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Jean-Paul Saliba

Mr. German

ENG 4U1a

16 May 2019

The Invisible People

In reading the graphic novel ​Invisible People by Will Eisner,​ I felt intrigued by the isolation that

characters developed within society, in order to remain invisible to the public. The genre of this

graphic novel is mystery and the use of strong violence was something in this novel that I was

not used to reading. I felt the author did a good job of building each story upon one another.

Each story relates to the theme of appearance vs reality as each protagonist restricts themselves

from having interactions with others in society. However the characters fail to realize that they

are practically invisible in the world as they have almost no personal relationships in their lives.

The protagonists in each story are illustrated as lonely and hopeless. What I enjoyed about this

graphic novel was how each character takes you on this emotional journey, which allows the

reader to feel more connected with the emotions the characters depict throughout the story. For

example, in the story Sanctum the character Pincus is introduced as a reserved, shy, middle aged

man who likes to be left alone and who wishes he could live his life as an invisible man. What I

found interesting was Pincus’ feeling of shock when he finally gets his wish of being invisible

and is perceived as dead in the eyes of the public. The reader would believe Pincus to be happy

after his wish was fulfilled, but in reality he has a existential crisis and feels horrible for taking

his life for granted. The concept I found hard to grasp when reading each story was the fact that
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each character is striped away from a happy ending or any form of hope. The characters Pincus

and Hilda both die at the end of their stories, never fulfilling their desires.

This comic strip is where Pincus first experiences his existential crisis as he tries to convince

people that he is very much alive, but nobody believes him. The second panel of Pincus crying

on the bench demonstrates to the reader that sometimes what we think we want is not always

what one truly desires or hopes to have. For Pincus, he thought being invisible would make his

life more enjoyable, but once he loses his identity he loses his sense of self.
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This comic strip from the story Requiem demonstrates the loss of hope that the author provides

to the reader at the end of each story. Before to hospital fire, Hilda is set on marrying a man

named Herman, however that dream is shortly put to a close once Hilda and Herman’s mother

die in a fire. I really enjoyed the artwork of this comic as the visuals do a good job of depicting

the major turning point in this story.