Moonshadow and Jimmy Corrigan couldn't be more different. One is a sweeping, whimsical coming-of-age narrative, the other a stifled and awkward account of a few days in one character's life. But more than just the stories themselves, the visual elements of each work heighten the romanticism and insecurity of each work respectively.

MoonshadowIn Moonshadow, the art is soft and, to put it simply, pretty. The lines are fluid and often undefined by any kind of solid outline. The muted palette and multilayered shading of the watercolors give the illustrations depth and the romantic feel of a Waterhouse painting. Each panel is a work of art. And the panel structure itself lends to this feeling. Panels aren't always clearly defined; often different images spanning space and time blend together into a single image, and whole pages can consist of only one panel. Often long spans of time are condensed into one image or a short series of images. Overall it the art has the feeling of a fairytale, just like narrative would suggest.

Jimmy Corrigan is completely the opposite. Every line is thick and black, creating rather geometric shapes. The colors are completely solid and sometimes even gaudy. Panels are invariably divided by thick lines with a narrow gutter into squares and rectangles of varying sizes. Time is represented as passing very slowly, with most panels depicting moment-to-moment time passage in very awkward situations. Everything in structured and confined, which is wholly appropriate given Jimmy's character and the work's themes; Jimmy is confined within society and his "relationships" by his own insecurity. The fact that every color and shape is defined so absolutely with no mixing seems to suggest Jimmy's isolation, as everything is contained within itself and Jimmy has no way to access it.Jimmy Corrigan

The art styles of these two books are so perfectly suited to the tones and themes of their respective stories that it's funny to imagine them swapped. What if Jimmy Corrigan's journey to meet his father was depicted in soft, beautiful watercolors, and Moonshadow's trek across outer space was illustrated by linear, geometric figures? That would turn both stories into something very different indeed.