99 Ways to Tell a Story

 
99 Ways to Tell a Story
Exercises in Style

by Mark Madden

Chamberlain Bros

2005

 

 

As its subtitle suggests, 99 Ways to Tell a Story was inspired by Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style, which I read earlier this year. The basic format is the same - Madden tells a brief story, and then produces 98 variant tellings of the same information. I think I actually like Madden's version better. His story is simpler, and the nature of the visual medium allows him more interesting variations.

 
A man sits at a desk typing. He gets up and closes his laptop. He walks into the other room. A voice from upstairs asks 'What time is it?' He answers 'It's 1:15.' He hears a 'Thanks' as he opens the refrigerator. He looks into the open fridge. He bends down to stare and thinks 'What the hell was I looking for, anyway?'
 

Madden shows us the story from a variety of camera angles, including a fun version that zooms from a planetary wide-shot to a microscopic close-up over the 8 panels. He imitates various comic styles (political cartoon, horror comic, newspaper strips, manga) and pays homage to several specific artists (Jack Kirby, Hegre, the Bayeux Tapestry.) He presents the story as a map, an infographic, and one of my favorites, an inventory. He also retells the story as a Charles Atlas comic-book ad. He even does a mashup of his story with Queneau's.

 
It's hard to do a collection like this justice. I enjoyed Madden's creativity, and I appreciated that there was nothing similar to the gibberish Queneau produced in the 8 or so variations where he used fixed word-lengths to retell the story incomprehensibly. This book is a keeper.