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‘Animating’ the Narrative in Abstract Comics

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How can one read an abstract graphic narrative? Under what conditions do we cease to view a set of images as static representations, or as marks on paper existing for their own sake, and begin to read them as the story of a changing world in motion, or even invest them with impetus, emotions, and desires? In this chapter, I will explore the ways in which readers can make sense of abstract comics. The notion of an abstract graphic narrative seems to be a contradiction in terms: how can something be non-representational, and also be a narrative, a category which seems to presuppose representations of characters, settings, and events? When confronted with these visual texts, readers will have to seek out and create such ‘actants’ and ‘existents’ from the material abstract comics offer, if the text is to warrant its status as narrative. The chapter will use a number of exemplar stories from Andrei Molotiu's 2009 collection Abstract Comics to explore the process of reading these image texts. It will use ideas from narratology and philosophy of consciousness to help outline some of the ways we can ‘animate’ the static images we see across the sequence of panels, in which we recognize and reconstitute persistent entities, bringing a narrative life to the apparently inert marks on the comics page. I will explore the limits of readers’ ability to apply this process and comment on its relevance to more mainstream graphic narrative in general.

Hardback ISBN: 9781789389494
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‘Animating’ the Narrative in Abstract Comics
Intellect , 185 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1386/9781789389494_12
/content/books/9781789389494.c11
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References

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  19. Molotiu, A. (2011), ‘Abstract form: Sequential dynamism and iconostasis in abstract comics and Steve Ditko's Amazing Spider-Man’, in M. J. Smith and R. Duncan (eds), Critical Approaches to Comics: Theories and Methods, New York: Routledge, pp. 84–100.
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References

  1. Abel, J. and Madden, M. (2008), Drawing Words and Writing Pictures, New York: First Second.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. ‘abstract, adj.’ (2023), Oxford English Dictionary, 16th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/6393820265. Accessed 8 November 2023.210
  3. Arnheim, R. ([1969] 2004), Visual Thinking, 35th Anniversary ed., Berkeley: University of California Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Baetens, J. (2011), ‘Abstraction in comics’, SubStance, 40:1, pp. 94–113.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Bal, M. (1985), Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Cohn, N. (2009), ‘Abstract comics and visual language’, Visual Language Lab, 20 August, http://blog.emaki.net/2009/08/abstract-comics-and-visual-language.html. Accessed 30 May 2013.
  7. Davies, P. F. (2019), Comics as Communication: A Functional Approach, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Dennett, D. C. (1987), The Intentional Stance, Cambridge: MIT Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Derrida, J. (1985), Margins of Philosophy (trans. A. Bass), Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rpt.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Eisner, W. (2008), Comics and Sequential Art: Principles and Practices from the Legendary Cartoonist, New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Genette, G. (1980), Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Goodman, N. (1976), Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols, Indianapolis: Hackett.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Groensteen, T. (2007), The System of Comics, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Groensteen, T. (2013), Comics and Narration (trans. A. Miller), Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Leslie, A. M. (1984), ‘Spatiotemporal continuity and the perception of causality in infants’, Perception, 13:3, pp. 287–305.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. McCloud, S. (1993), Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, New York: Harper Perennial.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Michotte, A. (1963), The Perception of Causality, vol. xxii, Oxford: Basic Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Molotiu, A. (2009), Abstract Comics: The Anthology: 1967–2009, Seattle: Fantagraphics Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Molotiu, A. (2011), ‘Abstract form: Sequential dynamism and iconostasis in abstract comics and Steve Ditko's Amazing Spider-Man’, in M. J. Smith and R. Duncan (eds), Critical Approaches to Comics: Theories and Methods, New York: Routledge, pp. 84–100.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Rimmon-Kenan, S. (1983), Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics, London: Methuen.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Scholl, B. J. and Tremoulet, P. (2000), ‘Perceptual causality and animacy’, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4:8, pp. 299–309.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. White, P. A. and Milne, A. (1997), ‘Phenomenal causality: Impressions of pulling in the visual perception of objects in motion’, American Journal of Psychology, 110:4, pp. 573–602.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. White, P. A. and Milne, A. (1999), ‘Impressions of enforced disintegration and bursting in the visual perception of collision events’, Journal of Experimental Psychology General, 128:4, pp. 499–516.
     [Google Scholar]

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