Monday, October 10, 2011
A comic complication (HA)
In McCloud's "The Vocabulary of Comics" he makes some very interesting points, but I want to focus on his claim that "...when you enter the world of the cartoon, you see yourself." I find this to be very untrue and contradictory to what some of the others that we have read thus far have stated. Derida says that one of the cheif ways that we are able to understand something is by what it is not. Even as a small child, I understood that a cartoon was not real life and so it could not be me. I could sympathize and empathize with the plight of the characters, and would later pretend to be my favorite one when I was playing, but at no point in time was there any confusion as to whether what I was observing was reality or not. McCloud then goes on to make the point that we would not have listened to him as easily if he had drawn himself in full detail, which is probably true, but I would argue that the less detailed version is preferable because it is less intimidating and not because we are more ready to place ourselves into the less detailed version. Where the meaning is created for me is the more detailed version is a pretty nerdy guy who clearly knows a lot about comic books and the less detailed version is just some cartoon who is very approachable and very relaxed.
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I don't follow the same interpretation of McCloud's statement of becoming involved in cartoons. I believe it has more to do with the "simplified reality of the cartoon"(30). People have a more personal relationship with the cartoon because of the ability and opportunity the viewer has to fill in the blank spots with his/her reality, which actually more like a tool of persuasion. "Amplification through simplification" is what McCloud was trying to explain and show.
ReplyDeleteI follow what you're saying, Ariel, although I think the amplification through simplification can pose problems for a cartoonist. What I kept coming back to when thinking about that concept was what if a cartoonist amplifies something that an audience does not identify/sympathize with? I think McCloud proves that cartoons have tools that textual narration alone do not, but having those tools does not guarantee success.
ReplyDeleteOne comic that comes to mind for me is Dykes to Watch Out for, which is about a group of LGBTQ women and men living in the 1980's to present day. The cartoonist takes care to detail the background in such a way as to clue the reader in to the issues facing the LGBTQ community, as well as the political turmoil at a given time. I enjoy most of her detailing, because I am at least aware of most of the book titles she will have strewn on a desk, and sympathize with the frustration of the characters when a newspaper article is shown in the background slamming the gay community. If I were someone else who does not have the same ideological and political leanings as myself these details Alison Bechdel chooses to amplify could easily turn me off to the comic. I think looking at amplification as a tool of persuasion is the most productive and applicable, because an author can succeed and/or fail at persuading an individual without making them identify with a character.
I think a less-detailed cartoon character is a reversal of Walter Ong's concept of an author imaginig one's audience, which comments on agency and authorship: Drawing a cartoon with less detail gives the reader a chance to project his or her similarities onto the character, making it more approachable and easier to relate with; it's a case of the audience imagining itself and stepping into a non-traditional role of authorship-- taking agency within the piece itself as opposed to just the discourse surrounding a piece, and participating more than as a member of an imagined audience.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand... this agency never sees print, so maybe it's not much different than when I fill in details of characters I read about.
Waiiit.... filling in details opens the door to apophacy... Does drawing a cartoon character in less detail and leaving the reader room to complete a character make the character less of what the author intended or does it add to the character and so the piece and so the reader's interpretation? I mean, if the cartoon is already in print, one can only imagine so many details, and the story line is already in place, so maybe adding details in one's imagination doesn't detract from a character?
I have to agree with you on that point. As a child, there was no doubt in my mind that what I was seeing was fictional, though that didn't prevent me from wishing otherwise in some cases; I had a very active imagination. I think that every child eventually dreams about what they would do with superpowers.
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