To show the childlike nature of the boy's mind, all of the characters become animals and the already simple line drawings become even simpler.

Using the colors and the drawing style of the graphic novel enable the author better able to realize his ultimate purpose in creating the text, to show the mental state of family members left behind after someone dies. The fact that one of the characters is a child and the other is mentally unstable makes the fluid use of visually fantastic metaphors particularly effective. Images like when the father floats in the air at night in his dreams to look for the mother or when Thomas becomes a lion are both artistically striking and emotionally evocative. Some of the confusion the reader might feel regarding the narrative shifts from imaginative to concrete reality is alleviated with the subtle differences and shadings of color between the frames...
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