COMICS -WHAT ARE THEY, ANYWAY?

The medium of comics is only now beginning to develop a formal critical language to describe it. The first critical broadside was fired in 1985 by Will Eisner, in his now-seminal book Comics And Sequential Art, and further elaborated in his Graphic Storytelling. The only other major work I know of to follow in his footsteps is Scott McCloud’s 1993 Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. With these two works as my primary sources, along with a lifetime of reading comics, I will attempt to condense as much of my technical knowledge of the medium as I can into this essay. Unfortunately for everyone, Kitchen Sink Press, which published these excellent books has gone out of business; anyone who wants copies better move fast!

The first thing to do, obviously, is define comics. The title of Eisner’s work is the best place to start; comics are works of ‘sequential art." McCloud refines this definition into "juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence," taking care to avoid value laden words like ‘art’ and ‘meaning.’ Still, this is bound to be a little confusing for the layperson, so I’ll elaborate. Any set of non-abstract images placed together with an aim towards communicating an idea to the viewer qualifies as comics. By specifying that at least some of the images in question must resemble what they represent, we exclude any work that is created solely in words. By specifying that the images are juxtaposed (that is, they sit next to one another and are not shown serially in the same space) we eliminate things like slide shows, television, and film. Finally, the word ‘deliberate’ eliminates random occurrences, like seeing images in the clouds. A comic is the work of an individual (or more often these days, a committee of sorts) that has something to tell you, and they do it by placing images together for the viewer to see and interpret based on their (the images’) relationships to one another.

The two most popular forms of comics, in America anyway, are the strip and the book. A comic strip is generally published as part of a larger periodical, such as a newspaper or magazine a few panels at a time, and is most frequently written and drawn with the goal of getting laughs. Among the most familiar examples we have Peanuts, Dilbert, and Doonesbury. The comic book, as its name suggests, is generally a publication unto itself, and has a broader range of uses. Even so, American comics tend to center on juvenile entertainment of either the comedic or adventure variety. Most everyone has seen these, too, in the manifestations of Superman, the X-men, Archie and Jughead and the like. It is a far too common mistake to conflate the content of these most familiar kinds of comics with the inherent limitations of the broader medium; examples of comic books and strips that defy the genre-based limitations of the most popular comics abound, if one is willing to look. It won’t surprise you at all, I hope, to learn that I have taken a lot of time and effort to look! In the strips realm, Matt Groening’s "Life In Hell," Lynda Barry’s "Ernie Pook’s Comeek" and the famous George Herriman’s "Krazy Kat" all went where others feared to tread. In the books field, ambitious efforts such as Will Eisner’s A Contract With God, Howard Cruse’s Stuck Rubber Baby, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus by Art Spiegelman have all demonstrated the power and versatility of the medium. For the sake of keeping the essay readable, I have not mentioned nearly all of the examples I’d like. Elsewhere on this website, I’ve compiled a larger, but still not nearly definitive list of comics that deserve the attention of serious readers.

Naturally, comics doesn’t only function as literature or entertainment, any more than writing only functions as literature or entertainment. There are a number of comics artists (using the word "artist" rather loosely here) whose works are journalistic, autobiographical, or instructional in nature. Go back to the definition given at the beginning of this essay, and you’ll find no commentary on use! The illustrations you find in most instruction manuals these days are unquestionably comics, whether they are line drawings or photographs - no mention was made of the types of images comics use either. Many great works of ‘serious’ art, such as Hogarth’s The Rake’s Progress and the Bayeux tapestry. Likewise, almost any illustrated book is likely to be arguably considered comics. Heavily illustrated books, such as the children’s books of Dr. Seuss and Maurice Sendak can’t be called anything else, at least as far as I’m concerned. As McCloud points out, the reason that these works are most often considered separate from comics is that people are used to associating comics with disposable junk, and most seekers (and creators!) of quality comics seek to distance themselves from that association. I know that I do!