Comic Format: Roly Poly

Roly Poly: Phanta’s Story is a psychedelic trip of a graphic novel written by Daniel Semana. Although the comic is perhaps a bit weak on plot for the sake of bright visual and punchy fight scenes, I can’t find it in myself to complain. Roly Poly is absolute mesmerizing, disorienting eye-candy, and I can’t look away. Although here are three things other things that stand out to me about this comic, three things that drew me towards it in the first place.

 

The first is its square format. This not only makes it stand out on the shelf, but it changes the layout of the pages, creating interesting compositions that wouldn’t be seen in a regular, rectangular comic.

 

The second is its length. Roly Poly is not a grand saga, it isn’t the next instalment in a long-running Marvel series. It is a short, fast paced ride, but an exhilarating one. In fact, I wonder how much this dizzying comic would suffer if it were drawn out for a longer duration. As it stands, Roly Poly feels like the sugar rush you get from enjoying a scoop of sherbet ice cream, rather than the overwhelming, sickly feeling you might feel after binge-eating an entire tub.

 

And the third is, you guessed it, the menus and inventory pages. Although not solely themed around video games, Semana’s approach works in a similar manner. A page is dedicated to the contents of Phanta’s bag, each item hinting a little more at her personality. Throughout the tale, Phanta’s social media gives peeks into a sibling rivalry to live life to the extreme, prompting much of our protagonist’s rash behaviour, and giving insight into her choices.

 

Roly Poly’s size, length, and layout make it a treat to read, and one of my favourite additions to my bookshelf. Many of the decisions I made about how I wanted to construct my comic were informed by the things I’d seen in practice with this book.