The itinerant illustration: Creating storyworlds in the reader’s space

This paper explores the storytelling potential of direct address within illustration as moments where fictional characters look out from their still-image worlds, whether picture-book, graphic novel or comic, into ours. It will consider the possibility of creating fictional worlds by employing direct address to generate narrative in the real time and space of the reader/viewer. This approach parallels Brecht’s idea of ‘showing showing’, where his actors break through the ‘fourth wall’: the audience constantly aware they are watching a play; the structure of their experience laid bare. It will explore showing showing, from an illustration perspective, where the reader/viewer of the sequence of illustrations is not only aware that they are being watched by that which they are watching, but to propose that it is possible to construct a story in the reader’s space.