Studies in Comics - Volume 5, Issue 1, 2014

Though those types of publications that are popularly called the Gothic comic book and Gothic graphic novel comprise one of the graphic medium’s most successful genres and, though celebrated examples of the work such as Neil Gaiman’s creations and David Finch’s Batman The Dark Knight series (2012–) have begun to feature amongst topics for Gothic Studies conferences and anthologies, there seems as yet to be considerable critical amnesia about the genre’s origins, the nineteenth-century sequential strip in general and their relations with contemporaneous Gothic publications. This study starts with a comparison of the depiction of a monstrous Gothic anti-hero in a narrative strip from the late 1840s with a similar celebrated figure from a 1990s Goth publication as a way of questioning assumptions about the exclusively formative role of American 1950s comic books in this context. This study then provides both a general overview of a vast and often overlooked field of graphic production pre-1900 and, in places, a frame-by-frame analysis of groundbreaking graphic techniques used by Gothic nineteenth-century artists. As well as discussing works as various as Joseph Franz von Götz’s Lenardo and Blandine (1783), Gustave Doré’s History of Holy Russia (1854), the Gothic graphic art of William Makepeace Thackeray and Rodolph Töpffer, Wilhelm Busch and G. Montbard’s The Legend of John Belin (1874), my study seeks to reinstate the importance of these works of Gothic sequential visual art in relation to recent graphic novels and starts to define exciting possibilities for a synergetic interface between Comic Strip Studies and Gothic Studies.

Research on the understanding of ‘how comics work’ has grown tremendously over the past twenty years, with more articles and books emerging each year. Much of this research has discussed comparisons between comics and language, and/or has speculated on comics’ cognition. However, much of this research faces limitations, which hamper the seriousness of the endeavour and reflect the youth of this emerging field. This article points out these deficiencies that pervade theories about comics. These include inadequate background research, overly general and unsupportable claims, a lack of adequate evidence, and limitations for research methodologies. To address these concerns, I draw from over 50 years of research from linguistics and cognitive science to inform how the field of ‘comic theory’ can move forward. In particular, I outline two primary ways of progressing with this line of research: (1) explicit manipulation of the component parts of the structure used in comics and (2) cataloguing actual comics for various theoretically relevant phenomena. This data-driven approach is offered as a guiding vision for future works on the understanding of ‘how comics work’.

This article examines the ways, modes, tools and categories of medium-specific self-reflexivity in comics. I approach the genre of metacomics in the light of theories of metafiction, as well as W. J. T. Mitchell’s concept of ‘metapicture’. As several scholars regard comics as a form of literature, I think testing the ideas of metafiction on comics has legitimacy. We can define metafiction with Hutcheon’s words as ‘the new need, first to create fictions, then to admit their fictiveness, and then to examine critically such impulses’. In this article I argue that metacomics is similar, though it features self-reflexive elements not only on the level of plot or (textual) narration, but also in its very form and layout. Mitchell’s approach from the field of iconology, and his typology of metapictures serves as a model for conceptualizing metacomics. According to Mitchell, ‘[m]etapictures are pictures that show themselves in order to know themselves: they stage the “self-knowledge” of pictures’. This article builds on Mitchell’s category of the ‘speaking metapicture’, which is strikingly close to comics. Thus I simultaneously rely on a framework for analysis from literary theory, and another one from iconology, in order to examine the self-reflexive methods bound to the comics medium. Following Hatfield, I approach comics as an art form of four kinds of tension, namely code vs code, single image vs image-in-series, sequence vs surface and text as experience vs text as object. I am interested in the theory and typology of the kinds of reflection on the medium of comics that are made possible by these tensions. I am examining the works of Bill Watterson, and the Hungarian authors Zoltán Koska and Ádám Pádár.

The history of superheroines is one of tensions, contradictions and difficulties. Squirrel Girl is no stranger to these, and her journey through the last twenty years of Marvel comic books has not been easy. In her debut in Marvel Super-Heroes #8 (S. Ditko and W. Murray, 1992), Squirrel Girl failed to become Iron Man’s sidekick even though she saved him from Doctor Doom. Despite initial success, at least in terms of the narrative, Squirrel Girl disappeared for over ten years. When she reappeared in 2005, Squirrel Girl was in rather less illustrious surroundings – outside continuity. This article tracks the career of Squirrel Girl, focusing on strategies of narrative and visual representation and the relationship of the character to the structuring principle of continuity. Squirrel Girl demonstrates the ability to wield considerable power outside continuity but even here, where the victories of a woman can be easily disavowed thanks to their structural position within the Marvel universe, Squirrel Girl is still problematic. Various strategies of containment are implemented and this article will engage with these, demonstrating continuity and discontinuity in these policies as Squirrel Girl is ultimately drawn into continuity. Through a close critical reading of Squirrel Girl’s appearances, then, this article will provide initial insights into how powerful women are simultaneously promoted and contained by superhero narratives.

US publishers of superhero comic books are large media entertainment companies that develop and license not only superhero comic books, but also superhero movies, video games and various merchandise. These superhero media entertainment companies use certain strategic corporate communication guidelines. Based on a structured quantitative analysis of 1000 superhero media entertainment company tweets and twenty superhero comic books, it appears that the corporate communication of modern superhero media entertainment companies focus, from a promotional strategic point of view, on the comic books they publish. In addition to strategic promotional attention to superhero comic books, every company decides how much strategic attention is received by other superhero media entertainment domains, such as superhero movies, superhero video games and all types of superhero merchandise. The findings also show that company logos, company brand names and certain fictional superheroes are salient to strategic corporate communication of the superhero media entertainment companies. And every company decides how much promotional advertising within the published comic books is given to their own developed and licensed superhero products or to products and merchandise of other companies.

The increasing number of comic book adaptions of Shakespeare’s plays is unsurprising given their prevalence within school curricula. Graphic novel adaptations are often seen as a stepping stone to the ‘real’ text, a way of introducing young people to works whose language, settings and complexity may, initially, be off-putting. Retelling Shakespeare’s plays in a comics format has, therefore, become a popular approach to attempt to engage students and to make the work more accessible, especially to ‘reluctant readers’. Romeo and Juliet is among the most frequently taught of Shakespeare’s texts, and is often used as a first introduction to studying Shakespeare. The four adaptations compared in this article illustrate the variety of ways in which Shakespeare can be reinterpreted in a comics format and used to support young people studying his plays. Classical Comics offers the most conventional representation, drawing obviously on long-standing comic traditions of the western hemisphere. A different approach is taken by the Manga Shakespeare version, which is set in present day Tokyo. This incorporates many elements of Japanese manga, while remaining accessible to readers without previous experience of manga, for instance, the action flows from left to right across the page and the book is read from ‘front to back’. The Manga Edition has many similar features, but retains the original setting of the play. Finally, Gareth Hinds’ recent adaptation clearly draws on European comic conventions, but also incorporates elements of manga, most noticeably in action scenes. Comparing these diverse approaches, this article considers how comic book adaptations can do more than simplify the text and make Shakespeare more attractive for young people. It considers ways in which they can act as an effective pedagogical device to support young people of differing abilities and levels of reading experience studying Shakespeare’s play. It also considers the extent to which these texts have a value in their own right, rather than simply being viewed as inferior versions of the original that merely engage and simplify Shakespeare’s plays and can be discarded as soon as they are no longer required.

In the manga AKIRA (1982–1990), Katsuhiro O-tomo depicts action sequences, violence and the presentation of space through a visual approach that expertly creates a dynamic sense of movement and presence within the moment. This effect is achieved through the manipulation of the form and structure of the comics page, particularly through the use of a cantilevering technique to unbalance the page structure and make the action sequences feel visceral and tense. To that end, O-tomo also uses embodied perspectives, eye-line matches and appeals to the senses, especially sound. O-tomo strives to achieve similar effects in his 1988 animated film adaptation of the manga by incorporating a blend of manga and cinematic techniques. Some of these are taken from the original AKIRA manga, others from cinematic influences, particularly western ones. The film adapts the manga in a sympathetic way, but also changes a great deal, especially with regard to the presentation of space, sound, perspective and violence. Much of what the manga alludes to, or leaves in the gutters for the reader’s imagination to concoct, is translated to the screen to quite different effect. This article will also consider the translation of the manga into English, and how the changes in, for example, sound effects, as well as the addition of colour alter the precision engineering of O-tomo’s pages. These two forms of translation (from one language to another, and from page to screen) will be considered alongside one another to reveal the complexity of O-tomo’s masterpiece in both media, and the difficulties of such adaptations and translations.

This article will examine the anxiety of expression and images of past trauma in Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel In the Shadow of No Towers (2004) and its connection to Maus I and Maus II (1986 and 1991). It will analyse the strategies that Spiegelman adopts to deal with trauma, and the problems of representing complex events and narratives. Maus and In the Shadow of No Towers have at their core an anxiety of about the nature of expression; the need to represent the event and the resulting trauma while acknowledging the impossibility of ever fully communicating it. This raises some questions about relations between the present and the past in these texts and the use of highly emotive imagery to make personal and political points about the aftermath of 9/11.

The Visual Language of Comics, Neil Cohn (2013) London: Bloomsbury Academic, 221 pp., ISBN: 9781441170545, h/bk, £75, ISBN: 9781441181459, p/bk, £24.99

Narrative Structure in Comics: Making Sense of Fragments, Barbara Postema (2013) Rochester Institute of Technology Press, 188 pp., ISBN 9781933360959, p/bk, $29.95

Superheroes in Crisis: Adjusting to Social Change in the 1960s and 1970s, Jeffrey K. Johnson (2014) Rochester Institute of Technology Press, 142 pp, ISBN 9781933360805, p/bk, $29.95

A Review of the Illustration, Comics and Animation Conference at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA, 28 February–2 March

Southwest Popular Culture Association, Albuquerque New Mexico, 19–22 February 2014