Walking Corpses & Conscious Plants: Possibilist Ecologies in ...

Bingham 49
implicates the role of one's surroundings as key to enabling one to make a discovery.
From this perspective, looking is not only an active determination but a continually
unfolding process that reshapes the viewer who has become more or less aware of the
world he or she inhabits (Elkins, Object 35). Thus the result of seeing a particular object
or image is not an immediate event with a distinguishable ending. Elkins describes this
as an acidic affect: “An image is not a piece of data in an information system. It is a
corrosive, something that has the potential to tunnel into me, to melt part of what I am
and re-form it in another shape” (Object 42). Though each image works with the others
to develop the narrative, a reader's gaze may linger on one illustration longer than on
another.
The full page portrait, following the panel depicting Rick's injury promotes this
momentary pause because of its size (Figure 5). Though the shooting scene before
emphasizes the existence of violence, it is not an instance of horrorism. Rather, it puts
Rick into the position from which he will have to face that particular type of violence. In
defining horrorism, a necessary condition is that victims are defenseless. During the
standoff, he was armed and had his partner as an ally. Clearly he is not defenseless here,
only bested. Now that we see Rick alone in the hospital it is obvious circumstances have
changed. Rick is shown lying in bed while hooked to an IV. The outlined speech balloon
indicating his gasp portrays a moment of awakening; presumably the first time he has
regained consciousness since being shot. The next page is laid out in a nine panel grid
that emphasizes Rick's weakness as he attempts to stand, falls, and cries out vainly for a
nurse (Figure 6). As he moves through the hospital, the situation seems to become more
helpless. While searching for another living person, he only encounters reanimated