Exit Wounds

AUTHOR: Modan, Rutu

ARTIST: Rutu Modan (illustrator)

PUBLISHER: Coconino Press (Italian); Drawn and Quarterly (English); Am Oved (Hebrew)

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION:Unknown/Sconosciuto, 2006 (English translation, 2007)

Publication History

Rutu Modan’s first graphic novel was an international phenomenon and garnered a positive critical reception. Exit Wounds first appeared in 2006 in an Italian translation published by Bologna comics publisher Coconino Press under the title Unknown/Sconosciuto. In 2007, Canadian comics publisher and distributor Drawn and Quarterly published a hardback, English-language edition of this work for the North American market, while the British publisher Jonathan Cape released this version of the book for the European market. The English edition was translated by Noah Stollman, who also provided the English title.

Before publishing Exit Wounds, Modan was renowned in Israel as a prize-winning illustrator and comics artist who had edited the Israeli edition of MAD magazine and who was a founding member of the comics art collective Actus Tragicus. She also published several illustrated versions of her short stories. Exit Wounds has been translated into Danish and French, and an edition of the graphic novel in Modan’s native Hebrew was published by the leading Israeli publisher Am Oved in 2008. Drawn and Quarterly published softcover editions of the book in 2008 and 2010, which include influential comics journalist Joe Sacco’s 2008 interview with Modan that originally appeared in The Comics Journal. Exit Wounds received the 2008 Eisner Award for Best New Graphic Album.

Plot

In several interviews, Modan claimed that two unrelated historical events provided the background stories treated in Exit Wounds. The first was a terrorist bombing of a bus traveling from Tel Aviv to Tiberias in June, 2002. Of the seventeen casualties, one victim remained unidentified. Israeli filmmaker David Ofek documented the case of this unidentified victim in his 2003 film No. 17, a tale that fascinated Modan. The other event was rooted in Modan’s personal experience. Having gone on a few dates with a new boyfriend, Modan did not hear from the man for several days and assumed that he had died or been killed. She, like Numi in Exit Wounds, was mistaken.

Koby Franco works as a taxi driver in Tel Aviv. His mother is dead, and his sister lives in New York. Estranged from his father, he works with his elderly aunt. He responds to a fare request at an army checkpoint, where he meets a female soldier who tells him an unidentified victim of a terrorist bombing in Hadera may be his father. For reasons that remain mysterious, the anonymous young woman asks Koby to get a blood test to verify the identity of the unknown bombing victim.

Though Koby angrily rejects the young woman’s suggestion, he does attempt to locate his father, who appears to have disappeared. Discovering a love note signed with the letter N, Koby tracks down Numi, the soldier who first contacted him. They embark on a quest to confirm that the unidentified bombing victim is Gabriel Franco, Koby’s father and Numi’s lover. Finding the scarf Numi had knitted for the elder Franco as a birthday present (which was recovered from the scene of the attack) they conclude that the unknown victim is the elder Franco. Koby agrees to get a blood test to confirm the relationship.

A series of misleading clues and administrative bungles eventually leads Koby and Numi to an elderly woman who was Gabriel’s former lover both in his youth and since Numi last saw him. Both emotionally worn down by Gabriel’s deceptions and betrayals, Koby and Numi begin to fall in love. After an awkward sexual encounter, the two depart on bad terms. Koby eventually receives proof that his father is not only alive, but recently married to a widow. Koby travels to their home in hopes of confronting his father, but Gabriel never shows up. Abandoned once again, Koby reconsiders his relationship with Numi. Exit Wounds closes with Koby attempting to reconcile with Numi.

Characters

•Koby Franco is a taxi driver in Tel Aviv. He looks average, chain smokes, and harbors a grudge against his father. He demonstrates a reluctance to make friends or date and seems to move from one shallow relationship to the next. He is quick to take offense.

•Numi Herman is recently discharged from the Israeli army and lives with her wealthy family in an opulent Tel Aviv mansion, where her worldly mother and vain sister constantly harass her for her plain appearance and romantic failures. She is nicknamed “the giraffe” because of her height, and her last lover was Koby Franco’s father. Like Koby, she is defensive and insecure. Unlike him, however, she is idealistic.

•Gabriel Franco appears only once in Exit Wounds, in a snapshot belonging to his estranged son Koby. He is a portly version of his son. He is a serial adulterer, and his former lovers suggest that he is charming and romantic.

•Orly lives in New York City and encourages her brother Koby to get over his animosity toward their father. She appears either in a bathrobe or putting on makeup.

•Aunt Ruthie works with Koby. She is his mother’s good-natured twin sister and may have had an affair with his father.

•Uncle Aryeh is Aunt Ruthie’s elderly husband. In poor health, he spends most of his time watching television and complaining about Aunt Ruthie’s cooking.

Artistic Style

In Exit Wounds, Modan’s characteristically strong line and gifts for color and composition are evident on every page. Comparing this book to her previous work, which typically treated shorter story lines, Modan’s style here is sparer and subtler and seems better suited to supporting a longer narrative. Her use of gutters and panels, for example, suggests a careful consideration of how each page relates to the ones before and after, and it especially suggests how readers experience facing pages. Though Modan does not adhere to a consistent size and arrangement of gutters and panels in Exit Wounds, illustrations remain within the parameters of each panel frame, and Modan’s striking use of color and shape both advances the plot and enriches the emotional texture of what her characters are thinking and feeling.

By and large, primary colors appear in panel foregrounds and on characters’ clothing and personal effects, while backgrounds tend to feature secondary and tertiary colors. In addition, though she utilizes strong, flat colors and a bold, simple line throughout, Modan skillfully suggests depth and dimensionality through her use of perspective, which she further emphasizes by reserving line drawing in black for foreground figures. Backgrounds, settings, and interiors, in contrast, are often rendered in soft colored lines.

Modan’s illustration calls to mind the clear-line style of cartooning pioneered by Hergé, the Belgian creator of the seminal comics series The Adventures of Tintin (1929-1976). Characters in Exit Wounds even feature Hergé’s instantly recognizable pinpoint eyes. In previous work, Modan would sometimes combine this distinctive use of strong line with other techniques such as cross-hatching, shading, and dramatic contrasts between dark and light spaces. In Exit Wounds, however, she capitalizes on the economy of Hergé’s innovation and avoids combining these techniques. The result is stunning, especially in wordless sequences where characters’ emotional and mental states are revealed or dramatically altered over the course of a few panels.

Themes

Exit Wounds contains a mystery story and therefore revolves around the themes of discovery and the quest for knowledge. While both Koby and Numi seek answers to what has really happened to Gabriel Franco, they are also searching for clues as to who they are. In many ways, the elder Franco has defined each of them by abandoning them, and it is up to Koby and Numi to make sense of this absence in their lives. Modan has suggested in interviews that the theme of identity is central in Exit Wounds, and she has attempted to treat it in ways that resist potentially misleading social and political contexts.

While the characters in Exit Wounds live with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (indeed, this ongoing reality and the terror it has sponsored provides the occasion for Koby’s connection with Numi), it is not otherwise addressed in the book. Instead, Modan implies that the basic human struggle to understand oneself persists even against the backdrop of terrorist threats and political instability. This prospect is further complicated by the idea that these personal negotiations inhibit people coming together in love and mutual interest. Numi and Koby’s romance, though ambiguous even at the book’s end, implies the possibility of cultivating hope with another in the wake of tremendous personal pain. It is ironic that the full disclosure of Gabriel Franco’s personal betrayals, always motivated by his infidelities, ultimately brings Koby and Numi together.

Impact

Exit Wounds has exposed Israeli comics and graphic novels to a worldwide audience. Before the novel’s publication, comics in Israel had been a minor industry dominated by a small group of writers and artists, with Modan’s comics collective, Actus Tragics, providing its core.

Unlike Joe Sacco’s Palestine (2001) and Ari Folman and David Polonsky’s Waltz with Bashir (2008), Exit Wounds does not directly address the political realities of Israel. While she has endured some criticism for not doing so, Modan has argued that her book is an accurate portrayal of the day-to-day lives of urban Israelis. As such, her work offers a compelling counterpoint to other graphic novels, both fiction and nonfiction, that address this region and its problems.

Some recent criticism of Exit Wounds does not exhibit the enthusiasm expressed by some of its early readers, citing Modan’s apparently limited facility with characterization as a significant weakness in this work. On the other hand, Exit Wounds frequently appears on higher-education reading lists in a variety of curricula, especially literature and political-sciences courses. In addition, research about this book and Modan’s work in general has begun to appear in scholarly books and journals, suggesting its growing cultural and artistic relevance to the academy.

Further Reading

Al-Ali, Naji. A Child in Palestine: The Cartoons of Naji al-Ali (2009).

Folman, Ari, and David Polonsky. Waltz with Bashir: A Lebanon War Story (2008).

Sacco, Joe. Palestine (2001).

Bibliography

Juneau, Thomas, and Mira Sucharov. “Narratives in Pencil: Using Graphic Novels to Teach Israeli-Palestinian Relations.” International Studies Perspectives 11, no. 2 (May, 2010): 172-183.

Kahn, Ariel. “Between Eros and Thanatos: Death and Desire in the Short Fiction of Koren Shadmi and Rutu Modan.” International Journal of Comic Art 12, no. 1 (Spring, 2010): 157-182.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. “From Darkness into Light: Reframing Notions of Self and Other in Contemporary Israeli Graphic Narratives.” In The Jewish Graphic Novel: Critical Approaches, edited by Samantha Baskind and Ranen Omer-Sherman. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2008.

Modan, Rutu. “An Interview with Rutu Modan.” Interview by Joe Sacco. The Comics Journal, no. 288 (February, 2008): 29-38.

Morris, Janice. “Suspended Animation.” Review of Exit Wounds, by Rutu Modan. Canadian Literature 197 (Summer, 2008): 166-167.