Landscapes of the page

Following Baxandall (1985), to understand comics, like any other medium and artifact of communication, one needs a knowledge of background information, some training, and even previous reading of the form. But communication is imperfect. None of this knowledge can guarantee that transmitter and receiver will have a common understanding of the message. As well, comics is also a form of expression -- defined here as a socially sanctioned (at least tolerated) presentation or transmission that doesn't need to have any other purpose than to grab attention (though it often does have other traits). To comprehend the aesthetics of comics is to try to come to terms with both its communicative and expressive roles together.

Both in spite of and because of the ease of computer creation and mechanical and electronic reproduction, the printed form of comics has thrived in the last couple of decades, both inside and outside the commercial production houses and publishers, and even with the help of the Internet and worldwide Web. Yet there is much gnashing of comic teeth that the consumption of comics is a mere fraction of what it was in its "Golden Age" -- defined with astonishing precision to have lasted from May 1933 to October 1954. The start date was the publication of the first compilation of "funny-paper" strips, Famous Funnies, that was sold at newsstands. The end date was the establishment of the Comics Code Authority, the cooperative censor bureau set up by the larger comic publishers. The oft-cited annual sales figure for American comic books in their heydays in the early 1940s and again in the early 1950s was a nice, round, one billion copies.

(According to Beerbohm & Olson, even this definition of Golden Age is not pure, and should acknowledge the postwar transformation of the comic audience -- all those demobilized GIs -- as the beginning of the "Atomic Romance Age" in 1946.)

What may distinguish the so-called Golden Age from the baser metals we have to live with these days (even the Bronze Age was over at least 20 years ago), might be the producer/consumer ratio. There have always been a great many comic-book companies, but as corporate consolidations reduce their numbers at the "top", there is a vast and growing number of still independent, small-scale publishers and individual writers and artists able to take advantage of small-scale computerization. According to the stores, there are many fewer consumers than in the golden years, but apparently no fewer producers. There are no statistics available to support this proposition (at least none that showed up for this study). What's different these days compared to, say, 30 years ago, is the huge number of aspiring and skilled artists who can whip out a title in quantity with their graphics tablet, inkjet printer and local copy shop without having a "publisher" at all.

Curiously, despite rapid advances and dropping costs for real-time and hyperrealistic 3D animation, the "simplified" graphic forms and conventions of "traditional" pen-and-ink comics/comix remain popular, strong and effective tools to tell stories and to enhance storytelling, even for the most "sophisticated" audiences

This fondness -- for instance, for a comic "Golden Age" that produced an awful lot of landfill -- may be nostalgia, or it may be that certain old styles do a verifiably better job getting across complex messages and ideas (is this what postmodernism is at heart?). The simple graphic "comic" style lets the reader fill things in, even encourages the reader to fill things in. Hyperrealism has "wow" value, but perhaps not long-term value.

Or, perhaps it is because all of us draw ("things") before we can write (symbols of "things").

How are comics so modern and so nostalgic, at the same time?

		Ephemeral landscapes: of the page . . . The inside view of comics

`back to the beginning of Landscape OF the page` `check out some of the REFERENCES`		Following Baxandall (1985), to understand comics, like any other medium and artifact of communication, one needs a knowledge of background information, some training, and even previous reading of the form. But communication is imperfect. None of this knowledge can guarantee that transmitter and receiver will have a common understanding of the message. As well, comics is also a form of expression -- defined here as a socially sanctioned (at least tolerated) presentation or transmission that doesn't need to have any other purpose than to grab attention (though it often does have other traits). To comprehend the aesthetics of comics is to try to come to terms with both its communicative and expressive roles together. Both in spite of and because of the ease of computer creation and mechanical and electronic reproduction, the printed form of comics has thrived in the last couple of decades, both inside and outside the commercial production houses and publishers, and even with the help of the Internet and worldwide Web. Yet there is much gnashing of comic teeth that the consumption of comics is a mere fraction of what it was in its "Golden Age" -- defined with astonishing precision to have lasted from May 1933 to October 1954. The start date was the publication of the first compilation of "funny-paper" strips, Famous Funnies, that was sold at newsstands. The end date was the establishment of the Comics Code Authority, the cooperative censor bureau set up by the larger comic publishers. The oft-cited annual sales figure for American comic books in their heydays in the early 1940s and again in the early 1950s was a nice, round, one billion copies. (According to Beerbohm & Olson, even this definition of Golden Age is not pure, and should acknowledge the postwar transformation of the comic audience -- all those demobilized GIs -- as the beginning of the "Atomic Romance Age" in 1946.) What may distinguish the so-called Golden Age from the baser metals we have to live with these days (even the Bronze Age was over at least 20 years ago), might be the producer/consumer ratio. There have always been a great many comic-book companies, but as corporate consolidations reduce their numbers at the "top", there is a vast and growing number of still independent, small-scale publishers and individual writers and artists able to take advantage of small-scale computerization. According to the stores, there are many fewer consumers than in the golden years, but apparently no fewer producers. There are no statistics available to support this proposition (at least none that showed up for this study). What's different these days compared to, say, 30 years ago, is the huge number of aspiring and skilled artists who can whip out a title in quantity with their graphics tablet, inkjet printer and local copy shop without having a "publisher" at all. Curiously, despite rapid advances and dropping costs for real-time and hyperrealistic 3D animation, the "simplified" graphic forms and conventions of "traditional" pen-and-ink comics/comix remain popular, strong and effective tools to tell stories and to enhance storytelling, even for the most "sophisticated" audiences This fondness -- for instance, for a comic "Golden Age" that produced an awful lot of landfill -- may be nostalgia, or it may be that certain old styles do a verifiably better job getting across complex messages and ideas (is this what postmodernism is at heart?). The simple graphic "comic" style lets the reader fill things in, even encourages the reader to fill things in. Hyperrealism has "wow" value, but perhaps not long-term value. Or, perhaps it is because all of us draw ("things") before we can write (symbols of "things"). How are comics so modern and so nostalgic, at the same time?
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The inside view of comics