Kimball here again! I sometimes think about the “head” and the “hand” when it comes to drawing, which are basically like, the “head” is the overarching thought behind your art and the image of what it could be. The “hand” being the way it makes it onto the paper. The head and the hand can work in concert, or they can clash. The way to bring them into harmony is to push the hand into being something it isn’t, or by working on ideas that your hand is suited to.
In Andrew White’s art you can see his hand very clearly, and it seems almost like he leans into it, preferring to make his lines authentic to what his hand will do. But he is an interesting case, because I am not entirely sure if his head and his hand are in conflict. I think if you looked at a single panel and thought “is this the absolute best representation of this idea possible” you might say “no”. But if you asked that same thing about a full comic of his, you might say “yes”.
To explore this I’m going to talk about Waylaid! Waylaid is conceptually very ambitious. And I’ll admit that I had to read it a few times to get it fully. But that is the sort of comic White intended to make here, it seems. Something where you might get the emotional notes the first time through, but not the full concept. And this is a thing about Art Comics or Poetry Comics or whatever category this is. They require more effort to understand. With my own comics I know I have gotten the (frustrating) response of “why should I work to understand this?” Which was honestly a very helpful response! Because that’s the real crux of the issue here. If the audience has to do more work than they expect, why should they do it?
Waylaid has some of the most visually impactful panels White has created. The end of that first section, with the line “very calm” gets across the emotion perfectly. His head and hand are aligned there. But then there are panels where that divide is more apparent, such as some of those earlier black panels. Or even just the actual heads and hands he draws, which do not seem to be drawn to be perfect renditions of what they are representing, nor do they seem to be expressionistic manifestations of the ideas he’s expressing. Instead it all just seems to be the way White puts down marks.
White’s writing in the piece is at times straightforward, and at times poetic. But even the straightforward lines are hard to parse, because of the way the information and interpretation of events unfold you really know very little of what the comic is about until the end. But it’s never exactly intimidating. And this seems to be where the art comes in: White leaning into his hand seems to have a tangible effect of making his comics accessible. Where other artists in the genre might try to get away from their hand, and create a mystique through the perfection and obtuseness their art and writing, White’s visual style seem built to feel authentic and matter of fact. His obtuseness in writing feels like it must be able to be parsed, and must be there for a reason. He’s not just trying to put on airs. “Why should I work to understand this?” then, is perhaps answered by “because if you put in the effort, there’s something there to understand”.
This is particularly backed up in the moments in his writing where the emotional truth of the piece is self evident. The sections where fragments of sentences suggest whole conversations work quite well to get that across even if you do not yet understand the overarching meaning of the piece. That “very calm” rings true, while at the same time mysterious. And the movement between panels and their composition lead you through the story in a lively and emotional way. When you come to understand the full meaning of “fissures heal slowly”, and the main character’s complicated relationship with divisions of self, even if it’s on the third read, it feels like an extension of the easily accessible emotional observations.