Download Style Sheet 1
(pdf)

Download Style Sheet 2
(pdf)

Download Specimen Chapter
(Word)

Session 8a: Visions of the Monstrous
Chair: Esther Lezra

Below the Metaphor of Intent: One Author-Illustrator’s View of the Monstrous, and What He Didn’t See
Phil Fitsimmons
Centre of Language Education, University of Wollongong, North Wollongong, Australia

This paper details the findings of a project that focused on illuminating how one of Australia’s leading graphic-novelists, Marcello Baez, created the ideal of the monster and the monstrous in his best selling text, Diablo. The initial ‘focussing interview’, concentrating on the inspiration and impetus behind the drafting process and what I perceived to be an obvious, but disconnected elements of the monstrous inserted in this text. This initial discussion revealed Baez deliberately inserted a series of symbolic elements in his frames of visual storytelling. In this particular instance he deliberately underpinned the text-illustration journey with his personal view of what constitutes a more global ideal of the monster in the Western World, which revolves around the ideals of the isolation of the individual, the fear of loneliness, loss of relationships, insecurity and fear of dying. While he was able to articulate some of these features and their archetypical representations, it soon became clear that he had also unconsciously rested his metaphoric intentions on an even deeper set of semiotic facets. After repeated analysis, these elements were seen to be manifested in a set of visual literacy tools that included a constant use of what I have come to term parallelism, changing horizons, line of connective gaze and cut off features. Once identified and combined with a set of further ‘rabbiting interviews’, these triggered off in Baez a set of realisations that not only did these facets give further weight to his deliberate metaphoric inclusions but also represented a deeper subset of personal fears. These were manifestations of his “false self, or mask” (Laing 1969:36), a set of hidden private monsters centred on sexuality, the binding of time and the need for an affirmation of living.
While this paper gives further weight to Chetwynd’s (1982) claim that the rise and nature of the monster in a text represents the author’s deepest repressed feelings, fears and failures, it also sheds light on one view of the nature of the monstrous in current society.
This presentation of this paper is designed to be highly interactive and will use the tools of visual literacy and Baez’s frames as the prime focal points of discussion.

The Renaissance Bearded Woman: Marvel or Monster?
Richard Tilbury
Birkbeck College, London, United Kingdom

In 1631 the Spanish artist José de Ribera completed his portrait of one Magdalena Ventura of Abruzzo [Figure 1.] with her husband and a child, an astonishing work that is perhaps unique in the canon of Renaissance art in the way in which it deals with the portrayal of its central subject; a woman who sported a rather handsome beard.
As a modern viewer - belonging to a society where medicine and surgery can reconstruct genders at whim - surely this image should not arouse anything but mild bemusement; yet, the image of a bearded woman appears to us as being both simultaneously comical and disturbing, causing gasps of delight, perhaps uncomfortable giggles and sometimes visible reactions of disgust. Indeed, professor Marsha Kinder, who analyzed Ribera’s portrait’s effect on Spanish film, considered this image of conflicting genders so disturbing that she claimed a misogynistic Ribera was evoking femininity in this portrait in the same way that the wolf “evokes” the grandmother after devouring her in the story of “Little Red Riding Hood” and that Magdalena must have been a man. Perhaps this reading of the work is made with far too modern eyes and suffers from the danger of projecting our cultural values onto this image created for consumption by people of a different time and thinking. Indeed, the Venetian Ambassador’s seemed to have been genuine delighted in what he had seen.
Therefore my intention will be to examine the iconography of this portrait in comparison with other contemporary images and texts in an attempt to synthesize some understanding of what the renaissance viewer would have “understood” about Ribera’s Bearded Woman when confronted with the portrait. Would the renaissance eye have really perceived a monster, or would the viewer have seen something else…?

Bestiaries in the Computer Games: Case Study Of Diablo II (Lord of Destruction)
Aurelija Drevel-Dagilyte
Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania

Monsters and bestiaries are essential element of the contemporary computer games. Most of the games start with an introduction narrative, telling a story of game world, in which disaster happens and various monsters are unleashed, infesting the world. A player, assuming the hero role, has to deal with these various monsters and face many of them in numerous adventures and combats.In this paper I would like to discuss how different monsters are presented in one of the computer games – Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. I would like to focus on the following issues:
The purpose of a monster in Diablo II. Why they are needed for the game story?

• Describing the monster. What names, terms and descriptions are used speaking about the monsters, what visual characteristics do they possess, what places do they inhabit.
• Perceiving the monsters. How monster’s death supposed to be interpreted in Diablo II game world, how they can be referred to by the players, how they are reflected in the fan art.

Assuming the mentioned above, most of the monsters in Diablo II are pictured as corrupted, unclean and foul, their behavior is hostile towards the hero, but despite that, they are still appreciated by the players. Qualitative descriptions refer more to the monsters’ place in the game narrative structure than indicate perception of them. Specific descriptions of the monsters can be viewed as a play with popular understanding of evil and monstrous, making sport of popular superstitions and exploring the boundaries of fear and affection.

© Wickedness.Net 2005