Category: Last Brother Hypertext

This is a hybrid image: it contains elements of two of my projects, THE LAST BROTHER HYPERTEXT and KERRY’S COMICS BOOK. The figure is Leroy, one of the main characters from KERRY’S COMICS BOOK (KCB). The bulb with the door with smoke or steam rising out of it is first and foremost the oven¹ from THE LAST BROTHER HYPERTEXT(LBH).

The image is, I think, less a cartoon than a doodle. Is a doodle worth posting? I value such less-than images because their simplicity allows a suggestiveness denied more elaborated pictures. This suggestiveness is important to my work, especially THE LAST BROTHER HYPERTEXT.²

The simplicity of the lines allows for likenesses: look how the outline of the panel echoes the shape of the oven.³ The outline of the word balloon echoes the shape of the oven’s door. This likeness, and that the balloon and the door oppose one another symmetrically diagonally, suggests to me the numbers and suits on a playing card. Is this important? It turns out to be. Cards play a central part in Volume Five of LBH.

1. The oven in which of course “dare” is somebody, the Fifth Brother from Hutchet-Bishop and Wiese’s FIVE CHINESE BROTHERS. ↩︎
2. Especially THE LAST BROTHER HYPERTEXT and in particular the image of the Giant Bulbous Head (GBH) which haunts the whole of LBH. ↩︎
3. One suggestion that may be taken from this echo of the frame and the oven is the mise en abyme: imagine the door of the oven opening to reveal another panel in which there sits another oven with another open door, etc.. ↩︎