In terms of “comics,” I want to expand the
conversation around graphic novels, broadening the range of works that comics
scholars discuss, but also changing the ways we write about them. The early
emphasis on comics as “sequential arts” has understandably focused a lot of
attention on framing, juxtaposition, and decoupage—on how we break down a
sequence of images across the page in order to shape the reader’s perceptions.
This is perhaps what distinguishes comics from other kinds of graphic
storytelling.
I also want to focus attention on mise-en-scène,
on the expressive anatomy and material details that are juxtaposed within the
same panel, and the invitation comics offer us to scan and flip as we explore
their images in search of meaning. Shifting the focus to mise-en-scène offers
parallels with a range of other minor arts—such as scrapbooking or cabinets of
curiosity or collage—which depend on juxtapositions between elements of
material culture.
In terms of “stuff,” I want to encourage
reflection on how we narrate our relationships with the things we choose to
surround ourselves with. Comics are only one contemporary mode of expression
which helps us make sense of our stuff. We might point to the broad array of
television programs—such as Tidying Up with Maria Kondo, Hoarders,
or Antiques Roadshow—or YouTube’s unboxing videos which address our
societal fascination with everyday things.
And I draw analogy to a number of artists and
literary figures—Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence, Henry Darger’s
scavenger art, Jonathan Franzen’s list-making in The Corrections, and
Kare Walker’s reclaiming of racist iconography. All of this suggests that the
social and cultural questions surrounding collecting, accumulation,
inheritance, possession, and culling have implications far beyond the specific
comics I discuss here.
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
Lastly
In terms of “comics,” I want to expand the conversation around graphic novels, broadening the range of works that comics scholars discuss, but also changing the ways we write about them. The early emphasis on comics as “sequential arts” has understandably focused a lot of attention on framing, juxtaposition, and decoupage—on how we break down a sequence of images across the page in order to shape the reader’s perceptions. This is perhaps what distinguishes comics from other kinds of graphic storytelling.
I also want to focus attention on mise-en-scène, on the expressive anatomy and material details that are juxtaposed within the same panel, and the invitation comics offer us to scan and flip as we explore their images in search of meaning. Shifting the focus to mise-en-scène offers parallels with a range of other minor arts—such as scrapbooking or cabinets of curiosity or collage—which depend on juxtapositions between elements of material culture.
In terms of “stuff,” I want to encourage reflection on how we narrate our relationships with the things we choose to surround ourselves with. Comics are only one contemporary mode of expression which helps us make sense of our stuff. We might point to the broad array of television programs—such as Tidying Up with Maria Kondo, Hoarders, or Antiques Roadshow—or YouTube’s unboxing videos which address our societal fascination with everyday things.
And I draw analogy to a number of artists and literary figures—Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence, Henry Darger’s scavenger art, Jonathan Franzen’s list-making in The Corrections, and Kare Walker’s reclaiming of racist iconography. All of this suggests that the social and cultural questions surrounding collecting, accumulation, inheritance, possession, and culling have implications far beyond the specific comics I discuss here.