Material culture: Speculation

In the last 20 years, scholars have taken up a number of theoretical explorations about comics and their relations with their creators, and their audiences. The primary field of engagement lies in "popular culture studies." But the study of comics as a mass medium tends to sit uncomfortably next to consideration of comics as an art form. Mass communication or individual expression? Disciplinary scholarship seems to prefer one or the other, but not both together.

Prown was helplessly prescient -- "diversions" are damnably miscellaneous. To explore the mentalité of comics, two projects suggest themselves.

Of all the available research directions, a particular gap at least in the English language has been the lack of a discourse on the matter of reading comics, a topic much discussed in continental Europe. For the adept creator, telling a story in comic form is simple enough in technical terms. This kind of creator and the small audience passionate for more challenging work have set out an agenda for more difficult comics. More "adult" comics if you will -- adult in style, form and ambiance rather than sexually lurid or explicitly violent. Comics with special effect rather than special effects.

Some experimental (genre-busting?) comics are surveyed in the following catalogue, with an eye to considering what these experiments may suggest for communications in a wider world where graphic innovation in the service of attention-grabbing and attention-holding is all the rage.

A second research direction is the study of the mental world of certain kinds of comics in relation to the perceived world of daily life. Comics are graphic commentaries by their creators, and even the least visually sophisticated is a comment on the world of its artist. Small children who live in urban apartment buildings depict "home" as a gable-fronted house surrounded by acres of greenery. Maybe the background of a panel of a superhero comic can tell us how the artist and his or her audience think about the world they see when they lift their eyes from the page.

DESCRIPTION

DEDUCTION

Next: Other ways of "looking" at comics.

		Ephemeral landscapes: material culture: an analytical model Speculation

`back to the beginning of "MIND IN MATTER"`		In the last 20 years, scholars have taken up a number of theoretical explorations about comics and their relations with their creators, and their audiences. The primary field of engagement lies in "popular culture studies." But the study of comics as a mass medium tends to sit uncomfortably next to consideration of comics as an art form. Mass communication or individual expression? Disciplinary scholarship seems to prefer one or the other, but not both together. Prown was helplessly prescient -- "diversions" are damnably miscellaneous. To explore the mentalité of comics, two projects suggest themselves. Of all the available research directions, a particular gap at least in the English language has been the lack of a discourse on the matter of reading comics, a topic much discussed in continental Europe. For the adept creator, telling a story in comic form is simple enough in technical terms. This kind of creator and the small audience passionate for more challenging work have set out an agenda for more difficult comics. More "adult" comics if you will -- adult in style, form and ambiance rather than sexually lurid or explicitly violent. Comics with special effect rather than special effects. Some experimental (genre-busting?) comics are surveyed in the following catalogue, with an eye to considering what these experiments may suggest for communications in a wider world where graphic innovation in the service of attention-grabbing and attention-holding is all the rage. A second research direction is the study of the mental world of certain kinds of comics in relation to the perceived world of daily life. Comics are graphic commentaries by their creators, and even the least visually sophisticated is a comment on the world of its artist. Small children who live in urban apartment buildings depict "home" as a gable-fronted house surrounded by acres of greenery. Maybe the background of a panel of a superhero comic can tell us how the artist and his or her audience think about the world they see when they lift their eyes from the page. DESCRIPTION DEDUCTION Next: Other ways of "looking" at comics.
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