One Great Panel: Ashita no Joe
When lettering becomes audible.
I’ve been hyper-fixating on a lot of different single-panel elements lately, and that’s on purpose. There’s just so much to celebrate in artistic choices, whether it’s how it feeds into the story as a whole, or simply how a panel is framed.
For this panel, we’re focusing on something else that is just plain great—superb lettering. Lettering that’s so good, you can hear it.
This is from the first volume of Ashita no Joe.
Context: Danpei, the old man singing here, has gathered all of the kids from his neighborhood and come to visit Joe Yabuki in juvie. Joe is a boxing prodigy, but he’s as delinquent as they come. Danpei is determined to get in to see Joe in order to help teach him more boxing, but he’s not allowed in. Fortunately, Danpei discovers that if he can present himself and his troupe of kids as entertainers, they can get into the jail. So Danpei starts to sing…
The main feature of why this is a One Great Panel at all is quite simple—this is the first panel that I’ve been able to hear. To be fair, there are other panels in manga or comics that I’ve been able to “hear,” but only after having seen the corresponding anime and having the voice actor in my head.
For this panel, I haven’t a clue what Danpei actually sounds like, but thanks to the dissonant lettering, the lightning bolts of discord around him, and the masses fleeing from the sound, it’s quite clear what this sounds like—an old, gruff fella trying to sing and not doing a great job of it.
By choosing different little flourishes for nearly every line of the song, we know that this is awful singing, even without the accompanying characters. It’s the visual representation of “out of tune.”
Speaking of, I do so adore the other characters in the panel, because this singing isn’t just a mild annoyance, it’s akin to a zombie hoarde approaching. The police and the children alike are quite literally fleeing in terror from the sound they are hearing. And it’s important that the police are there, because in a way, having adults behaving the same as the children validates the children’s reaction.
Not much else to say about this panel, it’s great for its originality, not because of its context in the story, or because of the blocking or artistic layout. It’s just great because of the lettering.