Comics academia and myself went our separate ways a long time ago, even before I got to be online. Back in the early 90′s, I worked as a conscientious objector (that was the time when all Belgium’s sons had to spend a year in the army yelling “Bang !”) in the Arts library at the University of Leuven. That gave me plenty of time to dig up any and all articles about comics in the academic press. I devoured them insatiably: articles on semiotics, on the meaning of the “gutter”, on the history of the “Mannekensblad”, on Wertham (of course), Roger Sabin’s books on manga (still quite exotic at that time), early theses on Tintin and so on. And I got pretty bored. Even though I like a bit of theorising myself (as my wife will attest), it all seemed pretty dry and dusty to me, miles away from the excitement and enjoyment I got from comics (Sabin’s books being the exception to the rule). So you’ll understand that I felt a little weary when I got sent the first issue of European Comic Art, a new periodical by the Liverpool University Press (for which, I hasten to say, I am quite grateful).
(the first issue of European Comic Art, (c) Liverpool University Press)
ECA, as I will refer to it in full atonement with the current trend for three-letter acronyms, is a lofty endeavour. Its editors are connected to the universities of Glasgow, Miami and Leicester, and it’s got people like Sabin and Bart Beaty on its board. Hell, the consultative committee features about everyone who’s anyone in comics academia, if I’m correct (and then some, as Jean-Christophe Menu and Joost Swarte are also present, to keep it real, I guess). It also aims quite high, while trying to cover a very broad field, as its Submission Guidelines attest: it is “devoted to the study of European-language graphic novels, comic strips, comic books and caricature”. Special interest areas include manga, feminist comic art, wordless comics, Hergé, digital media and cartoonist collectives. I must say, I got pretty interested.
That interest was also kindled by the introduction by the editors, who lay out what ECA is all about: being “the only peer-reviewed, English-language journal dedicated to [European comics in all its forms]. We will provide analysis and updates on current and past works from a broad a variety of critical angles as possible, whether literary, sociological, semiotic, art-historical, cultural history, market-related, or indeed a mixture of these and other approaches.” The next sentence tops it off: “We aim to be scholarly but not dry, lively but not sensationalist, in short, readable but also viewable, with ample illustration”. In short: good quality.
The first issue of ECA really lives up to that goal. It starts of with a very interesting, involving article by Lance Rickman on comics that quite possibly inspired the Lumière brothers’ film, l’arroseur arrosé, arguably the first fiction film shown to a larger audience. Rickman goes on a real quest for comics with a similar theme, by cartoonists such as Achille Lemot, Christophe and Hermann Vogel, and marvels at the sophisticated style in both narration and art these cartoonists applied. Paul Gravett discusses an equally sophisticated narrative device, the continuous narrative, in which “the same character, at different stages of the action, can appear several times on a single page”, or indeed in a single frame. Taking an adaptation of Hamlet by Gianni De Luca as a main example, Gravett traces the sources of device as far back as fifteenth century proto-comics, and finds recent examples in the works of Alan Moore, Frank Miller and others.
(Les Mauvaises Gens by Etienne Davodeau, published Delcourt)
Clare Tufts examines narrative techniques and stylistic effects in Etienne Davodeau’s Les Mauvaises Gens, a biography of the author’s parents (regular contributor Katherine posted a review of it on her blog just a few months ago – Joe). She discusses who Davodeau uses page layout and a distortion of the narrated time to bring across his story, and also how this biographical story is at the same time essentially autobiographical. Matthew Screech writes about another Bande Dessinée master, Edmond Baudoin, and his Eloge de la poussière, an autobiographical comic that chooses not to be a story, but rather present the reader with fragments, not all of them necessarily reliable, collaged together in a ramble, without imposing meaning, interpretation or connections. I was particularly intrigued by Screech’s discussion of the conundrum of how and when to end an autobiography.
The issue ends (apart from the necessary reviews) with a transcription of Thierry Groensteen’s speech on the occasion of the publication in English of his System of Comics, which summarises his quite fundamental insights in the way comics work as a deliverer of meaning.
Wim Lockefeer lives in Belgium and when not contemplating the philosophical ramifications of the world of Plonk he writes extensively on comics culture and art; you can read more of his work on his own Ephemerist blog.
Mon, Aug 4, 2008
From our Continental Correspondent