Given what we've read so far, I'd like to limit my discussion of McCloud's work to it's significance to the American masculine manifestations in comic books, with a focus on the readership. As we've discussed before, as significant as the complexities and nuance of sequential art may be, our examination of masculinity within the 20th century (within a very specific historical context) limits what we might take from McCloud signnificantly, so for the moment we can put discussions of comic books' predecessors to the side. If we must limit ourselves, however we should at least examine McCloud's analysis of iconography, and closure, with a focus on the readership in addition to the contexts, etc. I should note that outside of a strict craft-based approach my visual analysis capabilities are rather limited so anything more than a superficial understanding of some of your notations (kinetic v. sequential, specifically Eisenstein, film, etc) requires a significantly different depth and background to discuss.
Before I discuss iconography, let me clarify why I limit myself to so narrow a term. McCloud's discussion of the vocabulary of comics makes a point regarding Magritte's "The Treachery of Images". Now, I have to preface myself by saying that I being unfamiliar with Magritte and the critical analysis surrounding this particular painting, I'll have to resort to using an analogous example in American politics in order to discuss this point. If we are to make any cultural analysis of the United States, or the West during the 20th century, we must look to the aspect of mechanization, specifically the mechanization of language. This is the course that the American government steadily adopted from FDR's administration on; a model heavily based on modular systems, accompanied by a language that, as Dean Achenson said, should "sweep through [your] administration like a blunderbuss", which is to say that language, theory, and action all become confined (concentrated? simplified? this evolution of language is still up for debate in the policy world... but that's another course) into key phrases, like "insurgency", "reconstruction" or "war on terror". I use this example as symptomatic of an ultimately greater condition of material existence (mechanization "won" WW2 after all- one can argue it's continual novelty) on representation. What does this mean for comics, and the masculine iconography manifested within? Well, given the historical context of WW2, the Interwar period, and later on into Vietnam, we see a society driven by mechanization on all strata (television, brand names, etc.) meaning that it is certainly possible for characters like Captain America to reach iconic status, encapsulating a set of very specific values regarding the paternalism we discussed earlier. McCloud also points out that the method of representation is important to the accessibility of characters to the audience, ranging from the realistic (and thus less accessible) to the abstract and iconic. While McCloud's argument on the subject of representation is important, I feel that iconography doesn't necessarily have to fit within this limited spectrum. Captain America, Superman, or any superhero can reach iconic status and remain leaning on one side of the spectrum. Instead we can say that it is perhaps the method in which ideas become systemized into these symbols that makes icons, in this case. Style, though impossible to divorce from the icon, is perhaps more significant in a literary sense, but then again this might simply be subjective of my context. With this in mind, from the "golden age" until rather recently, masculinity in iconographic representation is a thread easily teased out of the sinewy constructs of superheroes emblazoned with almost heraldic color schemes. (Captain America: red white and blue, the flash with the red of virility, etc) A question I have regarding the mechanization of language is to what extent is mechanization part of a masculine identity? One might arge that the physicality of mechanization makes it so, but there is also an element of dehumanization which speaks to a gender neutral aspect. One might also contrast it
Regarding closure, McCloud correctly asserts a significant trait in the American comics medium, the reliance or proclivity action to action, with scene to scene and subject to subject as a simple glue to hold scenes together. Now, the sexualization (excuse my lacking vocabulary... gender divide perhaps?) of this methodology might easily be placed within the masculine realm, in it heavy physicality, and given the context of the material that we're reviewing, it privelages the attributes of the young male: almost unrelenting action, in addition to appropriating him through iconography. After all, in recalling golden age comics, one can hardly avoid the image of Captain America socking a Nazi henchman. In comparison to eastern styles of manipulating closure, one might say that my argument falls apart, however it is important to realize that masculinity ultimately places itself in different locations in society based on specific material means available, in addition to a strong sense of history and art that comes with Japanese comics. What does the masculinization of a certain style of manipulating clsure mean when we discuss the readership? Perhaps it is possible to ascertain to whom particular pieces might appeal to, although I would argue that the American closure style is symptomatic rather than marketed. Given our previous discussion about the paternal appeal of Captain America, there might also be able to make some conclusions about the maturity of the readership given the level of participation necessary for such a closure style, however this leads us into the same trap. Regardless, until we can further "unpack" (I have not had one professor not use this word) the readership, closure, the primary mechanism for readership participation, remains key, is somewhat elsusive to me at this moment.
Monday, March 24, 2008
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art.
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art.
This is more of a formal history of comics (a singular noun) than it is an analysis of the subculture of comics readers. McCloud defines comics as “Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.”
n This definition includes Pre-Colombian art, some Ancient Egyptian scrolls, and the work of Rudolphe Topfer in the mid-1800s, William Hogarth, etc.
n Broad enough to include many different visual media – drawing, photography, painting, design – but narrow enough that single frame cartoons wouldn’t fit
Some formal elements:
n The Vocabulary of Comics
o Icons
o What we see on the page is a representation of a thing, of sounds, of smells, of touch, etc. – it is not the thing itself (ex. Magritte)
o the continuum of realism to iconography and the strengths/weaknesses of both
o Modes of identification – the more real an image is, the less we’re able to identify with it? Relate this to film theory – Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” – what about “the gaze”
n The Gutter
o The space in between frames and what it allows – the ways in which it gives the spectator/reader agency is creating a custom-made narrative in parallel with the narrative being shared by the comics itself.
o Closure vs. Suture
o Modes of narrative structure:
§ Panel to panel
§ Action to action
§ Subject to subject
§ Scene to scene
§ Aspect to aspect
§ Non-sequitur
o Western storytelling (American, European) vs. Japanese and the ways in which the ratios of narrative structuring differ – i.e. Western uses more panel to panel and action to action, but Japanese also uses more of the aspect to aspect and non-sequiter
o Japanese comics also pays more attention to negative space and silence than Western does
n Time
o How does time work in comics differently than it does in film? Think D.W. Griffith and Eisenstein here!
o Ways of representing time – series of similar frames, one long frame, icon of time passing, bleeds (open frames)
o How this is related to Muybridge and pre-cinematic experiments (for example, through representations of speed)
n Lines
o The emotion of lines
o Synaesthesia
n Words versus images and how we master the balance between both is determined by how a few things:
o Reader participation and the degree to which the artist wants that
o How much needs to be explained (the reader’s ability to read icons)
o What the narrative means to say
o Who’s speaking
o What the picture depicts
n The Six Steps
o Idea/Purpose
o Form
o Idiom
o Structure
o Craft
o Surface
n Color
This is more of a formal history of comics (a singular noun) than it is an analysis of the subculture of comics readers. McCloud defines comics as “Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.”
n This definition includes Pre-Colombian art, some Ancient Egyptian scrolls, and the work of Rudolphe Topfer in the mid-1800s, William Hogarth, etc.
n Broad enough to include many different visual media – drawing, photography, painting, design – but narrow enough that single frame cartoons wouldn’t fit
Some formal elements:
n The Vocabulary of Comics
o Icons
o What we see on the page is a representation of a thing, of sounds, of smells, of touch, etc. – it is not the thing itself (ex. Magritte)
o the continuum of realism to iconography and the strengths/weaknesses of both
o Modes of identification – the more real an image is, the less we’re able to identify with it? Relate this to film theory – Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” – what about “the gaze”
n The Gutter
o The space in between frames and what it allows – the ways in which it gives the spectator/reader agency is creating a custom-made narrative in parallel with the narrative being shared by the comics itself.
o Closure vs. Suture
o Modes of narrative structure:
§ Panel to panel
§ Action to action
§ Subject to subject
§ Scene to scene
§ Aspect to aspect
§ Non-sequitur
o Western storytelling (American, European) vs. Japanese and the ways in which the ratios of narrative structuring differ – i.e. Western uses more panel to panel and action to action, but Japanese also uses more of the aspect to aspect and non-sequiter
o Japanese comics also pays more attention to negative space and silence than Western does
n Time
o How does time work in comics differently than it does in film? Think D.W. Griffith and Eisenstein here!
o Ways of representing time – series of similar frames, one long frame, icon of time passing, bleeds (open frames)
o How this is related to Muybridge and pre-cinematic experiments (for example, through representations of speed)
n Lines
o The emotion of lines
o Synaesthesia
n Words versus images and how we master the balance between both is determined by how a few things:
o Reader participation and the degree to which the artist wants that
o How much needs to be explained (the reader’s ability to read icons)
o What the narrative means to say
o Who’s speaking
o What the picture depicts
n The Six Steps
o Idea/Purpose
o Form
o Idiom
o Structure
o Craft
o Surface
n Color
Monday, March 17, 2008
Rading Captain America
Firstly, I'm glad we've gotten the rampant ivory tower rhetoric of homoeroticism between superheroes and their sidekicks.
Now, I'll address this issue as we move further into our negotiation with comics, but on the subject of bucky, regarding Captain America's visual representation when I discuss McCloud. Here we see McCloud's argument regarding iconographic representation in the cartoon style in practice, with an adolescent target audience, given the level of abstraction involved with depicting Captain America and Bucky's "Cartooniness" level. (now a part of deconstructionist theory might say that we've begun to have a wildly divergent system of representation if we were to take a control group of "general" comics today as opposed to the WW2 era-Golden age control group, but this is another discussion for another response).
Now McCloud gives us the basis of understanding in order to see how the Superhero-Sidekick dynamic might be effective in our examination of Gender given the particular context of the time Captain America and other comic book heroes were interwoven into the greater American narrative. (Now, I've confirmed that Joe Simon and Jack Kirby did indeed create Captain America in the 1940s) One this issue of fatherhood, we can easily see how a paternal narrative quickly becomes part of the overall militarization of society; Steve Rogers becomes an instrument of the military after all, and as we've discussed, in taking Bucky under his wing, the Captain America comics succeed in popularity perhaps due to how the comics addresses some basic wartime anxieties: the absence of a "proper" father figure in a challenged parternal system, which migh include his esmaculation, depending on his earning position/draft status in which by merit of being an American, the potential for strength is a part of the mythos (Steve Rogers was originally feeble) or deployment overseas in which case the abjection of the stable paternal system in wartime is shored up and reinforced, and thus filling a symbolic gap. Indeed, young boys become a part of the war effort in their own way, as a result.
Following Captain America's success, Joe SImon also took part in the creation of similiar comics such as the Newsboys Legion, and The Boy Commandos, with a similar narrative bent. On the other hand, however it might be interesting to note that in the inter-war period, such an unquestioningly partiotic appraisal of the American mythos did not continue as a strain in his work, as he would later revert to pulps that would capture the repressed imaginations of Americans living in the shadow of that American Golem. As Faulkner said during his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, the quesion "when will I be blown up?" does seem to drive us into writing "not of the heart but of the glands".
Now, on the racial/ethnic dimension I'll try to touch on very briefly; a snap assesment seems to tell me that the readership might primarily be urban, by merit of the geographic availability of comics, and thus potentially ethnicly defined in subordinate terms within the context of the period. This makes the "American creation myth" useful when negotiating the masculinity narrative as it presents itself in American comics. Furthermore, it is important to note the Jack Kirby is himself a kind of creation/recreation based on these social pressure, if we examine him through an ethosocial lens he is by definition a jew, with the birthname of Jacob Kurtzman.
I'm beginning to think it might be difficult to ignore this Jewish dimension. Is the Red skull perhaps representative of the paralell, and divergent trajectories of the Golem myth? Another question for another course.
Now, I'll address this issue as we move further into our negotiation with comics, but on the subject of bucky, regarding Captain America's visual representation when I discuss McCloud. Here we see McCloud's argument regarding iconographic representation in the cartoon style in practice, with an adolescent target audience, given the level of abstraction involved with depicting Captain America and Bucky's "Cartooniness" level. (now a part of deconstructionist theory might say that we've begun to have a wildly divergent system of representation if we were to take a control group of "general" comics today as opposed to the WW2 era-Golden age control group, but this is another discussion for another response).
Now McCloud gives us the basis of understanding in order to see how the Superhero-Sidekick dynamic might be effective in our examination of Gender given the particular context of the time Captain America and other comic book heroes were interwoven into the greater American narrative. (Now, I've confirmed that Joe Simon and Jack Kirby did indeed create Captain America in the 1940s) One this issue of fatherhood, we can easily see how a paternal narrative quickly becomes part of the overall militarization of society; Steve Rogers becomes an instrument of the military after all, and as we've discussed, in taking Bucky under his wing, the Captain America comics succeed in popularity perhaps due to how the comics addresses some basic wartime anxieties: the absence of a "proper" father figure in a challenged parternal system, which migh include his esmaculation, depending on his earning position/draft status in which by merit of being an American, the potential for strength is a part of the mythos (Steve Rogers was originally feeble) or deployment overseas in which case the abjection of the stable paternal system in wartime is shored up and reinforced, and thus filling a symbolic gap. Indeed, young boys become a part of the war effort in their own way, as a result.
Following Captain America's success, Joe SImon also took part in the creation of similiar comics such as the Newsboys Legion, and The Boy Commandos, with a similar narrative bent. On the other hand, however it might be interesting to note that in the inter-war period, such an unquestioningly partiotic appraisal of the American mythos did not continue as a strain in his work, as he would later revert to pulps that would capture the repressed imaginations of Americans living in the shadow of that American Golem. As Faulkner said during his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, the quesion "when will I be blown up?" does seem to drive us into writing "not of the heart but of the glands".
Now, on the racial/ethnic dimension I'll try to touch on very briefly; a snap assesment seems to tell me that the readership might primarily be urban, by merit of the geographic availability of comics, and thus potentially ethnicly defined in subordinate terms within the context of the period. This makes the "American creation myth" useful when negotiating the masculinity narrative as it presents itself in American comics. Furthermore, it is important to note the Jack Kirby is himself a kind of creation/recreation based on these social pressure, if we examine him through an ethosocial lens he is by definition a jew, with the birthname of Jacob Kurtzman.
I'm beginning to think it might be difficult to ignore this Jewish dimension. Is the Red skull perhaps representative of the paralell, and divergent trajectories of the Golem myth? Another question for another course.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Notes on Captain America
Notes from Captain America:
-- young sidekick, Bucky, as a key for the spectator to feel or identify with someone like him, a way into the narrative -- considering that the audience is perceived as adolescent and male, this may make sense.
-- female characters not helpless (i.e., "damsels in distress") and made more relevant because of the mission in which they're involved (for example, the WAC agent)
-- scenes of WWII battles lay out the foundation of Captain America's mission, but also serve a reflective role since these comics are coming out in the early-mid 1960s, during Vietnam
-- Criminals in this comic are typically simian-looking, which is interesting in the context of a longer history of the late 19th century (1860s-1890s) illustrated press. Often, immigrants (esp. Irish) depicted in same ways.
-- the transformation of Steve Rogers -- strength and power come from courage, resolve, patriotism, not the other way around
-- focus on freedom as essentially American, but what does that mean
-- also consider the physical builds of certain characters -- Americans are almost always proportional, while Nazis and other criminals are misshapen, short, or disfigured in some way
-- theme of sabotage and how we decide who is a saboteur and who is not (seems the dividing line has to do with values -- humanity over technology, community over the individual, etc.)
-- similarities between the Red Skull's story and that of Steve Rogers
-- also notice: there is a lot of explication of what's going on; nothing is implied and left open to spectatorial interpretation
-- Americans in these narratives are merciful, fair, believe in trial vs. immediate punishment
-- stories alter according to reader request?
-- NATO as the heroes in the 1960s narratives!
-- Stan Lee as a character in his own creation -- self-reflexivity
-- Who is Irving Forbush (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbush_Man)?
-- Issue 75 -- Steve Rogers as a lonely, melancholy figure -- loss of identity, disconnection from people -- does this prefigure some of the themes in Watchmen?
Areas for research:
At this point, what interests me most is the reader. Is it really an adolescent male audience and who are these boys? What is the subculture like? Where do they spend time? How do they exchange information? How might their own ideas of masculinity be reflected in these comics?
-- young sidekick, Bucky, as a key for the spectator to feel or identify with someone like him, a way into the narrative -- considering that the audience is perceived as adolescent and male, this may make sense.
-- female characters not helpless (i.e., "damsels in distress") and made more relevant because of the mission in which they're involved (for example, the WAC agent)
-- scenes of WWII battles lay out the foundation of Captain America's mission, but also serve a reflective role since these comics are coming out in the early-mid 1960s, during Vietnam
-- Criminals in this comic are typically simian-looking, which is interesting in the context of a longer history of the late 19th century (1860s-1890s) illustrated press. Often, immigrants (esp. Irish) depicted in same ways.
-- the transformation of Steve Rogers -- strength and power come from courage, resolve, patriotism, not the other way around
-- focus on freedom as essentially American, but what does that mean
-- also consider the physical builds of certain characters -- Americans are almost always proportional, while Nazis and other criminals are misshapen, short, or disfigured in some way
-- theme of sabotage and how we decide who is a saboteur and who is not (seems the dividing line has to do with values -- humanity over technology, community over the individual, etc.)
-- similarities between the Red Skull's story and that of Steve Rogers
-- also notice: there is a lot of explication of what's going on; nothing is implied and left open to spectatorial interpretation
-- Americans in these narratives are merciful, fair, believe in trial vs. immediate punishment
-- stories alter according to reader request?
-- NATO as the heroes in the 1960s narratives!
-- Stan Lee as a character in his own creation -- self-reflexivity
-- Who is Irving Forbush (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbush_Man)?
-- Issue 75 -- Steve Rogers as a lonely, melancholy figure -- loss of identity, disconnection from people -- does this prefigure some of the themes in Watchmen?
Areas for research:
At this point, what interests me most is the reader. Is it really an adolescent male audience and who are these boys? What is the subculture like? Where do they spend time? How do they exchange information? How might their own ideas of masculinity be reflected in these comics?
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