Layouts in Rebecca Hall and Hugo Martínez’s “Wake”

Last post, I wrote about the ways that Rebecca Hall and Hugo Martínez’s Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts uses the juxtaposition of text and image to highlight the continued ways that past impacts the present. Today, I want to continue that discussion and expand it some by focusing specifically on some of Martínez’s layouts. From the opening of Wake to its conclusion, the ways that Martínez’s illustrations and layouts compliment Hall’s narrative stand out, and I cannot think, off the top of my head, another text where this occurs so well. I have been reading Jeff Lemire’s Sweet Tooth lately, and there are a few pages there that do this, most notably the one where Gus and Dr. Singh walk over Gus’ head from ear to ear. Martínez’s illustrations work in a similar manner.

From the opening section, Martínez and Hall’s use of sequential art brings us into the narrative and engages us. The opening, which I’ll refer to as the “Prologue,” starts by showing the rebellion on The Unity, a ship carrying enslaved men and women from Africa to the United States. The opening splash page shows the ship, bobbing up and down on the waves in the Atlantic Ocean in 1770. We see a word balloon…