The emergence of the graphic novel is often associated with the 1960s. However, the roots of this art form can be found much further back in history, for example, in the emergence of the art of the manuscript book. It is a little-known fact that, for example, predecessors of speech balloons – one of the most recognizable graphic elements of the comic book structure, which is also characteristic of the graphic novel – can be found in visual samples from the Middle Ages. These are the so-called “speech scrolls” (also called phylacteries or banderole). They are an illustrative device that denotes a speech, song or other type of sound, depicted as text on a painted scroll or piece of parchment above the head of the character who pronounces them. They were used by European artists during the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods.
The medieval manuscript book, and in particular the Slavic Old Bulgarian one, has an extremely religious theme and rich decoration and was created with the aim of being transformed into a mediator in the communication between God and man. The figurative world of this type of book becomes an inspiration for many artists and researchers of calligraphy and illustration. However, few are those who decide not only to study the principles of creating such a work, but also to create their own author's one. One such artist is the British Herman Inclusus, who created his graphic novel "Black Spell" as a modern book in medieval stylistics.
Herman Inclusus is the creative pseudonym of the book artist Stuart Kolakovic, born in the Midlands, Great Britain. He studied illustration at Kingston University, and after graduation his work is extremely influenced by his Eastern European heritage and his roots in Slavic culture.
The creation of the personality of Hermann Inclusus borders on literary mystification. He is described as an ancient cleric and scholarly chronicler, born in a remote swampy area among impenetrable forests, who, despite being stricken by the plague, serves the disenchanted by showing them his godless relics and icons in order to enlighten sinful souls. At the same time, Hermann Inclusus has his own website, email address and work. Stewart claims that he borrowed the name from that of a Czech monk who lived in the thirteenth century and is considered the author of the largest medieval manuscript in the world – the “Codex Gigas” with a page length of 92 cm. This illustrated manuscript is also known as the “Devil’s Bible” because of the unusual full-page portrait of the devil that it contains, as well as because of the unusual legend surrounding its creation. The monk who wrote the manuscript was named Hermann Hermitus, and legend has it that, in order to avoid a cruel punishment, he promised to create a book in just one night that would contain all human wisdom and knowledge. Desperate for his failure, he prayed to the devil for help, who actually completed the task, and the monk added his illustration as a token of gratitude.
“Dismal Incantation” (in the English original, Dismal Incantation) was published in a limited edition in 2014 in the UK. The format of the book is minimalist – its length is only 15 cm, and the illustrations are filled with numerous details, reminiscent of the richly painted miniatures in the decoration of medieval manuscripts. Herman's idea is to create a graphic horror novel, but not of the traditional type that uses clichéd images and overexposed superheroes, but a work that evokes a gothic sinister feeling and is sustained in the tradition of the medieval book. The protagonist-monk of Herman Inclusus is truly terrifying and ready to commit any heinous acts to revive his forgotten religion, by summoning its founder from the dead through a set of demonic rituals. The cover of the book is hard, covered in red high-quality paper and with gold-stamped illustrations and typography. The paper of the body of the book is thick, extremely well-maintained colors and slightly tinted, so as to imitate parchment or the color of pages yellowed by time. The shades of the illustrations themselves also have the appearance of colors softened by the passing years. The feeling of a luxurious edition, as every book was in the Middle Ages, is complemented by the red silk ribbon-book divider attached to the spine of the book body..
The typography of "Black Spell" also deserves special attention. It is no coincidence that the book is included as one of the examples of typographic poetics in the encyclopedic publication "Type Tells Tales" by the British publishing house Thames & Hudson. The font used by the author is a version of the Cyrillic statutory script adapted to the Latin alphabet, largely stripped of most of its ornamentation for easier reading. Each letter is written by hand and scanned, after which the letters are collected one by one into words and sentences. Part of the text is designed in a reddish-brown color, as are the decorated initials at the beginning of each page. Speech scrolls characteristic of medieval books are also found. The successive panels with illustrations, distinctive for the graphic novel, are separated by frames made of geometric elements reminiscent of wood and outlined with deliberately left visible translucent light pencil lines. The impression is of a book made by hand.
The moral position of "Black Spell" is also interesting. The initial impression is that the book seems to aim solely to frighten and at times even disgust the reader by repelling him from the desire to identify in any way with the fanatical monk and his religious quest. In the end, however, the main character receives his retribution by being struck by the ghost of one of his victims and, accordingly, with his destruction comes the destruction of the dark religious doctrine that he preached. This suggests that the author is nevertheless guided by generally accepted moral norms. In this way, the book connects with the nature of manuscripts praising the divine, not only formally through the type of its illustrations, the nature of the font and its method of production, but also with the message of its textual and visual narrative. This is how the aesthetics of the Middle Ages prove to be completely suitable for conveying authorial messages even through the modern genre of a twenty-first century graphic novel.
Vesela Kucheva Petrova
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