A few years ago, I realised that the traditional ways the comics medium is used to express ideas wasn’t working for me. Once this happened, I started thinking about how comics might better express what I want to say. I started thinking about what the medium is and its building blocks. Since then I have been continually pulling comics apart and trying to figure it out. I like to think about comics in new ways.

From an interview with New Zealand comics artist Draw on the Comics Addict blog (via Abstract Comics)

I guess I define collage broadly as the art of juxtaposition, and even though that’s hopelessly vague as an art-historical definition, it sort of makes sense when applied to comics, which are basically juxtapositions of little drawings, or juxtapositions of words and drawings, or words and a drawing, or maybe things in a single drawing.

Quote: John Hankiewicz, from an interview in Windy Corner Magazine.
Via Derik Badman, who posted a more extensive quote from the interview

Comics remain between the categories of bourgeois aesthetics. They are neither literature nor art. They lack the depth of a novel, the richness of a painting, the density of a poem, the detailedness of a photograph, and the motion of film. That all this is missing is only natural; otherwise comics would not be comics. But they do not really lack these specifics of other media. Comics emerge from a mixture. As Art Spiegelman once put it: comics are a com-mix, a mixture of words and images (Spiegelman 1988: 61f). As most people maintain, comics seen as commix contain rather too much than too little: too much is mixed up; there are too many series; and there are too many funny and funny moments.

By Ole Frahm, published on Image [&] Narrative way back in 2003.

I hope mr Frahm has gotten a broader perspective since then but, to be honest, even though I was taken aback by his opinion when I first read the essay, it does cover between 90 and 95 % of all comics published, then and now.

NB! I realise Frahm has relevant points to make but I have one too, which demands I look one-dimensionally at his essay.

Too many cartoonists carry a nostalgia embedded in their very understanding of the form, a throwback to one century ago when comics were still finding their feet as a mass medium. At that time comics were cheeky, brash, satirical, and exactly, as is natural in that situation, too much.

And that was their attraction, back then; as was the case in the ’60s when the underground movement decided to infuse their take on (a nostalgic reimagining of) comics with some healthy sex and drugs. They were just cónstantly on the edge.

But there were other comics in the early 20th century: Little Nemo, Krazy Kat (in its way “too much” but with a deeper layer); and more importantly, the work of people like Frank Masereel, Lynd Ward, and Charlotte Salomon. The latter might not have thought of their work as comics, yet their works precede and anticipate a freer form of “graphic novel” that is taking root in the works of Martin tom Dieck, Warren Craghead, and Lynda Barry.

There are other traditions to cling to than the ipertinence of the Katzenjammer Kids. Cartoonists, do take a good, hard look at Ole Frahm’s essay and ask yourself if you aren’t part of the problem he (also) outlines? Are you thriving on the controversy of being more impudent in a comic than you could be in written form?

Look then at our tradition, and do look beside what is only too well known from more than a century of newspaper dailies. Shout all you like that comics are per definition a) short-form, b) funny, and c) boundary-pushing satirical. I’m Danish, I’ve seen just how many boundaries cartoons can nudge before they break.

I see in the current (original) graphic novel market a trend that carries back to Töpffer, Masereel, and for that matter Palle Nielsen. And Eisner, Trina Robbins, the Crumbs, etc too, of course. But most of all I think modern age graphic novels (that is, big comic books) as understated expressions, ot too much at all!

The above is an attempt to outline the field definition of (what I, whithin my courses, accept as) comics, and I think it fits as well into its own definition as any graphic representation of information. But yeah, even I think I’m pushing the 30 Days envelope a bit with this one.

Next maybe I should try and define “story”? I’m always getting vague and mumbly when I teach narrative.

In comics, men of words hire men of images. The historical system of patronage is codified by capitalism and is supported by critics who use words and instinctively “read” comic text as though it is merely supported by images that stand in for verbal metaphors. In the arena of commercial art, class ties to and debases visual literacy and text reigns supreme.

From Marguerite Van Cook’s article Sublime Capital, Kirby, Lee, the Worth and the Worthy at The Hooded Utilitarian.

A clipping from the opening chapter to Ivan Brunetti’s Cartooning, Philosophy and Practice. The first paragraph I just happen to disagree with in every possible way, but the food metaphor that follows is just wonderful!

Side note: this and previous “Thought about Comics” snapshots are taken with my phone, and I apologise for the image quality. Consider it an incentive to buy the books I quote!

From Dave McKean”s preface to Pictures That Tick.

As I made it to the authors bio section, I was struck by Mark Badger‘s lengthy description. Basically, he recounts his travails from art school, through becoming a “comics pro”, to eventually falling out of that business.

Here’s an excerpt I found especially poignant:

Kirby Self Portrait, via the-quantum-blog.blogspot.com

I’ve been kind of vocal on Twitter (okay, very) about my disdain for Stan Lee’s increasingly demented claims to single-handedly creating the Marvel characters, and the poor treatment that Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby received after their departure from Marvel Comics – specifically with the past years’ slew of Hollywood adaptations of their creations.

In recent weeks two internet articles popped up that express rather precisely my stance on the matter; one, obviously biased by direct relation, is an open letter to Jack Kirby for Father’s Day from his son Neal. There is a lot of bitterness to be detected in the piece (but justifiably so, in my impression):

Unfortunately, for the past several years, some in the comics industry who have had the benefit of longevity have used the opportunity to claim to be the sole creator of all of Marvels’ characters. Must be great to be the last man standing.  It would seem that being backed by the public relations department of a large corporation buys access into the 24/7 news cycle.

The other mention is an article from the New York Times, basically starting its report by indirectly calling Stan Lee a con man:

The comic book industry began life in the early 20th century as the province of con men who stripped artists of their creations, then moved on to the next mark. The artists who were paid virtually nothing for work on characters that are now worth billions at the movies are nearly all dead.

Yeah, it’s put in general terms, but the entire body of the article is about the Kirby family’s legal claim against Lee for creator’s rights. Who else could they mean? The article goes on:

…In his 2010 deposition, Mr. Lee seemed to suggest that Mr. Kirby was little more than a talented foot soldier who followed the whims of his boss.

Mr. Lee sang a different tune during the Marvel glory years of the 1960s, when he sometimes described Mr. Kirby as an equal in the creative process. In a 1968 interview later quoted in The Comics Journal, Mr. Lee talked about brainstorming with Mr. Kirby, who, he noted, needed “no plot at all” to produce stories: “He just about makes up the plots for these stories. All I do is a little editing. … He’s so good at plots, I’m sure he’s a thousand times better than I.”

I won’t go on at length here, but I think Lee’s creative output since the break with Kirby kind of speaks for itself. The quality of his writing notwithstanding, he has mostly gotten attention in recent years by launching gimmicks like “Stripperella” and “The Governator”, drawing on celebrity franchises Pamela Anderson and Arnold Schwarzenegger, respectively.