Comics, Materiality and the Limits of
Media Combinations
Master‘s Thesis
Kieron Brown
I would like to extend my thanks to Dr. Dan Hassler-Forest and Dr. Erin La Cour for their knowledge, guidance and enthusiasm over the past year. I would also like to thank my family for their support and Belle Edelman for checking over my musical examples.
Introduction ... 1
Intermediality Overview ... 5
Material and Semiotic Combinations ... 10
Comics as a System of Codes ... 20
New Connections ... 25
The Test of Abstraction ... 31
The Allowance of Style ... 41
Conclusion: Play as a Consolidatory Concept ... 46
Introduction
In Inventing Comics Dylan Horrocks objects to Scott McCloud‘s conception of comics as ―sequential art‖ on the grounds that it is both too broad, allowing for the conflation of comics and phenomena as distinct as Egyptian hieroglyphs and the Bayeux Tapestry, and too narrow, neglecting any non-sequential aspects of comics. Instead, Horrocks suggests that comics scholars should be exploring the connections between comics and ―literature, film, photography, graphic design, typography, performance, diagrams, or (for that matter) cartography‖ (Horrocks n. pag). If a single line of critical enquiry were going to cover the most ground in these areas it would be intermediality, as Horrocks‘ suggestion can be read as a call to explore the permeability of media (and other) perceived borders, the view that to understand comics, in terms of their limitations and their potential, we must look into the various relationships they share with other media.
If comics studies and the field of intermediality have one thing in common, however, besides the relatively young nature of their disciplines, it is varying opinions within their scholarly communities as to the objects of their study. Comics have been conceived of as a literary genre, a hybrid medium, a cultural product made up of a visual language and everything in between. Intermediality on the other hand, defined broadly as ―any transgression of boundaries between conventionally distinct media‖ (Wolf, ―Routledge‖ 252), is dogged by an extensive list of critical terms that intersect and diverge in various ways, including what the term medium actually entails.
However, the concept of ―materiality‖, defined as ―a dynamic quality that emerges from the interplay between the text as a physical artefact, its conceptual content, and the interpretive activities of readers and writers‖ (Hayles 72) has become a core concern in both
areas. For Hayles, as with many practitioners of intermediality1, materiality is thought to be the key to media specificity. In terms of comics, Charles Hatfield has posited that the tension between the reading experience and an awareness of comics as material objects is a core facet of the reading process of comics. Ernesto Priego, drawing on Hatfield, and N. Katherine Hayles The materiality of informatics, an essay elaborating on materiality through its relationship to the body, expands the concept to encompass the interplay between physical characteristics and characteristic signifiers, and the wider institutional and cultural practices that lead to a given work‘s production2
.
Such a focus has wide implications for both comics and theories of intermediality. From the start, one is lead to the conclusion that comics are media as opposed to a single
medium, as a result of the different materialities stemming from combinations of comics
signifiers and various technical supports.3 Not only does this reveal a complex network of interrelations between comics themselves in their various material incarnations, it also complicates conceptions of intermediality presenting typologies of intermedial relationships. More specifically, materiality calls into question the notion that comics are a combination of distinct media ―present in their own materiality‖ (Rajewsky, ―Intermediality‖ 51) and the idea that comics may combine with other media in a similar fashion.
Given the difficulties surrounding on-going efforts to delimit comics in terms of both formal and material features, they would seem like an amorphous and mutative example of media and thus serve as a telling test case for outlining the extent to which the implications of a focus on materiality have been under thought in conceptions of intermedial categories. Comics complicate the notion of combinative media via their adoption of various material supports without specifically adopting the signifying strategies of the medium from which the
1
See Müller
2 The materiality of comics is linked to back to the body in Ian Hague‘s Comics and the Senses. 3
For this reason, Priego maintains a distinction between comics as a communicative system and comics as a set of distinct objects.
technical support was adopted, and through additions to comics‘ conventional signifiers via the added systematic codes of other media, a phenomenon that significantly alters the materiality of the medial product produced. Furthermore, the concept of media combinations itself is suggested to consist of a complex interplay of combinative features, which vary in terms of the quantities of their parts, the level of abstraction any added systems display, and the contributions of paratextual elements that may underpin the entirety of a given work.
I will attempt to demonstrate that while categorisations of intermedial relationships are productive in discerning how comics are found ―in between‖ media, articulations of these relationships themselves are often in between conceptions of intermedial categories. However, while the implications of a focus on materiality present challenges to the notion of clear-cut categories, the concept also presents a means of reconciliation, when it is acknowledged that all conceptions of intermediality invoking materiality must contend with a ―play‖ of each of the factors that constitute the materiality of a given work.
For my part, I will elaborate on the issues raised via reference to two other distinct media: musical notation4 and maps. Like comics, these media, while now undergoing transference to and transformations in digital contexts, have historically used variations of paper as a material support. It should be noted that while I make reference to studies with a digital focus and digital processes of production, my discussion is limited to comics in print form. A foray into the world of webcomics, digital editions, pirate scans and the various interfaces and software used to read them is, unfortunately, beyond the scope of this essay. It should also be noted that I am not a student of music, nor cartography, and thus Werner Wolf‘s concern that practitioners of intermediality may lack the necessary competencies (―Literature‖ n. pag), may be justified. However, the examples I discuss, which were chosen
4 Some of the observations made with regards to musical notation in this paper, specifically those pertaining to
Alan Moore and David Lloyd‘s V for Vendetta, Dave McKean‘s Cages and Bryan Lee O‘Malley‘s Scott
Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life draw on those made in a previous essay, while placing them within the context of
purely on the basis of the intermedial qualities they display, are approached from the perspective of how they affect the reading experience of comics, with the suggestion that comics necessarily affect the experience of any added medial features as well.
Intermediality Overview
It is generally accepted that media cannot be viewed as ―isolated monads‖ (Müller 18). It is thus the task of practitioners of intermediality to articulate the different ways in which media may be found between borders. As Irina Rajewsky suggests, a distinction can be drawn between broad and narrow approaches to intermediality. Approaches that focus on the interrelatedness of all media have been referred to as ―ontological‖ by Jens Schröter, of which he suggests that it is perhaps ―intermediality that is primal and that the clearly separated ‗monomedia‘ is the result of purposeful and institutionally caused blockades, incisions, and mechanisms of exclusion.‖ (Schröter 30) In such approaches, discussions of intermediality become decidedly political.
Other approaches seek to apply broad sets of principles to media, such as Bolter and Grusin‘s theory of ―remediation‖ which acknowledges that ―all media are at one level a ‗play of signs‘‖ (Bolter and Grusin 17), and applies concepts such as ―immediacy‖ and ―hypermediacy‖ to various media with a primarily digital focus. Narrow approaches on the other hand, often drawn from literary studies, such as those of Irina Rajewsky and Werner Wolf, propose workable typologies of specific kinds of intermediality, or different types of relationship between distinct media in given examples.
The distinction between broad and narrow approaches to intermediality is said to recall discussions surrounding intertextuality occurring between the 1970s and 1990s, stemmed by the work of Julia Kristeva. It is suggested that ―intertextuality in its various narrow or broad conceptions has been a starting point for many attempts to theorize the intermedial.‖ (―Intermediality‖ 48) Mikko Lehtonen has gone as far as to suggest that ―intermediality is intertextuality that transgresses media borders [emphasis added]‖ (―No Man‘s Land‖ 75). He notes that since the 1960‘s intertextuality has not been limited to
relationships between texts within one medium. Despite this, in the context of intermediality, intertextuality is often conceived of in the narrow sense.5 Jürgen Müller, by way of Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and Gerard Genette, has claimed that this is the result of a paradigm change in the humanities, from ―textuality‖ to the aforementioned, ―materiality‖. (Müller 20) Müller suggests that:
Whether explicitly or implicitly, the question of materiality forms the premise for any approach aiming to understand the interactions between various media or media ‗materialities.‘ That is because interactions of heterogeneous elements allow us to regard intermedia processes as the site of an ‗in-between,‘ a volatile ‗between the media‘ whose traces are to be found only in their materials or media products. (Müller 20).
Despite materiality as a point of convergence in studies of intermediality, one is hit almost immediately with a multitude of interlinking terms that are not easily reconciled6. This being the case, I will draw on the work of Irina Rajewsky, whose terminology has gathered weight both within the field of intermediality itself7 and in relation to comics with regards to intermediality8. Rajewsky proposes three narrow categories of intermediality. The first category, ―medial transposition‖, refers to the adaptation or translation of an artefact from one medium to another. This category corresponds, at least in part, to notions of transmedia, which are those concepts that transcend any one medium, such as narrative. These concepts are those that can be extrapolated, from the material restrictions of a given medium, yet their
5 Irina Rajewsky refers to relationships that would have previously been designated as intertextual as
―intramedial‖.
6 For overviews of the diverse range of interlinking terms employed (and the political functions they have
served) and more in-depth histories of the field, see Rajewsky‘s ―Intermediality‖, and Schröter.
7
Since ―Literature‖, Werner Wolf has adopted Rajewsky‘s terminology to refer to his own similar categories.
collaboration with material factors in a given instantiation is significant. Henry Jenkins‘ transmedia storytelling concept9 serves as a good example of this, where elements of a storyworld are distributed among distinct media, so that ―each medium does what it does best‖. (Jenkins 96)
The second category, ―media combinations‖, is the result or process of combining at least two distinct media. Rajewsky notes that the media comprising combinations should ―each be present in their own materiality‖ (51), noting that ―this category runs from a mere contiguity of two or more material manifestations of different media to a ‗genuine‘ integration, an integration which in its most pure form would privilege none of its constitutive elements‖. (―Intermediality‖ 52). Comics are provided as an example of the latter.
Werner Wolf has tread less heavily in terms of implicating materiality, suggesting that media classify as combinative if both media retain their conventional signifiers and they remain ‗quotable‘ separately. (40) Wolf also introduces the concept of medial dominance, suggesting that in media combinations a core means of discerning dominance is via observing the ―quantity of the intermedial parts‖ (―Literature‖ n. pag). He suggests that in some instances intermedial relations may be present for the entirety of a work (for which he provides comic strips as an example), and at other times the intermedial qualities may only comprise part of an overall whole. This suggestion also implies that medial dominance may also be discerned by the wider processes involved in a text‘s production and distribution.
Rajewsky‘s final category ―intermedial references‖, entails instances in which a medium uses its own specific means to refer to another conventionally distinct medium. These references vary in the extent to which they emulate the appearance of the medium
9
being referenced. As such, intermedial references are often said to display an ―as if‖ or ―illusion-forming‖ quality (―Intermediality‖ 54). With regards to intermedial references, Wolf summarises these occurrences as instances in which a medium is ―not present in the form of its characteristic signifiers but, at least, minimally, as an idea, as a signified.‖ (Muzicalization 41). With regards to the proposed categories, Rajewsky notes that they are not mutual exclusive, with the caveat that the medium into which a transposition takes place or in which references occur must be combinative to begin with, for which she provides the example of film adaptations of novels.
While these categories are certainly productive, they are reliant on a conception of what the term medium entails. Rajewsky would seem to share the notion that materiality is key to media specificity, but does not provide a definition of medium itself. Instead, she suggests that media are never truly encountered in themselves, and instead, that we only encounter specific examples of media, rendering the concept of medium itself a ―theoretical construct‖, or ―abstraction‖ (―Border Talks‖ 54) For Rajewsky, discussions of intermediality anticipate the perception of media borders, which are permeable. The crossing of these conventionally held borders may lead to new forms of media, the driving force behind which is media combinations. Ultimately, perceived borders are thought of as ―enabling structures‖ (―Border Talks‖ 55) in which to experiment with various border crossing strategies.
However, in order to discern these strategies, to gauge the extent to which borders are being crossed, if they are at all, a working definition of medium is necessary. We may then look to the definition of medium provided by Werner Wolf, which borrows from Marie-Laure Ryan‘s medium-differentiating categories of the semiotic, material-technological, and cultural:
Medium, as used in literary and intermediality studies, is a conventionally and culturally distinct means of communication, specified not only by particular technical or institutional channels (or one channel) but primarily by the use of one or more semiotic systems in the public transmission of contents that include, but are not restricted to, referential 'messages.' (―Literature‖ n. pag)
While Wolf‘s definition allows for a focus on materiality, and has the advantage of noting the conventional nature of media, including the institutional ties inherent to media, his use of the plural channels allows him to classify musical notation as a conventional signifier of the medium of music. While media may be closely intertwined, the use of different material channels in the case above must render them distinct in terms of materiality. It is, however, possible to view the use of the plural as an attempt to encompass the media-related processes that go into a work‘s production. This concern has led Ginette Verstraete to pose the question ―does one look at intermediality from the perspective of the producer(s) and the social-institutional context of production, or does one approach it from the point of view of the audience and the larger context of reception?‖ (Verstraete 9) The answer to which, if materiality is to be taken into account, should be both, to the extent that the processes involved in a work‘s production are evident within the work itself in its entirety.
On a broader level, it has been suggested that mainstream studies of intermediality studies have been cultural deterministic, ―emphasising too much textual level and trivializing economic, social and technological dimensions of media and communications‖ (Herkman 16). While an in-depth exploration of these concerns with regards to comics would require an essay of its own, such factors will not go unaddressed in the following discussion.
Material and Semiotic Combinations
In their own conceptions of intermediality Irina Rajewsky and Werner Wolf have suggested that comics and the comic strip, respectively, can be viewed as examples of media combinations. I would like to unpack this assertion, as I believe to do so will reveal some ambiguities with the term itself. Comics, as has been suggested, exist in multiple material forms. To start with the comic strip, it isn‘t suggested which media in their material forms comprise the strip. This classification may refer to its placement within the newspaper, which would imply that it is the newspaper itself that is combinative, or more likely (and more problematically), the classification may be alluding to comics‘ frequent combination of image and word.Gabriele Rippl and Lukas Etter have suggested that these materialities of image and word may be considered to be found in their original forms in the book. This approach would see the graphic novel as kind of homecoming for comics and may seem like a curious suggestion if not for the significance bestowed upon the picture stories of Rodolphe Töpffer. Many comics scholars view comics as originating with Töpffer, whose books represented ―a new hybridization of literature and drawing‖ (Smolderen 50). Yet, as Thierry Smolderen notes, Töpffer‘s intentions sought to undermine systematic and mass produced forms of representation, and as such the picture stories of Töpffer are a far cry from the newspaper-bound form comics would later take. If comics are retroactively viewed as combinations because of this, then any further articulations of combinations thereafter would have to consider a combination involving the newspaper, the host medium from which the strip was extrapolated, and the presence of which resounds in the very term comics.
Starting with the comic strip, a rough progression can be plotted whereby the strip is reprinted in single issue format, which, given favourable conditions, is divorced of the necessity of reprinting previously published material. This is a development that can then be seen to repeat itself in the graphic novel, starting primarily as a collection of previously published single-issue comics, and seeing the emergence of ―native‖ graphic novels, once this variant became socially, technologically and commercially viable 10. There are examples of graphic novels predating the republication of the ―big three‖11 in graphic novel form, such as Harvey Kurtzman‘s Jungle Book in 1953 and Will Eisner‘s A Contract with God in 1978, which was marketed with the term, but was more a collection of short stories than the extended-length narratives graphic novels are known for today.
While these developments are otherwise in keeping with a notion of media as mutative, the combinative nature of comics since the strip, might be viewed as self-sustaining and one sided, typified by the merging of comics‘ characteristic signifiers, with different material vehicles, more commonly associated with other media. This notion goes against the idea of media combinations as comprised of distinct media present in their own materiality. As Jürgen Müller has suggested, the concept of intermediality should concern the interaction between materials themselves as well the materiality of media, but, nevertheless, media ―cannot and should not be reduced only to their material aspects‖ (26). However, while the combination of comics signifiers and other material vehicles may only be considered partly combinative, this isn‘t to suggest that comics have not made use of the publishing strategies of other media via the adoption of their material supports, such as the magazine format for comic books and the codex in the case of the graphic novel.
10
Johanna Drucker has suggested, for example, that ―even a quarter of a century ago, the kind of color production essential to [Chris]Ware‘s work would have been prohibitively expensive‖ (Drucker 7). She further notes that ―conceptualizing the capabilities of print technologies is neither mechanistic nor automatic. Part of the conceptualization involves a model of audience and reader, the public and its expectations about certain kinds of imagery and storytelling‖. (7)
11
This term refers to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon‘s Watchmen, Art Speigelman‘s Maus and Frank Miller‘s
The graphic novel has been posited as medium in itself, but also as a ―publishing phenomenon‖ (Baetens and Frey 2). Baetens and Frey suggest that the graphic novel gained its ―literariness‖ from processes primarily the terrain of, or involving, the novel: ―repackaging, editorial inclusion in text-based anthologies, adaptation from graphic narrative to standard fiction, critical appreciation through paratexts such as preface and afterwards written by ―writers‖, novelizations, and fiction writers using comics for source material. (150)
They suggest that graphic novels can be distinguished from the comic book on the grounds of form, content, and publication format, the concerns of which are largely production processes and distribution vehicles. On these grounds, one might argue that the graphic novel does not simply adopt the technical support of the book but also combines elements of the novel‘s signifying strategies. Yet, comics‘ various combinations of image and word predate the emergence of the graphic novel. It may also be argued that the intent to assimilate comics and novels has led to the use of literary themes and formal experimentation. In this case I think it is telling that in adopting an open definition of the graphic novel, Baetens and Frey suggests that it represents a ―self-knowing ‗play with a purpose‘ of the traditional comic book form‖ (Baetens and Frey 19). This is an important suggestion, as it demonstrates the extent to which the graphic novel can never be truly divorced from other material variations of comics.
Changes relating to the two former principles, form and content, may just as easily be viewed as a reflection on and a mutation of comics signifiers themselves rather than the adoption of other medial systems of signification per se, as these developments to comics‘ form and content may well be adopted in on-going serialised comics as well. There is thus little distinguishing the notion that graphic novels are a combination of comic books and the novel from the idea that an iteration of the comics system may heavily reference novels (e.g.
Alison Bechdel‘s Fun Home and Mary and Bryan Talbot‘s Dotter of her Father’s Eyes) or reference them intrinsically via transposition (Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli‘s City of
Glass for example) while adopting the material support and publication strategies of the
novel. Furthermore, if we take an example such as Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon‘s
Watchmen, which combines traditional elements of comics with pages of prose, this example
would see to represent the contiguity of media noted by Rajewsky, but when the original context of publication is taken into account, a 12-issue series, such a combination is revealed to be more complex than anticipated, as the materiality of the novel cannot be viewed to be present in original format.
This being the case, we should perhaps not ask if the graphic novel is a combination of comics and the novel in the strict sense, and instead ask what the wider functions of these conflations in each of the intermedial categories are. For example, Eddie Campbell‘s Graphic
Novel Manifesto suggests that the graphic novel represents a movement rather than a form, the
goal of which is to ―take the form of the comic book, which has become an embarrassment, and raise it to a more ambitious and meaningful level … The important thing is the intent, even if the intent arrives after the original publication‖. (Campbell n. pag). As suggested however, behind intent lies a network of wider cultural, technological and commercial conditions. We might say, then, that if comics are inherently combinative, they represent something far more complex than a simple merging of media in any of their material variations.
With this in mind, it is unnecessary to view comics‘ various forms as media combinations inherently. Rather, they are material variations that largely share a semiotic system, a system that may mutate to suit a new material support, but where the resultant changes may be adopted in previous iterations as well. In this sense, material variants of comics might also be referred to as ―media genres‖ without a materially-incarnate
ur-medium, and as an extension, all forms of print comic may be viewed as genres at the higher level of print.
The difficulty implicit to reconciling these variants is not a problem inherent to comics alone. As Derik Badman notes, Wittgenstein recognised the difficulty in classifying similar, yet distinct phenomena, in his discussion of ―games‖, settling on the term ―family resemblances‖. In a celebratory passage, Badman states:
To me, the idea of a family of comics, is a beautiful and positive metaphor. There are no definitive origins (unless you are a strict creationist) and there is no end result. Families are always growing, taking in members from other families, and creating new members from the mergings. (Badman n. pag)
With this in mind, comics‘ various material forms should be viewed in the context of the specific intermedial relationships they bring to light via their own materialities. By extension, the extent to which material variations may inform one another is also important.
In this respect, we may look towards Eric Barlatsky‘s discussion of the term frame, an interesting meeting point between formal and conceptual elements in comics. Berlatsky suggests that the term can be used both as a formal container, and to refer to paratextual or extratextual relationships that affect the interpretation of a given comic to varying extents. By asking questions such as ―to what extent does a given paratextual element of one material incarnation inform the interpretation of the ‗same‘ comic in another?‖, it is possible to view each incarnation of a comic as part of an on-going conversation with the others.
An interesting example of the interplay between material variant of comics is provided by Lars Arrhenius‘ A-Z (Figure 1). A-Z features 18 interlinking vignettes interspersed throughout the maps of London found in the London A–Z Street Atlas (Street
Atlas hereafter). As in its predecessor, the map of London is fragmented and transposed on to
successive pages, while circular panels, featuring characters and close-ups of locations, are placed on top of the map. In order to navigate these narratives, the reader must traverse multiple pages in a nonlinear fashion, as the stories unfold on both a vertical and horizontal axis.
A-Z was originally displayed in London‘s PEER Gallery and on the Gloucester Road
underground station, adding another material variation of comics to our list. In these cases, the fragmented structure of the Street Atlas was flouted. Instead, these examples resembled a traditional paper-based map. For readers of A-Z on display, the reading experience would be similar to a situation in which the reader were to tear the pages from their ring-bound spine and assemble them into one continuous image.
It might then be asked how each variation contributes to the intermedial qualities A-Z brings to light. In the gallery setting, the presentation of A-Z can be read as a comment on the experiences inherent to the navigation of urban space, while doubling as statement on the porous nature of the borders between arts. Maps, too, are an aesthetically-charged depiction of space that require navigation. The display on the London Underground may take this step further, prompting observers to make connections between the design of A-Z and the tube maps that adorn most walls in each station. Here, the notion of map is extended not simply to the map of London but to that of the London Underground as well, representing another London-based form of time and space compression and linking to the wider relationship between maps and everyday life that the book version expands upon.
The book can be said to pertain more to the experiential aspects of map reading. As such, a reference guide is provided at the beginning of the book, as an aid to those readers unfamiliar with map reading. A ―key to map pages‖, offering a miniaturised (and unreadable) version of the work in its totality, is provided as a means of demonstrates its cohesion despite its fragmentation. There is also an index at the conclusion provided by hypertext author Geoff Ryman. Ryman uses the rigid grid structure of the map (in book form) to refer to specific sections, where he playfully instructs the reader (e.g. ―Decide now if you think there is any relation between the map and the information in the pictures.‖ Ryman 100) and poses questions pertaining to the characters, the map and combinations of both. While the questions posed in the index would also apply to the display versions, the coordinates provided would be less useful, given that grid structure of A-Z‘s book incarnation is lacking in the display version. Such activities would nevertheless be impractical in a gallery environment, and even more so in the London Underground. We may thus view these medial variations of A-Z in terms of the ―affordances‖ they provide.
Mikko Lehtonen has suggested that these affordances are inherent to all media, and notes that ―when we translate between media we have to add something that was not there but we also necessarily take something away from what the first mode included but cannot be represented in the second‖ (―One or Many‖ 36) The same is ultimately true for media combinations. In terms of print, the term media combinations itself, where two or more media are present in their own materialities, is something of a contradiction. If materiality is taken to be the result of an interplay between a material support, a medium‘s conventional signifiers and the interpretive strategies of the author/reader, a combination where both materialities are present could be said to be impossible. As Hayles suggests, materiality is dynamic and, as such, is not predictable.
A certain level of abstraction is thus necessary when discussing the concept, in order for it to remain productive. We may assume that correspondences will exist between examples of media that largely make use of a combination of a given semiotic system and material support, much like we may also assume that to change either of these elements, is to alter the materiality overall. Such a concession still renders the concept of media combinations problematic. The materiality of each medium involved can only potentially exist in the form of a contiguity, but even in such cases, if media are combined to create one object, the materialities are subject to change via the juxtaposition of elements. In this sense, a distinction should be made between materiality and commonalities shared by material
supports that may enable semiotic systems to combine.
I would thus suggest that in terms of print media, a conception of media combinations implicating more than one semiotic system is reliant on the acknowledgement of these commonalities between print texts, while maintaining that materiality cannot be replicated. N. Katherine Hayles, for example, maintains fundamental differences between print and digital texts, suggesting that while ―print is flat, code is deep‖ (Hayles 75). She suggests that ―code always has some layers that remain invisible and inaccessible to most users‖, but ―all the words and images in the print text are immediately accessible to view‖ (75). If we can generalise to this extent, we may then begin to ask how print-based medial systems may be combined with others.
Despite the differences between print and code, ―virtuality‖ is a concept that is thought to be inherent to print as well. The availability of static elements is reliant on the reader to make connections, thus opening up what Wolfgang Iser has referred to as ―the virtual dimension of the text‖ (Iser 54). Johanna Drucker has likened this virtuality to that of digital texts, suggesting that ―the espace [the combination of elements] of the page arises as a virtual program, interactive, dialogic, dynamic in the fullest sense.‖ (Drucker n. pag). Thus,
texts are viewed as virtual via the coded means by which their various elements instruct the reader. With this in mind we may view phenomena to be combinative in the semiotic sense, if they draw from a different conventional system than that of comics, and any new means by which the reader is encouraged to make connections between interacting elements, via the different ways in which the codes are to be performed.
For this reason, rather than the term media combinations, I will instead use the term
combinative features, to refer to any element borrowed from another conventional medium,
whether material or semiotic. These features may be distinguished by the functionality they provide. However, while acknowledging that varying versions of print offer enough commonalities to combine signifying systems, the wider construction of a work must be borne in mind. It is here that the concept of media dominance may be useful. In terms of affordances, media might combine signifying systems at the loss of at least one form of materiality, but will also necessary alter that of the dominant medium, if one remains. With this in mind, the means by which comics‘ vocabulary may be extended via the combination of features from other media, and the extent to which such combinative features may represent burgeoning new medial forms, may be explored. Before this is possible, however, it is necessary to provide an outline of what a ―system‖ of comics entails.
Comics as a System of Codes
The leading proponent of comics as a system is Groensteen‘s The System of Comics
(System hereafter). Core to the system, as proposed by Groensteen is the concept of ―iconic
solidarity‖, which refers to the quality of panels being related in some sense, despite their separation. With regards to this separation, Groensteen distinguishes between the ―sequence‖ and the ―series‖. The former is reserved for elements linked in terms of narrative succession, while the latter operates on a translinear basis, marked by images that share ―some iconic, visual, or semantic element in common‖,12 (178). These relationships between numbers of panels are governed by two major principles: ―restrained arthrology‖ refers to the linear semantic relationships between panels, and ―general arthrology‖ posits comics as networks, made up of correspondences between panels in nonlinear series.
The systematicity of Groensteen‘s approach comes from its focus on organisational devices. The panel, the lowest reference unit of the system, is provided with three core parameters: its form, its size and its position on the page. Each panel is said to occupy a ―site‖, designated by the sequence of panels presented by the author (the ―breakdown‖). It is suggested that when a given panel is met with correspondences with others outside of linear sequence, it may also be considered a ―place‖, which marks it as part of a networked series. These sites and places themselves are said to represent coordinates within the ―spatiotopia‖, a concept representing all of the potentialities of space throughout a comic in its entirety. It is on the basis of these principles that Groensteen‘s now well-known dictum that ―every panel exists, potentially if not actually, in relation with each of the others‖ (146) arises.
12
Groensteen also adds the ―string‖, defined as ―a seemingly random succession of images‖ (Groensteen), likely to be found in abstract comics.
Much of Groensteen‘s system concerns itself with various containment units, whether elaborate or implied, that collaborate with their contents. These containment units consist of those housing visual content such as frames (which ascend in terms of inclusivity, from those housing single panels, to the page or ―hyperframe‖, to the totality of a comic‘s pages or ―multiframe‖), and to those housing textual content, such as speech balloons and caption boxes. For Groensteen, the frame may exert various core functions over the content it houses, which are not thought to be exhaustive: it serves to delimit the contents of a panel, to separate a given panel from those neighbouring it, to establish rhythm, to play its part in structuring layout (and to direct the reading path), and to comment on the contents of a panel via some expressive means.13
If, here, I do not insist on repeating Groensteen‘s functions of the ―verbal‖,14 it is because I do not consider the term to do justice to the various forms textual elements may take in comics. We may look to the work of Alison Bechdel or Posy Simmonds as examples of the heterogeneous ways in which text may be employed. Comics such as these form the basis of Hannah Miodrag‘s suggestion that various types of text, or ―lexias‖ may dominate the pictorial content, but the textual fragments nevertheless rely ―on the visual organizational devices of the comics form to properly clarify what the textual content is telling us‖ (Miodrag 267). These organisational devices are said to be often ―semantic without being pictorial‖ (Drucker 14).
Despite Groensteen‘s assertion that neither visual codes nor verbal codes are to be privileged, his approach actively subordinates the text to iconic content. For example, his discussion of the ―relay function‖ of the verbal, which Barthes describes as instances in which words and images are ―fragments of a more general syntagm and the unity of the
13 Groensteen also adds the trivial function of the ―readerly‖, which designates that the contents of a panel are
something to be read. (Groensteen 57)
14
The term ―verbal‖ is adopted throuhgout system as opposed to the ―written‖, as the verbal in comics is considered to be more akin to film than literature.
message is realized at a higher level‖ (qtd. in Groensteen), would seem to insist on reinforcing the role of text as mere anchorage, granting the text a ―suturing function‖ in that it may provide a bridge between images. However, as the speech balloon is said to possess many of the functions of the frame, as a fellow container, it seems unnecessary to subordinate the contents of those housing visual, verbal or other codes to any other. A speech balloon housing an image, for example, would not detract from its status as an utterance for the purposes of the story, much like a panel full of text may shape narrative succession.
I will thus align myself with Groensteen‘s elaboration of the core functions of comics various organisational devices, but rather than considering the comics system to be an original combination of one or two ―subjects of expression‖ (image and word) and ―a collection of codes‖ (Groensteen 6), I suggest that in order to not limit any mutations of the system, the notion of code be extended to the contents of comics‘ many containers. The term
code may then refer to primarily visual, verbal or organisational elements that are not
mutually exclusive in terms of function.15
Charles Hatfield has suggested that this combination of codes is one of four fundamental ―tensions‖ inherent to comics, that render them unstable and fragmented: ―between codes of signification; between the single image and the image-in-series; between narrative surface and page layout, and, more broadly, between reading as experience and the text as material object.‖ (Hatfield 36)16 The first tension, code vs. code, arises through the co-presence of a variety of codes (word and image for example) and learned assumptions about the ways in which they are to be interpreted. Hatfield draws a visual/verbal distinction through which codes that ―show‖ (those that purport to depict) interact with those that ―tell‖ (text-based narration, dialogue etc.). On the basis of the tendency to conflate these functions
15 Despite Drucker‘s assertion, frames are often pictorial as well as structural. In Tove Jansson‘s Moomin, for
example, trees, doors, and even hose pipes create natural frames between panels in strips.
16 While Hatfield‘s tensions are titled by the term image, the tensions should be viewed as nested (i.e. the
tension between codes is present in questions of sequence and surface, and all codes necessarily contribute to the materiality of a comic).
in comics, this tension is equated to the ―clash and collaboration of different codes of
signification‖ (Hatfield 41), which assume a knowing reader. The tension thus anticipates the
ways in which comics collapse the word/image dichotomy, and the means by which tension may be generated by different textual sections, or via the use various types of image.
The notion of combinations of codes may also potentially anticipate the introduction of codes drawn from other medial systems, a suggestion that is aided by Hatfield‘s fourth tension. The inclusion of the fundamental tension between the reading experience and an awareness of comics as objects may help to explain the means by which comics integrate such systems, while often remaining the dominant medium in play. In other cases, this tension may bridge the absence of certain elements as well. It should be noted that not all comics employ words, outside of the contributions of their paratexts. This development to comics‘ system can largely be seen as a reaction to the view that comics must include text, the absence of which relieves comics of the ―plurimedial foundation‖ (―Intermediality" 52) that Rajewsky and Wolf presumably view to characterise comics. That such a development be surmountable is, in no small part, the result of comics already being recognised as such in various formats, the relationships between which extend beyond mutations to a semiotic system17.
This being said, by viewing the page as simply a unit within the totality of a larger whole, the system is able to surmount many ambiguities posed by outlying examples of comics that may seem to flout traditional layouts or word/image combinations. For example, Roy T. Cook asserts that Batman #663, an issue that features single illustrations amidst blocks of text, is still a comic. Cook argues that if the issue had stood as a single object in its own right, then it would not be. As part of a long-running series, however, which does follow
17
The arrival of wordless comics has also led to connections being made with media of the past that bare a resemblance, such as Milt Gross‘ 1938 wordless novel He Done her Wrong. Gross‘ novel was itself a reaction to the woodcut novels of the time, that Baetens and Frey suggest have been recognised as precursors of the graphic novel since it became an established format.
established conventions18, it can be considered a comic. If this single issue is viewed as part of a larger whole, the disregard of common formal features may be attributed to the temporary use of the page as the primary framing device.
Thus, while Groensteen‘s system and Hatfield‘s tensions would seem to pit systematicity against instability, they are more or less complementary19. Where in System Groensteen adopts the panel as the smallest signifying unit (other than the verbal it would seem), Hatfield‘s tensions start with the playoff between predominantly visual and verbal codes found in panels.20 The notion of multiple codes is useful in terms of anticipating the means by which image and word blend into one another and how they may collaborate with other forms of code. The term tension proves useful in describing the felt instability arising from the, potentially, multiple functions that a given comics element can have at one time. In this respect, Groensteen‘s System gains its value via its elaboration on the processes involved in comprehending the structural relationships between various containment units (such as panels, frames and speech balloons), and the manner in which they enable the various codes to interact. With these two approaches in mind we may explore the means by which comics may make use of codes distinct from text and image, and into the realms of codes drawn from other conventional medial systems.
18
Comics are not the only media to employ framing devices such as panels, as children‘s picture books attest.In terms of making distinctions, the system may be backed by the terms of comics‘ production processes, distribution vehicles and, to no small extent, social consensus.
19 Groensteen acknowledges this in Definitions, one of his contributions to Ann Miller and Bart Beaty‘s The
French Comics Theory Reader.
20
Inasmuch as these codes are often housed by some kind of containment unit, the various functions of comics‘ organisational devices outlined by Groensteen, take place within Hatfield‘s first three tensions.
New Connections
It was previously suggested that print texts may be considered virtual by means of the functions of their systematic codes which instruct various forms of performance. Comics with their often literal spaces between panels, would appear to be the embodiment of the post-structuralist notion of ―filling the gaps‖ popularised by Wolfgang Iser21. Yet, in comics, space is not simply constructed and interpreted via the gaps (or lack thereof) between panels. Pascal Lefevre suggests that space can be conceived of in two primary ways: the diegetic sense, through any spatial configurations inside the panels, including the space behind the elaborated elements, and in an extradiegetic sense, including the space surrounding panels (the margins/inter-iconic space) and the space the readers themselves occupy. (Lefevre n. pag). Virtuality can then be said to characterise each of the processes involved in navigating space and, by extension, time in comics.
I suggest that a given phenomenon may be viewed as combinative in the semiotic sense if a comic is met with an added system, drawn from another conventional medium, which may often introduce new structures, or new structural processes to comics‘ system. As all elements of comics can be considered reproductions, to view the semiotic contributions of other print media as mere images would lead all evocations of other media to be classified as intermedial references, and as such would be insufficient. Thus, an approach taking the functional value added by new systems must be adopted. As such, the result often goes beyond a mere approximation of another medium, as will be seen.
I do not feel the need to elaborate on the specific systematic natures of these added media, for as the permeation of comics‘ boundaries attests, no conception of system with regards to medium in infallible. While added systematic codes from other media intrude on
comics‘ system, so too does comics on theirs for the duration that the combinative features comprise. Thus, system may be referred to broadly as ―a set of things that affect one another within an environment to form a larger pattern that is different from any of the individual parts‖ (Salen and Zimmerman 50). With this in mind, both musical notation and maps qualify as distinct systematic media.
Returning to Arrhenius‘ A-Z, through the use of inset panels, the maps don‘t simply represent the space that readers potentially find themselves in, but a diegetic space for the characters, and by extension the reader, to virtually explore. As the reader traverses the narrative fragments, in a sense, they are also journeying through London itself, as one might do with the Street Atlas. The map elements thus dramatically increase the diegetic space to that of ―London‖ itself. If the map of London is viewed as a form of microcosm, then the panels depicting the characters can be seen as magnifying specific, and necessarily brief, parts of it.
However, this experiment does not come without its ambiguities; there is significant tension between the depiction of space and time in A-Z. While comics are typified by their fragmentation, the same cannot be said of maps. The locational bridges that may be provided by redundancy and repetition in comics generally become problematic. In A-Z, a location may be repeated in various panels, at different points on the map. Given the scale of the map (6.71cm to 1km), the different positioning of panels may imply great distances have been traversed while the location inside the panels remains the same. Furthermore, the diameter of the insets themselves is 7.5cm, meaning that any correspondences between the panels and locations can be, at best, approximate.
As the panels depict hyper localised scenes, they may often cover the sites that they refer to. This makes it difficult to discern actual correspondences between the contents of the panels and the maps. For example on page 55 we see a dog running in the vicinity of the
Battersea area. Readers may be aware that Battersea is the home of the famous dog shelter of the same name. While in terms of the page they are proximate, the space between panels and location implies a far greater distance. Thus, there is a necessary tension between the positioning of the panels and the parts of the map they refer to, not least because in order for connections to be made, the location must remain visible.
The ambiguities caused by the combination of these systems also extend to the temporal. As A-Z reads as hypertext22, there is no beginning and no end, making the task of interpreting temporality difficult. As the varying positions of the map do not inherently represent variations in time, we can only perceive its passing, via the movements of the characters, the repetition of scenes with varying passers-by, and the points at which the character‘s vignettes intersect.
Despite the ambiguities of space and time, caused by the combinations of these systems, the prolonged use of panels over the (hyper)framed maps, represents an alternative form of navigation, judged not simply by the spatio-topical coordinates of the panels but by their positioning at specific points on the maps. Via the fragmenting of the maps into pages and the use of a grid, the paratextual index at the conclusion does not simply refer to page numbers and the relative positions of the panels, but to specific sections in a new system of coordinates: geographical ones.
22 In posing A-Z as a hypertext, I am acknowledging that it possesses the minimum characteristics of hypertexts
proposed by N. Katherine Hayles: ―multiple reading paths; some kind of linking mechanism; and chunked text‖ (Hayles 72)
If the structural effect of introducing maps into comics system is primarily spatial, the effect of the addition of musical notation may be said to be primarily temporal. V for
Vendetta’s ―This Vicious Cabaret‖ prelude, (Figure 2) has become something of a standard
example of musical notation in comics23. In this example, the page is turned on its axis as streams of functional vocal notation run alongside pairs of panels. The panels oscillate between showing V as the performer outside of the music and images depicting the lyrical content of the song.
The speech balloons provide a bridge between the panels, which intermittently cut back to V playing the piano. The diegetic status of the music is confirmed via the repetition of V and the reappearance of the lyrics within the panels, which serve to provide continuity as an additive to that of the notation. The repetition of lyrics in speech balloons can be viewed as a form of trade-off for those with knowledge of musical notation and those without. While the notation is enough to make any reader aware of the implication of ―music‖, it could potentially provide a reader familiar with the conventions of sheet music with additional information regarding the vocal style of the sequence, including rhythm and timing cues. However, the speech balloons require the reader to fixate at least momentarily on the panels, rather than following the sequence of music. Thus, there is a balance between maintaining the fluidity of the sequence by adhering to the (relative) dimensions of manuscript paper and ensuring that each section of the song is appropriately matched to the images that they represent or are represented by.
Musical notation is reliant on the continuous arrangement of its musical codes to maintain rhythm and timing, but it is notable that the panels force the notation to take a shape that it usually wouldn‘t. With regards to virtual space, the lines of notation fit comfortably above and below the panels. In this case, the reader may assume that the panels only cover
blank space as the bars of notation display continuity. It stands to reason, then, as both examples imply, that the codes adopted must be granted some degree of autonomy, while still being able to integrate with comics‘ traditional signifiers. This not to suggest that to grant this autonomy is subordinate features of comics to the added systematic codes, but merely that in order for an elaborate iteration of a system to be recognised as such, it may not be interrupted.
One common way of establishing this autonomy, as demonstrated by the examples, is to use inset panels, and to house the additional systems within the page. The page thus serves as an enveloping panel, endowing the housed insets with the logic of the added media and vice versa. It is also worth noting that the adopted systems are placed in the enveloping panels instead of the insets. It would seem that there is a clear motivation for this. As the space of the page is finite, to endow the added systems with autonomy in the forefront of the page (i.e. in the inset panels), would be to restrict the presence of other elements of the page, rendering them all but invisible to the reader. To this end, it makes sense to make the external systems responsible for the housing of the insets, especially given what they represent in context: pervasive sound and unbroken space respectively.
While the inset is a viable option for endowing the panel with the logic of other systems, the separation need not entail the use of inset panels, as will be seen. These examples display clear combinative features, via the elaborate inclusion of iterations systems in their entirety, but they are exceptions rather than the rule. Simpler variants of these systems may require less autonomy, integrating with the other elements of a page in a less invasive manner than the above examples. It is in these instances that the distinction between combinative features and intermedial references may become more difficult to discern.
The Test of Abstraction
As suggested the distinction between combinative features and intermedial references is often harder to discern than the previous examples would suggest. This difficulty may be viewed in in terms of the level of abstraction of the added systems. Jan Baetens has suggested that, in comics, abstraction can be defined as ―the process of challenging normally dominant features of comics—by putting those features to other, less orthodox uses.‖ (Baetens 104). Although it might seem contrary to Baetens‘ use of the term, given the elaborate nature of the systems used, a broad definition such as this allows the examples discussed to be viewed as abstractions of comics‘ signifiers. As combinative features can be considered dialogic, the notation in V for Vendetta not only places the music implied by the notation in the diegesis, but that notation finds both a performer and performance, whereas the maps in A-Z do not simply extend the diegetic space of the comic, they are grounded by the experience of the characters in the panels.
It is, however, the abstraction of the added systems that primarily concerns me in this instance and the manner in which they may challenge the functional distinction between combinative features and intermedial references proposed. The more these systematic codes themselves are abstracted, or freed from the representational functions they usually possess, the more likely the codes are to be interpreted as simply extensions of comics‘ conventional vocabulary. As such, we may also assume that the higher the degree of abstraction in terms of the borrowed systematic codes, the less relative autonomy those codes will require in terms of their traditional systematic functions. Thus, while the placement of elements of other medial systems within the structural units of comics is generally indicative of what Rajewsky calls a ―genuine integration‖ (as the alliance goes beyond a simple contiguity), combinative
features must still be viewed as a matter of degree, and must be articulated by the wider contexts in which they appear.
Chapter nine of Dave McKean‘s Cages titled, ―Chromatic Scale‖ (Figure 3) serves as an illustrative example of the observations above. This chapter sees otherwise regular panel arrangements alternating in presence over faded and hand-marked manuscript paper. The handmade markings on this paper never amount to an actual representation of performable music that one might recreate. This can be viewed as a reflection on the inability of print-based media to ever capture the performance-print-based nature of jazz. While this example alludes to a material convention of another paper-based medium, and could even be said to critique the medium in question with regards to its efficacy in terms of representing the nature of music, the degree of abstraction relieves it of notation‘s systematic functions.
The manuscript paper is not completely devoid of the function of notation, however, as it marks a clear separation between Angel‘s presence in the inset panels, and the ethereal musical thoughts behind, acting as a form of soundtrack. While the scrawl-like appearance of Angel‘s handwriting and the metaphoric use of imagery may enable us to comprehend the character of a sound, the signifiers used never truly leave the realms of comics. Despite this assertion however, Cages serves as an example of the means by which the abstraction of an added system might also result in an abstraction of comics features. If manuscript paper/notation is incapable of capturing the improvisational essence of jazz, so too is the iconic content in the panels. The manuscript paper thus marks a site of abstraction to both comics and notation.
Ultimately however, the reader is presented with an instance in which none of the traditional functions of notation are present, and as the manuscript paper designates a reproduction, via the implied damage to the paper, it serves as a framing unit, designating that the abstract elements within it are to be read ―as-if‖ they were music. As such this example
cannot be considered combinative in the strict sense, even if comics‘ traditional signifiers are used in an unorthodox manner as a result.
Figure 4: Muth, M
Figure 5: Johnston, Striking a Chord: A For Better or For Worse
An example that falls between V for Vendetta and Cages is Jon J. Muth‘s M, an adaptation of the 1933 Fritz Lang film of the same name. While the notation in V for
Vendetta displays significant structural changes to comics, examples of functional notation
need not be so ostentatious. M (Figure 4) includes short fragments of notation as the whistled tune is overheard by a bystander in the comic. Readers may recognise the notation, while somewhat abstracted, as the famously sinister whistling of Grieg‘s In the Hall of the
Mountain King, from Lang‘s film. The notation remains functional and may, in theory, be
whistled along with the comic‘s antagonist. In terms of retaining autonomy, the example opts to exploit comics‘ perceived division between visual/verbal tracks in a similar manner to the way in which speech balloons draw attention to the tension between surface and depth. As such, it is often the case in comics that the speech balloon house small sections of notation, such as in Lynne Johnston‘s For Better or Worse (Figure 5)
In certain cases, notation may not be fragmented but may instead be present in a form of shorthand. In Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life (Scott Pilgrim hereafter, Figure 6) one double page spread sees guitar chords and lyrics occupy the interionic space. In the top left hand side of the page on the left, a caption box playfully suggests that the song be played by the reader in 4/4 time and offers chord diagrams demonstrating the finger positioning of each chord. While it is now more common to find ―chords‖ and ―tabs‖ in the many user-populated archives found online, traditionally this simple form of guitar notation and its tablature variants were to be found in songbooks, requiring a level of familiarity with the content being reproduced. As the Scott Pilgrim example illustrates, additional cues pertaining to the style of the music are often provided.
While it is clear that the system invoked here is simpler than the vocal notation found in V for Vendetta, the set of codes used in combination, not only instruct a vague musical performance, but provide rhythm and timing cues that, although not particularly precise, the images would be unable to do alone. They also provide ironic commentary on the sequence, while the positioning and stances of the characters and the basement setting serve to evoke the aesthetic (for want of a better term) of garage rock.
With regards to the chords maintaining autonomy, allow me to recycle something that I previously wrote:
The margins provide the gravity of the sequence, pulling each of the disparate components of the page into one workable whole and compensating for a level of ―oneness‖ that would be obvious to the reader if they were watching/hearing a musical performance as opposed to reading one. (Brown 4)
While inset panels and verbal tracks represent two means of establishing autonomy,
Scott Pilgrim offers a different route, opting to house the chords in the margins and to link the
margins to the central image which stands metonymically for large durations of the ―song‖. While this layout arguably achieves a counterintuitive level of cohesion via the beams of energy, that effectively extend or animate the interionic space, given the simplicity of this form of notation, it is not inconceivable to imagine a more sequential example using the same (sub)system to instruct timing, without the plurality of directions and linkages.
John Krygier and Denis Wood‘s Ce n’est pas le monde (This is not the world) (Ce
n’est pas le monde hereafter, Figure 7), an essay in comic form, asserts that maps are
propositions as opposed to direct representations. I would suggest, however, that despite the content of the comic, which asserts that maps are too complex to be conceived of as images, the maps here are, within the purposes of the comic, to be taken as images. It is not that the maps do not assert relations between different parts of a larger whole, it is more that the functional value of these part-images of maps, serve only to frame the discourse of the commenters in the panels, whose placement within the inset/offset panels, seems rather arbitrary. In the wider context of the comic, however, we could say that it is part of a larger combinative whole, as this comic section is inserted in an otherwise standard academic textbook.
A map-based equivalent of the short hand found in Scott Pilgrim example is Joe Sacco‘s Safe Area Goražde (Figure 8). The maps are encamped firmly within the panel and are divided into imprecise sections that the captions surrounding the maps serve to expand upon. However, these maps are, in effect, extended by the drawn experiences of Sacco. This sense of the experience of space has been described as ―mapping‖. Edward C. Holland has suggested that the use of maps in Safe Area Goražde serve more to enable mappings, or experiences of space, rather than to replicate the navigational functions of maps alone. As such the maps/mappings provide a subjective window of insight into complex geopolitical events. In this sense, Safe Area Goražde can be compared to the combination of maps/mappings in A-Z, although the maps and drawn elements are less entwined in the formal sense.
While the degree to which an added system may be abstracted may blur the boundaries of combinative features, we might view this phenomenon as part of the wider category of ―style‖ in comics. In the examples featuring notation, perhaps the most remarkable aspect was the extent to which comics characteristic signifiers and those drawn from notation combined to represent the style of music being represented overall, even if this was achieved via absence in Cages. Not only does style provide a means of gauging the motivation behind the use of a given intermedial feature, but, as we shall see, it also may allude to the use of other media in the production process, as two of the previous examples,
M and Ce n’est pas le monde, which both appear to bare traces of photography, testify. Style
