Asterios Polyp Response

Gabrielle Zuniga

I enjoyed how masterfully the author combined numerous illustration styles simultaneously, and all while creating a cohesive visual language. No character, although being visually different, seemed out of place or took us out of the graphic novel.

I also enjoyed how the drawing style of the character changed when Asterios and Hana met, and when she confronted him and began to drift apart. She is a pink, sketchy character, reflecting how she isn’t nearly as rigid as Asterios. And he is stylized, blue outline of a character, reflecting how he tries to be a composed, logical intellectual. What’s more, is that even when his visual style reflects his unsettled state of mind as a blue outline, kind of stripping him down to his core visually and metaphorically, he still tries to keep up the proud, almost-cold intellectual.  Personally, I was happy to see her confront Asterios, and how he keeps talking down to a perfectly capable designer, never mind his wife. When they were more happy together, they were purple, reflecting how red/magenta and blue/cyan mixed together to create purple. (Also, I would probably have left Asterios when he told me that he had a camera in his room, personal dead-twin backstory or not.)