The Other Kind of Funnies

Comics in Technical Communication

Han Yu

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351864534
• Print ISBN:
  9780895038401
• Subtopic: Graphic Design

The Other Kind of Funnies refutes the mainstream American cultural assumption that comics have little to do with technical communication-that the former are entertaining (in a low-brow sense) and juvenile, whereas the latter is practical and serious (to the point of stuffiness). The first of its kind, this book demonstrates the exciting possibilities of using comics in technical communication. It defines comics as a medium and art form that includes cartoons, comic strips, comic books, and graphic novels; provides conceptual and historical backgrounds on comics; and discusses the appeals and challenges of using comics-style technical communication. More specifically, it examines comics-style instructions, educational materials, health/risk communication, and political/propaganda communication. The author argues that comics-style technical communication encourages reader participation, produces covert persuasion, facilitates intercultural communication, benefits underprivileged audiences such as children and readers of lower literacy, and challenges the positivist view of technical communication. An abundance of comics-style technical communication examples, carefully selected from across cultures and times, demonstrates the argument. While the book proposes that comics can create user-friendly, visually oriented, engaging, and socially responsible technical communication, it is also quick to acknowledge the limitations and challenges of comics-style technical communication and provides heuristics on how to cope with them. The Other Kind of Funnies is unique in its interdisciplinary approach. It focuses on technical communication but speaks to design, cultural and intercultural studies, historical studies, and to some extent, education, politics, and art.

Chapter 1
Defining Comics for Technical Communication

For readers who hope for a simple and straightforward definition of "comics," a disappointment is in order: there is no simple definition that can precisely and accurately describe "comics," which is a surprisingly complex and continuously evolving discourse, a worldwide cultural phenomenon, and a rapidly changing industry. Artists, critics, and scholars follow different frameworks to analyze and approach comics, and readers use their own norms and tastes in thinking about what constitutes comics.

Coulton Waugh proposed an early definition of comics in his 1947 book The Comics: "a narrative told by way of a sequence of pictures, a continuing cast of characters from one sequence to the next, and the inclusion of dialogue and/or text within the picture" (Horn, 1976, p. 47). This definition fits well with serialized U.S. comic strips such as Krazy Kat, which had become popular at the time. However, examined beyond these strips, this definition proves inadequate. When a comic work is not syndicated and ends with one volume, the use of a continuing cast becomes irrelevant. More importantly, although narratives are the norm in comics, they are not a required element: nonfiction comics can disseminate information without apparent storytelling. American comic theoretician Scott McCloud's (1994) Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, a comic book that examines the definition, history, and techniques of comics, is one example. Last, although many comics contain dialogue and text, not all of them do: Wordless comics rely on images alone to convey information. Josh Simmons' (1997) mystery/horror comic book House is an example.

This and other early definitions of comics, then, as Horn (1976) argued, are only valuable methodological tools that put comics into a better defined focus for study, but they do not give insight into the essence of comics and how they can develop unique artistic or literary content. To better illustrate that essence and demonstrate comics' relevance to technical communication, I examine a number of less prescriptive and more descriptive heuristics for understanding comics.

Cartoons, Comic Strips, Comic Books, and Graphic Novels

To understand comics, we need to discuss a number of terms that are commonly associated with (if not used to define) comics in the United States: cartoons, comic strips, comic books, and graphic novels.¹

Prior to the mid-19th century, the word cartoon was used to refer to a preliminary sketch for a large work of fine art (Harrison, 1981, pp. 19-80). Modern-day cartoons, however, refers to a specific type of genre which, as British cartoonist Sir David Low defined, is "a drawing, representational or symbolic, that makes a satirical, witty, or humorous point. It may or may not have a caption and may comprise more than one panel" (Harrison, 1981, p. 43). Sir David Low's definition makes one important point: Cartoons can contain multiple panels. This is important because the single-panel criterion has been used (imprecisely, I argue) by some writers to differentiate cartoons from comics. This differentiation creates more confusion than it does clarity, as my later discussion of the evolution from cartoons to comic strips shows, and is not followed in this book.

Harrison (1981) argued that cartoons do not necessarily have to be funny; instead, they "may leave the viewer in tears and trauma rather than in smiles and laughter" (p. 43). Surface-level appearance is also nonessential: Some cartoons may feature crayon-solid drawings, others may have realistic line drawings, and still others may have abstract sketches, but they all simplify the reality to some essential focus point and then exaggerate that point.

Compared with cartoons, contemporary comic strips may appear different: They use dialogue balloons rather than captions, and they generally contain several horizontally printed panels rather than one panel. But these surface-level features are again not essential. Rodolphe Töpffer, a Swiss teacher, is often credited as the father of comic strips (Kunzle, 2007). His mid-19th century work uses multiple panels with borders that are representational of modern comic strips. Töpffer, however, did not use dialogue balloons in his work but incorporated captions used in cartoons. Similarly, early comic strips are not necessarily multipaneled. In the United States, Richard Felton Outcault's (1863-1928) creation Hogan's Alley is often considered the first comic strip. Hogan's Alley, better known as The Yellow Kid, featured a bald, barefoot child who wore an oversized yellow nightshirt, which was used as a speech balloon (see Figures 1 and 2).

Hogan's Alley contained both single-panel works such as the one shown in Figure 1 and multipanel works such as the one shown in Figure 2, although the panels were not physically separated by borders, as is common in today's comic strips.

Figure 1. Signs of Snow (published January 9, 1898, in the New York Journal). Courtesy of the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art Collection, The Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library.

Figure 2. The Yellow Kid's Great Fight (published December 20, 1896 in the New York Journal). Courtesy of the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art Collection, The Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library.

Compared with comic strips, comic books share many of the same artistic features. Both use simplified and exaggerated drawings. Their selections of key moments of action and use of layout are also similar (Duncan & Smith, 2009, p. 5). Their differences, Duncan and Smith (2009) argued, lie merely in their scope and production/distribution methods: Comic books are longer than strips and are capable of conveying more complex messages; comic books are "a component of the magazine medium," whereas strips are "a component of the newspaper medium" (p. 5); comic books exist as products in their own right, whereas comic strips exist primarily to sell newspapers.

Last is the term graphic novel, which is used to describe a new wave of comic books in the United States, which has seen rising sales since the mid- and late-1990s (Gabilliet, 2010, p. 208). Unlike the 20-40 page, magazine-like traditional American comic book, graphic novels are full-fledged, full-length books with quality binding and covers. Short and Reeves (2009) defined graphic novels as

an illustrated work that involves a more mature audience in which a dramatic arc is followed where content is presented with a definite beginning, middle, and end, as opposed to comic strips that appear weekly or comic books in which a cast of characters has infinite ongoing plotlines. (p. 416)

Many comic scholars and artists, however, do not believe there are fundamental differences between graphic novels and comic books: The two use the same representation techniques and are both stand-alone literary works. The only difference, again, lies in their scope and production/distribution: Graphic novels are longer and can convey more complex messages, and their quality printing and binding means they can be sold at a higher price. The use of the term graphic novel, these scholars and artists argued, is merely an attempt to elevate the literary and social status of comic books by disassociating them with the word comics. As Dardess (1995) wrote, "The uncertainty about how to name this new art form is symptomatic ... of our anxiety that the form make the best impression possible" (p. 213).

From cartoons to comic strips to comic books to graphic novels, the transition is seamless and the difference is superficial. In this book, unless specifically noted, I use the word comics to refer to all of these comic art forms, an approach that is adopted by other scholars (e.g., see Cary, 2004). This broad understanding can help technical communicators in the United States to fully recognize the potential and relevance of using comics in their work.

Comics as a Medium

Scott McCloud (1994) argued that comics are a medium, not a static form of content. This is an important point to make because it distinguishes comics the medium from subpar comic works. The popular view of comics in the United States is that they are "crude, poorly-drawn, semiliterate, cheap, disposable kiddie fare" (McCloud, 1994, p. 3). Although such comic products do exist, not all comics are like that. Just as TV and film, comics are a vessel that contains content. The quality of the content is up to individual creators, or it depends on individual audience's taste (McCloud, 1994). Just as there are acclaimed as well as condemned films, there are good and bad comics. One should not, as McCloud put it, blame the messenger for the message. The perception of comics as a medium is fully embraced in French-Belgian Europe, where comics are studied in the context of or in comparison with other media such as literature, film, and painting.

McLuhan (1964) also recognized comics art as a medium and more specifically, a cool medium. According to McLuhan, a

hot medium is one that extends one single sense in "high definition." High definition is the state of being well filled with data. A photograph is, visually, "high definition." A cartoon is "low definition," simply because very little visual information is provided. (p. 36)

When readers see a 2-dimensional, black-and-white, simplified drawing in comics, they use experience and/or imagination to "fill in" the gaps, a process that enhances comprehension (Short & Reeves, 2009), which is desirable in any form of communication, including and perhaps particularly technical communication.

Only when we recognize comics as a neutral medium can technical communicators consider using them in their work without the fear of being ridiculed. As a medium, comics are no different than verbal discourses and photographs that technical communicators use in their daily work. In fact, comics may be superior at enhancing reader participation and comprehension (for more about these advantages, see Chapter 3). Unfortunately, this conceptual definition is easy to state but much harder to take root because comics carries with it historical stigma in the United States, a perception that is hard to change. Even the recent boom of the graphic novel market is made possible at least partly through publishers' effort to elevate graphic novels' literary status and disassociate them from mere "comics." Nonetheless, recognizing comics as a medium is the first step to combating any negative reaction people may have regarding comics-style technical communication.

Comics as Sequential Art

Will Eisner (1994) coined the tern sequential art to define comics as a sequentially arranged art form. Building on this definition, McCloud (1994) defined comics as "juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer" (p. 9). This expanded definition differentiates comics from other sequential art forms such as film, which also portrays images in sequence but shows one frame after another rather than juxtaposed images simultaneously (p. 7). Since comics must show sequence through simultaneously presented images, selecting the right kind of images is essential.

Figure 3 How to Relax and Wait for Help in the Water (Wiseman, 2006, p. 258). Text © 1986, 1993, 2004 by John Wiseman. Illustrations © 1986, 1993 by HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

McCloud's (1994) definition suggests that comics are visually dominant and may or may not contain text (defined by him as the "other images"). With this definition, comics encompass a great many more possibilities than the typical "funnies" or superhero comics that often come to mind when one thinks of comics. From ancient Egyptian paintings that show events in sequence, stained-glass windows that illustrate biblical scenes in order, Monet's series paintings that show the same view at different times of day, to 2-dimensional figures that illustrate sequential steps in modern-day manuals (Figure 3), all of them are comic...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction: The Other Kind of Funnies: Comics in Technical Communication
• CHAPTER 1. Defining Comics for Technical Communication
• CHAPTER 2. Brief History of Comics
• CHAPTER 3. Appeal of Comics-Style Technical Communication
• CHAPTER 4. Limitations and Challenges of Comics-Style Technical Communication
• CHAPTER 5. Instructional Comics
• CHAPTER 6. Development Comics
• CHAPTER 7. Educational Comics
• CHAPTERS 8. Propaganda Comics
• CHAPTER 9. Where Do We Go From Here?
• Index