Comics and the Senses

A Multisensory Approach to Comics and Graphic Novels

Ian Hague

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780415713979
• eBook ISBN: 9781134684557
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism History & Theory
• Index: Literature

Attempts to define what comics are and explain how they work have not always been successful because they are premised upon the idea that comic strips, comic books and graphic novels are inherently and almost exclusively visual. This book challenges that premise, and asserts that comics is not just a visual medium. The book outlines the multisensory aspects of comics: the visual, audible, tactile, olfactory and gustatory elements of the medium. It rejects a synaesthetic approach (by which all the senses are engaged through visual stimuli) and instead argues for a truly multisensory model by which the direct stimulation of the reader's physical senses can be understood. A wide range of examples demonstrates how multisensory communication systems work in both commercial and more experimental contexts. The book concludes with a case study that looks at the works of Alan Moore and indicates areas of interest that multisensory analysis can draw out, but which are overlooked by more conventional approaches.

1
Eye Like Comics, or, Ocularcentrism in Comics Scholarship

1.0 Approaches to Comics

Writing in the inaugural edition of the seminal International Journal of Comic Art, Matthew Lombard, John Lent, Linda Greenwood, and Asli Tunç identify seven perspectives on the medium (sociological, psychological, art and aesthetics, business and economics, historical, philosophical and health/medical) and ten techniques for applying those perspectives (semiotic analysis, discourse analysis, literary analysis, rhetorical analysis, content analysis, historical analysis, case study, surveys, interviews and the experiment).¹ While they acknowledge that this listing is ‘certainly not exhaustive’ it does provide a good overview of many of the common means by which comics have been approached.² Nearly ten years later, some of the perspectives identified by Lombard and colleagues were also picked up on by Thierry Groensteen in his assertion that ‘[s]emiotics, history and sociology’ are ‘the three major academic disciplines brought into play by the study of comics’.³ As both of these accounts imply, approaches to comics are many and varied, and we should not assume that these broadly disciplinary categories are fully representative of the sheer diversity of routes into the study of comics, given that within each discipline there are ranges of methodological and perspectival foci to choose from as well. Furthermore, since ‘multidisciplinarity is a working fact of comics studies’, it is certainly worth considering the ways in which various disciplines treat comics and how their coexistence and/or interaction contribute to the broader field of comics scholarship.⁴ Yet in addition to these more specific concerns surrounding disciplinary and perspectival approaches, it is important to note the existence of broader areas of consideration that transcend the limitations of any one particular discipline and in some cases serve to underpin substantial swathes of scholarship on the medium.

One such area of common focus is what we might call the formal or aesthetic approach to comics, which is the primary subject of this book. In his book Artworld Metaphysics, Robert Kraut writes:

The task of the philosopher of art is to provide an accurate systematic picture of the artworld, making explicit the norms sustained therein: norms that govern recognition, evaluation, and interpretation of artistic objects and events.⁵

In this description of the project of aesthetics as an academic and philosophical discipline, Kraut concisely enunciates the work I seek to undertake in relation to comics over the course of this book. Note particularly the three processes Kraut identifies as pertinent: recognition, evaluation and interpretation. Each of these processes is common in formal approaches to comics. The first, recognition, has largely been the domain of what Aaron Meskin and Joseph Witek have labelled the definitional project or projects, which seek(s) to produce a definition of comics that allows us to determine what is a comic and what is not.⁶ Put simply, the definitional project can be summed up as that body of literature that tries to answer the question: ‘What is a comic?’ The second and third processes, evaluation and interpretation, have formed what we might call the mechanical project, which is more concerned with how the elements identified as the components of comics interrelate. The mechanical project then (and I am here using the term ‘project’ loosely, as Meskin and Witek do), aims to respond to the question: ‘How do comics work?’ Taken together, these two questions comprise the aesthetic/formal approach to comics.

It is primarily to the latter question that this book addresses itself. This is not to say, however, that the definitional project can be forgotten altogether. Although its value has been called into question by some thinkers, others have asserted that they find it to be inescapable.⁷ Definitions of comics are particularly common in works on the mechanics of comics, as many (e.g., Will Eisner’s Comics and Sequential Art, Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art and Thierry Groensteen’s The System of Comics) seek to delimit their field before explaining how it works, though some prefer to take up an existing definition and apply it to a new set of works instead (e.g., Nielsen and Wichmann). While this book does not aim to present a new definition of comics per se, it does seek to present an alternative mode of understanding comics, ‘making explicit [some] of the norms sustained’ in existing approaches as it does so. In order to do this, it is important to begin by considering definitions in order to investigate the ways in which we recognise comics. It is only then that we can move on to develop the modes of evaluation and interpretation that may be involved in understanding the medium, because how we define comics determines what it is that we evaluate and interpret, and the ways in which we are able to do so.

Over the course of this chapter, I will outline the nature of the definitional project not by placing a strong focus on specific definitions and pulling them apart in great detail, but rather by describing three types of definition, which we can use to classify existing definitions and understand their functionality more satisfactorily. Undertaking this task, then, is an attempt at understand the mechanisms of recognition more fully. It is not a response to the question ‘What is a comic?’, rather, it is an answer to the question ‘How do we recognise comics?’ It is in that sense an interrogation of comics scholarship more than of comics per se. As we will see, considering the field in this way yields interesting insights into the treatment of comics by scholars (and in the cultural sphere more generally) because it exposes elements of the medium that are taken as a priori but which are actually far less certain than they appear. The most significant of these for this study is the notion that comics are a visual art form. Although this may seem to be a very basic assertion, one that is not worth questioning, there is substantial evidence to suggest that it is not sufficient for the development of a comprehensive understanding of comics (though it certainly is not incorrect as such). If we are to continue moving forward in our understanding of the information, messages and narratives communicated by comics, I will argue, we must go beyond the visual, and consider the medium more holistically. Doing so will require a greater breadth of understanding that can take in elements of comics that address all five of the senses; it is the development of this breadth that I will lay the groundwork for in this chapter, before moving on to discuss the senses more specifically over the remainder of the book. For now, though, let us turn our attention more concertedly to the definitional project and consider the various ways in which it has sought to identify comics.

1.1 The Definitional Project

While the notion of defining words such as ‘comic(s)’ and related terms such as ‘graphic novel’ has been a significant concern of comics scholarship for many years, in recent times it has come in for some criticism. The reasons for such attacks range from simple boredom with discussions of terminology or the methodological and theoretical difficulty or impossibility of developing a satisfactory definition to more holistic and sustained denials of the value of the definitional project as a whole.⁸ Perhaps the most substantial single critique of attempts at defining comics comes from Aaron Meskin in his essay ‘Defining Comics?’ Therein, Meskin challenges the idea that explicitly defining comics is of benefit to scholars. In seeking to determine the potential value of the definitional project, Meskin moots three possibilities: the identification of comics, their evaluation and interpretation, and the determination of their standard and contra-standard features. Echoes of Robert Kraut’s discussion (see above) are clear here, and somewhat expected since both men are working within the sphere of the philosophy of art. Meskin dismisses all three of the characteristics listed as validating factors, finally asserting that comics scholarship must ‘get beyond the definitional project’.⁹ Problematically, in doing so Meskin overlooks the consequences of acts such as the identification of comics. On this subject he argues: ‘There are challenging cases, and we may have an interest in categorizing correctly’, going on to point out that in such instances we could turn to alternative modes of identification that do not require a definition.¹⁰ In this, Meskin is correct. If we are aiming solely to clarify whether something is or is not a comic, then a comprehensive definition is not, strictly speaking, necessary, for a fairly minimal set of characteristics will suffice. We need not fully define an elephant to determine that a large grey creature with four legs and a trunk is one. Yet Meskin overlooks the more substantial philosophical implications of identification. In defining a comic, the definer specifies the boundaries of the object of study and thereby indicates the ways in which it is possible for her/him to interact with that object. As David Carrier has pointed out: ‘[t]he answer to [the question ‘What is a comic?’] determines the shape of analysis and so also its starting point’, and ‘[o]nce we know what kind of a thing the artwork is, we are prepared to explain its history’.¹¹ It is perhaps for this reason that scholars such as Catherine Labio have stated that they find the question of definition to be inescapable when considering comics.¹²

Conventionally, attempts to define comics involve either selecting a set of existing definitions and critiquing them before offering an alternative that remedies their faults, or simply presenting a new definition without reference to previous ones. While I do not think it wise to attempt to present a new definition without context, nor do I think it particularly helpful to return to existing definitions and critique them in detail here because the major points of contention are likely to have been covered elsewhere already. Debating and unpicking individual definitions of comics will not yield many new insights at this point. Instead of considering the terms of particular definitions, then, I would like to spend some time here discussing how definitions of comics tend to work in a more general sense, because this is what will ultimately allow us to understand how the definitional project shapes our analyses of the medium.

1.1.1 Elemental Definitions

Broadly speaking we can identify three categories of definitions of comics, which I will call elemental, knowingly incomplete, and social. In the elemental category, we can place those definitions that seek to identify comics on the basis of specific, observable characteristics, or elements. Examples would include David Kunzle’s 1973 definition, which outlines the object of his historical study into the early comic strip:

For our present work, I would propose a definition in which a “comic strip” of any period, in any country, fulfills [sic] the following conditions: 1) There must be a sequence of separate images; 2) There must be a preponderance of image over text; 3) The medium in which the strip appears and for which it was originally intended must be reproductive, that is, in printed form, a mass medium; 4) The sequence must tell a story which is both moral and topical.¹³

Bill Blackbeard’s 1974 definition, offered as a direct response to Kunzle’s, also falls into this category:

Comic Strip: A serially published, episodic, open-ended dramatic narrative or series of linked anecdotes about recurrent identified characters, told in successive drawings regularly enclosing ballooned dialogue or its equivalent and generally minimal narrative text.¹⁴

One final example of an elemental definition (and perhaps the most famous definition of comics) comes from Scott McCloud (1993), who describes comics as: ‘[j]uxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or produce an aesthetic response in the viewer’.¹⁵ He subsequently goes on to outline his own understanding of the mechanics of comics. In each of these examples of definitions we see two key things that demonstrate the operation of the elemental definition quite clearly. The first is the presence of particular, observable qualities that are taken to constitute the comic as object. In all three of the definitions presented here there is a focus on images in sequence as a critical component. Some of the definitions also include publishing conditions and other elements, but what is important is that all the qualities presented here can be identified within the comic...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Note
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Eye Like Comics, or, Ocularcentrism in Comics Scholarship
• 2 Sight, or, the Ideal Perspective and the Physicality of Seeing
• 3 Hearing, or, Visible Sounds and Seeing With the Ears
• 4 Touch, or, the Taboo/Fetish Character of Comics and Tactile Performance
• 5 Smell and Taste, or, the Scent of Nostalgia and the Flavour of Advertising
• 6 Multisensory Aspects of the Comics of Alan Moore
• Conclusion
• References
• Index