Streak of Chalk

AUTHOR: Prado, Miguelanxo

ARTIST: Miguelanxo Prado (illustrator)

PUBLISHER: Norma Editorial (Spanish); NBM (English)

FIRST SERIAL PUBLICATION:Trazo de tiza, 1992-1993

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 1993 (English translation, 1994)

Publication History

The English translation of Miguelanxo Prado’s Trazo de tiza (Streak of Chalk), translated by Jacinthe Leclerc, was published by NBM under its imprint ComicsLit in 1994. A second edition was published in 2003. NBM was one of the first companies to introduce European graphic novels in the United States. Although it publishes works of general interest, it is still considered an alternative publishing house, since the firm does not publish superhero comics.

The original Spanish edition, Trazo de tiza, was published by Norma Editorial in 1993. Founded in 1977 by Rafael Martinez, Norma Editorial is an independent publishing house in Barcelona, Spain. The company began as an agency representing writers and graphic artists and has become one of the most important European publishing houses of graphic novels, comics, and manga. In addition to being published in English, Trazo de tiza has appeared in German, French, Finnish, and Catalan translations. Trazo de tiza first appeared from 1992 to 1993 as a serialized story in Cimoc, a Spanish magazine that published adult comics and was edited by Martinez.

Plot

Written for a mature-adult audience, Streak of Chalk is a graphic novel of fantasy and inquiry into the human condition. Prado uses an unreliable narrator who shifts from being omniscient to being Raul, Sara, Ana, and back to being omniscient; thus, readers are unable to determine reality from fantasy and past from present. The characters are ordinary people caught in a world between reality and fantasy and are unable to control their lives.

The plot centers on a love affair between Raul and Ana that is thwarted by their inability to interact with each other and express their emotions. While sailing alone, Raul drifts off course during a storm and lands on a mysterious, uncharted island with a long, white pier that looks like a streak of chalk in the ocean. On the small island, there is an abandoned lighthouse and an inn and general store run by a middle-aged woman named Sara. She and her son, Dimas, a sinister young man who kills seagulls with arrows, are the only inhabitants of the island. When Raul arrives, Dimas helps him tie up his boat, then immediately disappears. Raul discovers graffiti written on the wall of the pier, much of which appears to be messages left by lovers.

Raul goes to the inn, where he encounters Sara standing behind the counter, apparently waiting for customers, but, as he soon discovers, there is only one person besides Sara and her son on the island. Ana, who was there the previous year, has returned and is waiting for someone. The inn and its proprietor appear to be there waiting in a sort of purposeless, almost useless way. The next day, Raul sees Ana from the window of his room and goes in search of her, but she has disappeared. Raul discovers a dead seagull lying in a pool of blood, an arrow piercing its neck. He is appalled by such savagery. Meanwhile Ana has come to the inn to eat. She and Sara have a conversation about Raul.

Upon returning to the inn, Raul attempts to befriend Ana, but she rejects him and leaves. Sara observes them. In a brief conversation with Raul, she gives contradictory details of how they get their supplies and of who comes to the island. A seagull enters the building; Raul befriends the bird and names him Lucas. Raul goes for a walk and runs into Ana, who is writing. They talk briefly about the strangeness of the island and about literature. She then leaves abruptly.

The next day, Raul looks for Ana at the inn. Sara advises him to forget about Ana; Raul rejects Sara’s advice, goes in search of Ana, and discovers another dead seagull. Ana and Raul meet, spend time together, and discuss the strange musical pipes on the pier (which Sara calls flutes) and the strangeness of the island. Sara worries that another boat will arrive and bring misfortune, for she insists that three boats are an ill omen.

By the next morning, another boat has arrived, and Sara’s prediction proves correct. Tato and Berto, the new arrivals, beat up Raul; attempt to rape Ana, who forces them away with a gun; and then succeed in raping Sara. Ana and Raul meet again the next morning, and she rejects him. Dejected, Raul goes to the inn and gets drunk. Taking advantage of Raul’s disappointment and drunkenness, Sara seduces him. She also tells him about the rape and says Dimas killed Tato and Berto. Hoping to make amends to Raul for her rudeness, Ana goes to his boat and finds him with Sara. Too ashamed to face Ana, Raul leaves the island. Raul left Ana a note, which Sara fails to give her, and Ana leaves.

Raul decides to return to the island to see Ana. When he arrives, her boat is gone. Sara does not recognize him and knows nothing about Ana. Raul sees two couples walking on the island; the men resemble Tato and Berto. At this point, Raul can no longer distinguish what actually happened from what he imagined. He blames the island for his confusion. However, before he leaves, Raul writes a message to Ana on the pier wall, which appears to be the same message that was there when he arrived. The graphic novel ends with Sara gazing out the window at the sea; a wine bottle and glass are on the table.

Characters

•Raul, the protagonist, is a thin, dark-haired, young man who lacks self-confidence and is retiring. He is a sensitive individual appalled by violence, especially Dimas’s savagery. Raul is romantically attracted to Ana and attempts to become involved with her, but he always says or does something that drives her away.

•Sara is the middle-aged proprietor of the island’s one building, which serves as an inn, a bar, a hotel, and a general store. She has red hair, somewhat coarse features, and a stocky build. She may be in love with Raul and definitely is sexually attracted to him, succeeding in seducing him when he is rejected by Ana. She may have been raped by Tato and Berto.

•Ana is Raul’s love interest. Young, slender, and blond, she provides a sharp physical contrast to Sara. She is also better read, more intellectual and sophisticated, and more competent at self-defense than Sara is. However, she is incapable of expressing her feelings for Raul and is afraid to interact with other people. She is writing a novel and waiting for someone. She prefers to be alone. During most of the story, she rejects Raul’s attempts to interact with her.

•Dimas, Sara’s son, is physically reminiscent of a Neanderthal. He is protective of his mother. He likes to hunt and kills seagulls at night. He is perpetually watching and waiting. He imbues the novel with a sinister atmosphere of danger and foreboding.

•Lucas is a seagull that becomes Raul’s companion.

•Tato acts as one of the two antagonists. Both psychologically and physically, he provides a sharp contrast to Raul: He is muscular, self-confident, overbearing and sexually aggressive, loud, and violent.

•Berto serves as Raul’s other antagonist. Like Tato, he contrasts sharply with Raul both physically and psychologically.

Artistic Style

Prado masterfully combines written text and visual narration in Streak of Chalk. Quotations from novels and references to other literary works link Streak of Chalk to various traditions and novel theories. However, the visual narration contains all of the information necessary to the story. Prado’s use of single panels as introductions to each chapter creates a synopsis of the narrative within the novel. The use of variously sized panels without any precise order reflects the chaos and confusion of the characters. Prado does not use bubbles linking dialogue to specific characters. Dialogue appears in the panels in such a way that it is sometimes difficult to decide which character is speaking. Prado’s use of black pages, either empty or containing only words, at the beginning of each chapter gives a sense of entering into a world of illusion through either dreams or the imagination.

Color plays a major role in the visual narration of Streak of Chalk. Prado uses color to shift the mood of his story, to foreshadow events, and to depict the psychology of his characters. Sara and Dimas are always portrayed in dark browns and reds, while light blues and pinks are used to portray Ana. The more primitive and physically oriented Sara and Dimas are linked to the earth and to basic instincts of survival, while the intellectual, sophisticated Ana is presented in colors that reflect sentiment, illusion, and quest. The sea and sky change from light blues, white, and pinks, to deep blues, violets, and dark purples, and the interiors become dark reddish brown as danger, failure, and disappointment take over the characters’ lives.

Prado uses facial characteristics and expressions to depict the personalities and emotional states of his characters. Sara, Dimas, Tato, and Berto have broad, heavy, short faces, while Ana and Raul have long, pointed faces. Dimas’s face changes little, always reflecting cruelty and a lack of intellect. He is a static representation of the primitive aspects of the human being. Sara’s, Ana’s, and Raul’s faces contort in expressions of fear, anger, and disappointment. Prado also establishes a rapport between the reader and Raul by facing him away from the action of the panels and looking out, as though he is asking advice from the reader.

Themes

Streak of Chalk is a graphic novel that can be read as a mystery, a fantasy, an inquiry into the human condition, and a study of the creative act of writing a novel. The surface theme of the work is the unsuccessful love affair between Raul and Ana. At this level, it is the story of a man and a woman who meet on a mysterious island. Sara, Berto, and Tato function as disruptive elements in their relationship. However, Prado is more interested in examining the difficulties that human beings encounter in attempting to interact with each other and in expressing their emotions than in simply recounting a story of events. Ana and Raul inevitably say the wrong things to each other; they both appear to be searching for something. Both Ana and Raul are closed off to meaningful communication.

By bookending the story with the same message written on the pier Prado complicates the readers’ ability to understand the meaning and to differentiate reality from illusion and past from present. The story is full of factual inconsistency and raises numerous questions. Does this mysterious island actually exist? Do Sara, Dimas, Ana, Lucas, Tato, and Berto exist, or has Raul imagined all of them? Has the entire story been an illusion experienced by the weary Raul after the storm? Are Sara and Dimas actually a part of reality, and the story of Ana and Raul and the others part of the daydreams and fantasies of a lonely woman on a rarely visited island?

Both the creation of a novel and reader participation in the novel are important themes of the story. Prado prefaces the book with quotations from S. S. Van Dine’s The Kidnap Murder Case (1936) and Jorge Luis Borges’s “Tlön Uqbar, Orbis Tertius,” signaling the multiple layers of meaning in Streak of Chalk and inviting readers to interpret meaning freely. At the end of chapter 6, Prado includes the advice of Ana’s editor about rewriting after having read her manuscript. He concludes his graphic novel with a note from the author about his purpose and method of writing.

Impact

For Prado, the graphic novel, with its combination of written text and visual narration, offers the most complete means of artistic expression possible. The work of Moebius, Hugo Pratt, and the team of José Muñoz and Carlos Sampayo first attracted the young architecture student to a career in comics. In the 1980’s, he began writing short comics and publishing them in magazines. Prado sees the graphic novel as a creative medium that combines literature and the visual arts. His graphic novels are influenced by the work of several literary authors including Borges, Adolfo Bioy Casares, and Virginia Woolf. Prado’s drawing and painting reveal the influence of a wide variety of artists, ranging from Dutch realist Johannes Vermeer to French post-Impressionist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Streak of Chalk has played an important role in elevating the graphic novel to serious literature.The workisan exercise in artistic creation and a study of the human condition as well as a good story.

Streak of Chalk, Prado’s first book-length comic work, was well received both in Spain and throughout the world and earned him global exposure and recognition; in 1994, the French translation of the novel, Trait de craie, won the Alph-Art Best Foreign Comic Book Award at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. Prado has subsequently become a major international graphic novel artist and worked in related media as well. He has worked on such successful animation projects as Men inBlack: The Series and produced his own animated film De Profundis (2007). He has also worked with Laura Esquivel on the novel The Law of Love (1996) and with Neil Gaiman on TheSandman: Endless Nights (2003).

Further Reading

Esquivel, Laura. The Law of Love (1996).

Prado, Miguelanxo. Daily Delirium (2003).

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Tangents (1995).

Bibliography

Eisner, Will. Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative. New York: W. W. Norton, 2008.

Groensteen, Thierry. The System of Comics. Translated by Bart Beaty and Nick Nyugen. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2007.

McCloud, Scott. Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga, and GraphicNovels. New York: Harper, 2006.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HarperPerennial, 2010.