarily understand the fascination with tablets. It's like a big iPhone. I can still do most of the things that an iPad can on a device that fits in my pocket. If I have that, why would I ALSO want to have an iPad. I own a MacBookPro laptop and it services all of my Internet and basic computer needs. They most definitely are a fad. The only reason anybody wants one is because they don't have one. It isn't our future because it isn't replacing existing technologies; those that need no improvement.
     I honestly only use my laptop anymore to access school related sites or shop online for the convenience of a keyboard.  My iPhone has replaced my laptop for most of the other reasons I use the internet, particularly social networking.
     For some instances, I DO understand the need for a tablet. Theses instances mainly relate to children. I noticed that my younger cousins used tablets quite frequently for reading and gaming apps.  This is a use that is somewhat lost on my generation.  We tend to have to read physical copies of books and favor gaming consoles for our entertainment needs.
     As for this current generation of children who are disconnected from society due to an overload of technological advances, tablets provide a unique way for parents to keep their kids quiet and entertained for hours on end.
     Otherwise, I don't understand the need for an iPad or other tablet.  I'm not too sure what more they can provide that my iPhone or laptop doesn't already provide for me. If I want a big screen, I'll watch something on my laptop or my TV. If I want to socially network, I'll use my phone. Not a tablet.

Frame Usage for “Essex County Book Two: Ghost Stories” and “Batman: The Dark Knight Returns”

     Jeff Lemire's "Essex County" and Frank Miller's "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns" both have very unique structures with their frame usage. Both use a wide variety of different frames. As well, both possess an interesting and varied usage of transitions.

Jeff Lemire's "Ghost Stories"

Lemire's second installment, "Ghost Stories" is a story of recollection and memories of past events.  Many of the frames correlate with this mode of narration. The frames are somewhat standard of comics but are often interrupted to aid in the display of flashbacks and flashforwards.

Jeff Lemire's "Ghost Stories"

Frank Miller's "Dark Knight Returns"

     Frank Miller's "Dark Knight Returns", uses a very unique style for its framing.  Often times the standard format of framing is as per the example on the left. However oftentimes, the normal format of framing is interrupted by segments in which the frames resemble TV screens viewing the news. The example on the right displays how this format typically repeats throughout the novel.

Frank Miller's "Dark Knight Returns"

     While at times each novel has similar standard frame formatting, both novels use their own unique formats to help aid their narratives. "Ghost Stories" relays dissonant and dreamy sequences with its frame usage to tell a flashback/memory based story.  In "Dark Knight Returns", the story is very much based in chaos. The frame usage helps reflect the anarchy and tense conflict that the story is based on.

Annoying Technology: Touchless Bathrooms

The most annoying bit of technology that I found from the list would have to be touchless bathroom installments.

I work in the kitchen of a restaurant. For the workers’ “convenience”, all of the soap, sanitizer and paper towel dispensers are automatic, touchless devices. This would be great and help prevent cross contamination, amongst other things...IF THEY EVERY FUCKING WORKED!!

I can’t recall the numerous amounts of times that I have place my hand under a filled soap dispenser to was my hands and receive no soap. The same can be said for sanitizer and paper towel dispensers.  To make the situation even more frustrating, half the time the soap dispenses after you pull your hand away in anger. Many times the motion sensors are faulty at best.  This isn’t all necessarily at my job, but in bathrooms elsewhere as well.  Sinks and soap dispensers only occasionally work correctly for me.  There is always at least a minor portion of trial and error.

Another inconvenience of these contraptions is stocking. You have to press a billion buttons to get the damn things open and unwrap an equal number of things to refill soap or paper towels.  Far from convenient.  I would MUCH rather use paper towels on the old fashioned, no fucking improvement needed, paper towel roll. It’s almost like someone invented a simple dispensing mechanism for these things on purpose...

But surely enough, humans will be humans. Nothing is fast or convenient enough for us ever. The thirst cannot be quenched. We go out of our way to make intricate contraptions that either end up not working at all or proving to be more difficult to use than their predecessors.

Revealing Characters: Maus and Essex County

In the story of Maus, the character Vladek is a very charismatic and lively person.  His personality aids in revealing his character more in depth and at a quicker pace as the story progresses. Since the story is focused mainly on the character Vladek and his story, readers are able to learn more thoroughly about his character.  His background is almost forcefully learned by the nature of the story.  As he recollects his story of the Holocaust to his son Art, we learn about his past in depth and are given some foreground into the character he is in the present and will be in the near future.

Spiegleman's style provides lots of information within each page.  This leaves less questioning from the readers since they can understand exactly what is going on.

On the other hand, Jeff Lemire reveals the character Lester, from Essex County, very differently. Lester is a more enigmatic individual.  His character doesn't speak much when he actually does speak. This speaks volumes based on the style of Essex County.  Unlike Maus's small panels with lots of text, Lumire creates a story with large picture panels and very little dialouge within. Some pages are solely artwork. Very little information is gathered between pages. Given this style, each character is revealed very slowly.  Readers eventually learn some background on Lester, but they are still left questioning.

Computer Memory

The evolution of computer memory and memory storage devices, considerably revolutionized the way we use computers.  To think that in a span of about 20 years, we went from extremely expensive, one tons storage devices to easily affordable and compact flash drives and mp3 players, is nothing short of amazing.

I remember when the iPod first came out when I was a child. It was revolutionary and mind blowing.  To think that you would no longer have to carry around a bulky CD player (not to mention, most of them would skip if they weren't held perfectly still) and try to fit 20 of your favorite songs on one mix CD, was inconceivable to my 10 year old mind.

Devices such as these are taken for granted nowadays. A floppy disk nowadays would probably be recognized as trash and dead technology. Most computers don't even have a floppy drive anymore!  Even now as I'm glued to my iPhone and Twitter, I take for granted the revolutionary processes that allowed me to carry around such a miraculous device.

If 10 year old me knew that I would one day own an iPhone with 6,000 songs on it, plenty of fun games, and fast access to the Internet, he'd poop his pants.

Panel Transitions in Maus

In the graphic novel Maus, Art Spiegleman uses a wide range of panel transitions. As explained in Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud, there are 6 different types of panel to panel transitions commonly found in comics.

From what I have read in Maus, Spiegleman uses nearly ALL of these transitions (with the exception of Non-Sequitur).  On pages 62 and 63 alone, Spiegleman uses 4 different types of transitions. These pages are when Vladek is explaining a night when he had to go outside of his tent to pee and someone shot at him. Since the story is based around Vladek recollecting the events of his life during World War II, flashback transitions occur frequently. Page 62 starts with one of these panels, the Old Vladek, explaining an event.

This first transition is a Scene-to-Scene transition. In the next panel, Vladek recalls a conversation. Between the two panels we see an Action-to-Action transition, one that requires more closure from the reader. When Vladek is getting shot at, the Subject-to-Subject transition is seen from Vladek leaving the tent, urinating, then diving back under the tent. On the next page, after transitioning back to the Old Vladek with Scene-to-Scene again, a Moment-to-Moment transition is clearly seen in three consecutive panels with Vladek speaking to Art.

Art Spiegleman uses a wide variety of panel transitions in his novel. These help to keep the story more visually entertaining for the reader.  Since his story is based on flashback storytelling, Spiegleman almost has to use Scene-to-Scene transitions on about every other page.  Other than the frequent use of this transition, Spiegleman’s novel, Maus, uses an engaging and varied number of transitions throughout.