The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch

AUTHOR: Gaiman, Neil

ARTIST: Dave McKean (illustrator)

PUBLISHER: Gollancz; DC Comics

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 1994

Publication History

First published in 1994 by science-fiction and fantasy publisher Gollancz, The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch has been published in hardcover and paperback by both Gollanz and the DC Comics imprint Vertigo (1995), and it was republished in paperback by Bloomsbury Publishing in 2006. This reissue is indicative of the graphic novel’s more mainstream acceptance, as Bloomsbury does not frequently publish comic books or graphic novels. The book has also been translated into German and French.

Plot

The story begins as a young boy, purportedly the young Neil Gaiman himself, ventures to the English seaside with his grandfather for a fishing excursion. Bored with fishing, the young boy strays from his grandfather’s side and encounters a small tent in which a Punch and Judy puppet show is taking place. While the boy watches, Mr. Punch and Judy argue, and Mr. Punch throws a baby from the window, killing it. The boy runs.

However, he is unable to escape the nightmarish comedic horror of the Punch and Judy show. As he returns again and again that summer to the seaside arcade that his grandfather owns, he encounters a strange and alluring Punch and Judy man, known as the Professor, whose dark past seems quite unfortunately entangled with that of the boy’s grandfather and uncle. As the boy watches the Punch and Judy show and becomes more involved in the lives surrounding it and affected by it, he learns more than he may have wished about the secret lives of adults and their sudden betrayals.

The Professor offers the boy an opportunity to be a bottler, collecting money for the show, and it is through this proximity to the show and its production that the boy repeatedly views Mr. Punch’s horrifying violence. In the Punch and Judy show, Mr. Punch kills his baby and then his wife, Judy, when she complains. When a police officer arrives to arrest Mr. Punch, the puppet dispenses with him too. Mr. Punch then proceeds to outwit a ghost, a crocodile, a doctor, and the hangman. Finally, Mr. Punch triumphs over the devil himself. Whether the Punch and Judy show comes to resemble the boy’s experiences that summer or whether the boy’s experiences come to resemble the Punch and Judy show, readers are left to discern for themselves. From the time he first watches the show, the boy comes to see a series of strange deceptions and defeats that mask a darkly mysterious past and an adult world of secrecy and lies.

While looking for his grandfather one day, the boy enters a room in which he overhears a dramatic conversation that he does not understand. What he sees there—a brutal victimization of the arcade mermaid whose belly has begun to expand in a telling and inconvenient way—haunts him for the rest of his life, not only because he does not fully understand what he has seen but also because he is witness to his grandfather’s profound response. When again he sees the Punch and Judy show, it is through more mature and wiser eyes, and he is even more susceptible to the horror of the extraordinary violence of the show. Though the boy returns home at the end of the summer to his mother and new baby sister, he is forever shaken by the secrets he has unearthed and forever burdened by his inability to piece together the missing shards of truth that are lost to the passage of time.

Characters

•The boy, a semiautobiographical representation of Neil Gaiman in his youth, is a mature and intelligent child with a wide-eyed curiosity that leads him straight into the middle of some challenging and confusing situations. Narrating from the perspective of his adulthood, but reflecting on his memories of these childhood experiences, the protagonist leads readers through the metaphorical re-creation of the Punch and Judy show, played out at the hands of his relatives.

•Grandfather Arthur, the boy’s grandfather and owner of the seaside arcade in which the Punch and Judy show appears, serves as the catalyst for many of the boy’s adventures that occur during the summer the boy spends in his care. He is depicted as both an austere-looking man, gray-haired and stoic, and a raving madman, as he appeared in the protagonist’s later memories.

•Uncle Morton, a hunchback, is the boy’s favorite relative and the one who leads him most deeply into the intriguing and seemingly dangerous world of adults. He interacts little with the boy but seems to be present anytime strange things happen.

•Swatchell, a.k.a. the Professor, runs the Punch and Judy show and apparently has a sordid and mysterious history with the boy’s grandfather. He teaches the boy about the Punch and Judy show and offers him the opportunity to be his “bottler,” or money collector; in doing so, he reveals tantalizing tidbits about the boy’s grandfather and his past.

•The mermaid, one of the many human attractions at the arcade, sings to passersby for coins. The boy eventually learns that she is, in fact, human and then witnesses as she becomes the victim of a malicious and violent outburst when it is discovered that she is carrying an illegitimate child.

•Mr. Punch, sneaky, malicious, and prone toward extreme violence, is the protagonist of the Punch and Judy show and the antagonist of the main character’s boyhood. A flat character, he serves as the physical representation of the protagonist’s fears and as a metaphor for the unexplainable violent tendencies of all adults.

Artistic Style

This graphic novel showcases the work of comics creator Dave McKean, longtime collaborator with Neil Gaiman and well-known for his work in a variety of graphic media. To create the mystifying, nightmarish world of The Comical Tragedy or Tragical Comedy of Mr. Punch, McKean blended line art, photography, and a variety of styles. What results is a shattered portraiture of a series of confused and confusing memories brought back from the mind of a child and represented in a montage of harrowing scenes.

The inconsistent styles depict the protagonist’s unreliable memories and distrust of what he has seen and heard. The characters with whom he interacts—primarily his family members—are depicted in one of two ways: as sketched, comic-style portraits or in garish, sepia-toned photographs. Though McKean rarely delivers one medium without some interruption from the other, the sketches tend to represent the protagonist’s narration of the events he experienced as a child, while the photographs tend to represent specific memories he has recollected in his adulthood. The lines between the two media blur increasingly as the plot progresses and as the protagonist becomes more distrustful of the memories he calls to mind.

The lettering, which McKean and Emigre Fonts developed especially for this text, changes from character to character to represent different voices. The words often overlay but never interfere with the well-spaced images, which enhance the narration through thematic color (such as bright red during particularly violent scenes) and sharpness or blurring (as in the soft-focus photographs of scenes the boy may or may not have fully understood). The oversize pages are dense and cluttered with images, and a second or even third reading may be necessary to appreciate fully the richness of detail for which McKean is so well known.

Themes

Based as it is on the historical Punch and Judy show and drawing specifically from the script of an early nineteenth-century puppet show, this graphic novel provides fertile ground for an exploration of various elements of culture and history. Such topics of possible examination include the history of these puppet shows, the 1960’s era in which the protagonist was growing up, and the prewar era of his grandfather’s and uncle’s youth.

As in many of his works, Gaiman explores the theme of faulty memory and of the natural tendency to wish to come to terms with the past even when the necessary clues have expired. The protagonist’s recounting of childhood experiences represents not only a coming-of-age but also a return to one’s roots and a search through family memories to resolve the secrets that disappear into the void between childhood and adulthood. It is in this confusing in-between space that most of the story occurs; this element is emphasized through McKean’s imagery and graphic design.

Touching on themes of corruption, unwanted pregnancy, violence, and murder, the Punch and Judy show allegorizes the horrifying family secrets the protagonist discovers during his summer with his grandfather. Through this allegory, Gaiman examines the hidden family dynamics that shape a human life and forge its inescapable and often haunting past. There is no condemnation, only a tacit understanding that such secrets haunt the reader. Though the family history is never fully realized, confused as it is by the passage of time and other adults’ varied perspectives on what may have happened, what the boy learned about his family that summer continues to haunt him and serves as the starting point for his adult inquiry into secrecy, betrayal, and the pursuit of truth.

Impact

Though not one of Gaiman’s more widely recognized works and far less notable than Gaiman’s The Sandman series, The Comical Tragedy or Tragical Comedy of Mr. Punch gained quite a bit of attention for McKean, who was hailed for incorporating some of the most advanced graphic design techniques and styles into the graphic novel format. The novel heralds a dynamic artistic approach to graphic novels—an approach more fully and more frequently realized in many recent film adaptations of earlier comics and graphic novels. McKean’s merging of various artistic and graphic media to create such haunting imagery has since been emulated widely; however, he remains at the forefront of artists using this style.

This graphic novel marks a significant departure from the rough-hewn sketches in some of McKean’s earlier work and demonstrates the full scope of his abilities not only as a graphic artist but also in creating a full story-world to accompany Gaiman’s minimalist narrative. Gaiman and McKean challenge the boundaries of what may be considered children’s literature, treating some sensitive issues—such as the vicious termination of an unwanted pregnancy—through subtle imagery and innuendo to maintain a veil of innocence for those not yet prepared to seek the full truth in the text and graphics.

Further Reading

Carey, Mike, and John Bolton. God Save the Queen (2007).

Gaiman, Neil, et al. The Sandman (1989-1996).

Kwitney, Alisa. Destiny: A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold (2000).

Bibliography

Gaiman, Neil. “It’s Good to Be Gaiman: A Revealing Interview with Newbery Winner Neil Gaiman.” Interview by Roger Sutton. School Library Journal, March 1, 2009. http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6640441.html.

Howard, Elise. “Neil Gaiman.” Horn Book Magazine 85, no. 6 (November/December, 2009): 351-354.

Wagner, Hank, Christopher Golden, and Stephen R. Bissette. Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2009.

Zaleski, Jeff. “Comics! Books! Films!: The Many Faces of Neil Gaiman: The Arts and Ambitions of Neil Gaiman.” Publishers Weekly 250, no. 30 (July, 2003): 46.