Chris Gavaler's Blog, page 10

Daredevil & Black Lives Matter

George Zimmerman shot and killed unarmed seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin in February 2012 and, after a one-month trial, was acquitted of second-degree murder in July 2013, six months into Obama’s second term. In response, activist Alicia Garza posted “a love letter to black people” on Facebook and coined the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, which then appeared on Twitter about thirty times daily over the next six months. Seven years later, the hashtag would appear 3.7 million times per day during the month following George Floyd’s death in 2020.

Daredevil #28 (September 2013) was published the same week as Zimmerman’s acquittal and Garza’s post. Though writer Mark Waid, penciler and colorist Javier Rodriguez, and editor-in-chief Axel Alonso were not influenced by the verdict or any of the specifics of the trial, they conceived the two-issue court-focused story while Zimmerman was awaiting trial. Issue #28 introduces Nate Hackett, a short, overweight, round-faced defendant with a scraggly mustache and chin hair—characteristics similar to Zimmerman’s, though Rodriguez’s design does not suggest an exact counterpart.

Hackett, who bullied Daredevil alter ego Matt Murdock as a child, is dislikeable, someone Murdock describes as a “professional victim” who should wear an “It wasn’t my fault!” t-shirt. Murdock grudgingly agrees to help him in court, suggesting a similar dislike but reluctant acceptance of Zimmerman’s real-world plea too.

With the racial tensions of the Zimmerman trial as his national context, Waid reprises Marvel’s KKK counterpart, Sons of the Serpent. The organization had not made a major appearance in a Marvel story in five years. As some readers of this blog are aware, I’ve been studying the white supremacist stories off and on for over a year now; the group also appeared in 1966, 1970, 1975, 1991, 1994, and 2008. Waid must have had an interest in them because they make a very brief appearance the same month in The Indestructible Hulk #11 (September 2013), which he also scripted. More significantly, Waid scripted a two-issue Sons of the Serpent 1971 retcon story in Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty #8-9 (April-May 1999) — which I haven’t blogged about yet, but will soonish (it is shockingly bad in ways that I didn’t know a comic could be bad). But rather than referencing it, Waid alludes only to the 1975 Defenders story. Charged for being a former Sons of the Serpent member, Hackett sues for false arrest, arguing that his affiliation was protected as free speech and that he left before his “branch” became “political” and “terrorists.” Waid makes the KKK link explicit when Hackett explains: “I joined to light farts, y’know? Not crosses.”

Issue #28 concludes with the judge shooting Hackett — evidence that “racist fanatics have infiltrated the whole justice system,” since the bailiff, prosecutor, and court reporter collude in the attempted murder. Though all four appear white, Rodriquez’s skin color designs are not reductively Color-driven. Rodriquez assigns at least two shades for each face, creating naturalistic lighting effects that undermine earlier industry norms for designating race. Individual characters’ skin colors can change panel to panel, with members of multiple races and ethnicities sharing overlapping color ranges.

Rodriguez also establishes a multi-ethnic setting in the first scene, placing a dark-skinned janitor, two dark-skinned doctors, a blonde nurse, and an ethically indeterminate brown-haired woman in the background of a hospital scene on the second page. Two pages later, a Black food vendor and two possibly Asian pedestrians look up as Daredevil leaps across rooftops.

Since naturalistically rendered white skin is not necessarily distinguishable from Asian, Hispanic, or Black skin, white supremacists are more difficult to identify. Rodriquez exploits the ambiguity by introducing a female police officer wearing sunglasses below Daredevil’s narration: “and I don’t know who’s who.”

The officer appears Asian only after Rodriquez draws her in a close-up after she has removed her sunglasses five panels later. Rodriquez similarly undermines the race-denoting role of hair color. While some but not all of the White supremacist officers have blonde hair, a dark-skinned paramedic has presumably dyed his hair blonde. Noting their high heart rates, Daredevil’s go-to method for evaluating guilt, Daredevil accuses both the Asian officer and the Black paramedic of being Sons of the Serpent. The paramedic responds: “Do I look like a white supremacist?”

Though Daredevil is literally blind, his radar-like senses provide superior spatial awareness, lacking only in color. Rodriquez depicts his radar sense as maps consisting of parallel and evenly spaced pink contour lines giving shape to all objects which are uniformly dark blue with undifferentiated black backgrounds. Since Daredevil apparently cannot distinguish race-designating physiognomy, he is also Colorblind.

Light skin and blonde hair, however, are the most consistent markers of white supremacy. Aside from the judge, who is bald, the blonde bailiff and a later blonde officer, who attempts to murder the paramedic after the judge forces a gun into his hand, are the clearest villains. The officer also wears a blonde goatee, which, though inherently ambiguous, when combined with a baseball-style cap, short sleeves, and open collar may suggest a redneck stereotype—a kind of othered outsider in the urban context.

Ultimately, Waid’s Daredevil perceives the justice system as blameless, since the officers shooting at him were “justifiably paranoid,” the judge “was jailed” afterwards, and, he tells Hackett in his hospital bed, “we know it wasn’t the NYPD behind the false arrest, but rather the Serpents.”

According to MarvelFandom.com, October cover-dated issue #29 was released at the very end of July — two and a half weeks after a jury acquitted Zimmerman. I doubt readers shared Daredevil’s optimism about the legal system.

What an unmade Watchmen film says about killing civilians

What do you do when your deadly enemy uses a civilian as a human shield?

A) Kill the civilian.B) Don’t kill the civilian.

Before you answer that, let me recount an obscure little story from superhero history.

Screenwriter Sam Hamm is best known for scripting Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman. The film’s success briefly piqued Hollywood interest in other superheroes, including Watchmen. Terry Gilliam was lined up to direct. Alan Moore declined Warner Brothers’ offer to write the screenplay himself, and so the job was handed to Hamm.

The script isn’t good. I got my hands on a copy back in what must have been the early 90s. (I just searched my bookshelves, but no sign of it now.) Gilliam didn’t like it either, which led to a second draft by a different writer, and then Development Hell for the project – until the unfortunate Zach Synder adaption in 2009 and then the improbably good Damon Lindelof sequel series in 2019.

But Hamm did write an inventive opening scene to explain why superheroes had been outlawed. It’s 1975 and terrorists are holding hostages in the Statue of Liberty and threatening to blow it up. Spoiler Alert: they succeed. But only after the Watchmen prevent a SWAT team from intervening and then fail to intervene themselves, barely escaping the explosion.

30. AERIAL SHOT – MOVING OVER HARBOR – A MOMENT LATER

RORSCHACH clings desperately to the metal ladder as the OWLSHIP streaks across the harbor.  Behind him is the rapidly receding figure of Lady Liberty.

Three beats later, a GAPING HOLE blows open in her midsection.

31.  INT. OWLSHIP – THAT MOMENT

A heartsick NIGHT OWL pounds the control panel in frustration.  On an overhead monitor, the upper portion of the statue is TOPPLING.

32. INT. STATUE – A MOMENT LATER

Smoke everywhere.  The COMEDIAN and SILK SPECTRE are pressed flat against a CONCRETE BULKHEAD.  An overhang protects them from falling DEBRIS — which is raining down in copious amounts.

33. EXT. FERRY – A MOMENT LATER

The furious SWAT CAPTAIN watches in astonishment as the top half of the statue disintegrates into RUBBLE and tumbles to the ground.  He turns away from the sight, shaking his head in vehement disgust.

Hamm wrote that a decade before 9/11.

It’s the Comedian’s fault. One of the terrorists he shot and assumed was dead crawls to the detonator switch. As soon as he sees the thirty-second countdown, the Comedian is the first to run, indifferent to the civilian hostages he’s leaving behind.

But incompetence and indifference are not his worst traits. Hamm already encapsulated the character from his opening shots.

12. EXT. LIBERTY ISLAND – THAT MOMENT – DAY

A HULKING FIGURE, outfitted in SCUBA GEAR, emerges from the water. There’s an evil-looking RIFLE slung over his shoulder.  As he swaggers toward the base of the statue, he peels off his wetsuit to reveal yet another gaudy COSTUME underneath.

Superhero #4: THE COMEDIAN.  He pins a BADGE to his leather breastplate; incongruously, it’s a HAPPY-FACE BUTTON — and it matches his own nasty SMILE as he marches forward into battle.

13. INT. BASE OF STATUE – THAT MOMENT – DAY

A TRIO OF TERRORISTS standing guard near the entrance in the base of the statue.  They’re holding a JANITOR at gunpoint.  One of them is fumbling with his walkie-talkie, which has inexplicably gone haywire.

TERRORIST I

Base to head.  Base to head.  Come in!

(flustered)

I can’t get shit!

TERRORIST II

What the hell is going on??

There’s a sudden metallic CLANG behind them.  They turn in unison — just as the COMEDIAN struts into frame, assault rifle in hand.

Panic.  The three TERRORISTS fall into a tight cluster at the base of a long metal stairway.  One of them grabs the JANITOR, holds a gun to his head.

TERRORIST I

I’M NOT JOKING!!

The COMEDIAN shrugs: okay.  He lifts his rifle and fires TWO SILENCED SHOTS directly into the JANITOR’s gut.  The old man’s body jerks twice and he slumps to the floor, stone dead.

The TERRORISTS stand there aghast.  For an instant they’re too stunned to shoot.  The COMEDIAN breaks into a dopey grin —

COMEDIAN

The joke’s on you.

— and opens fire with a look of VICIOUS PLEASURE on his face.  As the saying goes . . . it’s nice to see a man who enjoys his work.

Alan Moore’s Comedian isn’t quite as overtly villainous, but Hamm’s version is a fair take. Moore’s was based on the Charlton Comics character The Peacemaker, though Moore explained to an interviewer: “we decided to make him slightly right-wing, patriotic, and we mixed in a little bit of Nick Fury into The Peacemaker make-up, and probably a bit of the standard Captain America patriotic hero-type.” Add Hamm’s spin, and he’s a right-wing Captain America who happily murders any civilian who happens to be in his way.

But he’s not the most incongruous take on Captain America I’ve seen. This one was painted on the side of a building in Tel Aviv in late October:

That’s about three weeks after Hamas’s terrorist attack. At that time Israel’s counter offensive had killed about 7,000 civilians, based on a mid-December report by the BBC. Current counts are over 22,000.

Gaza has the civilian population density of London. Would Captain America shrug as he dropped tens of thousands of bombs to defeat an enemy hiding there?

It’s an absurd question because superheroes come from a world of absolute good vs. absolute evil. Their narratives are a rejection of moral complexity. The artist of the Tel Aviv Captain America was rejecting that complexity too, preferring the imaginary simplicity of a superhero world. Though Alan Moore’s Watchmen remains one of the most successful critiques of that genre assumption, I don’t know what Moore thinks about the Isreal-Hamas war (I’m afraid to google in case he’s said something). I’m pretty sure Sam Hamm has no insights on how to end it either.

I’m also pretty sure that the question that begins this post is not a morally complex one.

Two Lines of Dialogue That Explain All Paintings

I’ve always wondered why Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte includes a monkey. According to Brittanica.com, Seurat was depicting “Parisian stereotypes. For instance, the woman standing in the right foreground, with the striking bustle, is identified by her pet monkey—symbol of lasciviousness—as a woman of loose morals.” I don’t know if that’s true — of the painting, the woman, or monkeys generally. Personally, I imagined the monkey belonged to the man standing beside her — which then triggered a two-line dialogue in my head. I now think all paintings should be interpreted through the same accusation/denial exchange, with an implicit pet monkey poised just out of frame.

I’ve added speech balloons so you can see for yourself.

Grant Wood’s American Gothic:

Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Slaying Holofernes:

Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper:

Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People:

Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss:

Here, try some yourself:

It even works for single-figure paintings too. Just pair your favorites.

Edvard Munch’s The Scream and Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa:

Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring and James McNeill Whistle’s Whistler’s Mother:

Jacques-Louis David’s The Death of Marat and Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog:

John William Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott and Frederic Leighton’s Flaming June:

John Everett Millais’s Ophelia and John Singer Sargent’s Portrait of Madame X:

You can mix and match, and even reverse the dialogue.

Which lines do you think these paintings should speak?

New Shenandoah Comics: Angie Kang & Robert James Russell

Shenandoah Issue 73.1 (Fall 2023) is now live. It’s the tenth issue to feature comics, and the eighth I’ve helped edit (I happily step aside for occasional guest comics editors, including José Alaniz who curated an amazing selection by contemporary Russian women last spring, and Rachelle Cruz who curated an equally excellent selection in Spring 2021).

We don’t define “comics” on our submission page, because we hope to attract as much variety as possible. When my advanced comics course recently perused back issues, they questioned whether some pieces suited any of the scholarly definitions we examined in class. Sijia Ma‘s “A Hundred Stories,” for example, is a sequence of photographs (which they decided was allowed) but none of them are juxtaposed on a shared page. Another student was happy to call Mita Mahato’s “Lullaby” a comic, but not a “poetry comic,” as it’s termed in her author note, because the “poetry” includes no words.

I don’t think any of my students would challenge the two works in our new issue, Angie Kang’s “The Birthmark” and Robert James Russell’s “How to Make a Full English,” because both share a range of conventions common in the comics medium. And yet they both push at those norms in exciting ways.

If I’d seen Kang’s before publishing The Comics Form last year, I would have included this pair of panels in my discussion of “match cut” juxtapositions:

The technique is common in film, but rarer in comics. The juxtaposition of Kang’s main character sitting in her doctor’s office and then driving is striking because her figure is drawn from the same perspective and in the same position relative to the frame. Or, since there is no sharp black line framing the panel, to the image edges.

That’s another subtle quality I enjoy about her image style, those softer edges, which reveal how the color is not added to a prior line drawing but is an organic and defining quality of the artwork. I also enjoy a quiet meta moment, when she paints an exhaled breath of smoke to resemble a speech balloon. In Italy, comics are called “fumetto,” little puffs of smoke.

Kang also uses speech sparingly, letting her images do most of the narrative work — as with this haunting dream sequence that could stand alone as an abstract comic:

She is also artful with her turns of perspective. The first image below is ocularized from the main character’s literal point-of-view, but then the angle shifts to over-the-shoulder, so no longer also literal but still focalized from her internal experience — as felt even more in the third panel’s zoomed-in intensity. Then that last panel captures her emotional experience by leaping to a detached and distant angle.

Russell explores a different set of comics qualities.

First, he establishes his own image-text format: numbered text begins above each image — is interrupted by a single tall panel — and then finishes below. The first features a double-decker bus, which not only confirms the title’s English setting, but also evokes the two-level, or “double-decker,” approach to text.

The images are simplified in a naturalistic style (comics studies really needs a term for that — I refer to it descriptively as “unexaggerated simplification” in The Comics Form), but with some subtle disruptions.

The black surrounding the next image creates a kind of matte effect that extends the frame — though it could also be interpreted literally as the darkness of the building sharpened by the contrast of the lit window. And, whether visually literal or not, it evokes the main character’s isolated emotional state:

A later panel removes visual ambiguity with a fully expressive use of background color:

And though a panel typically includes a single image, Russell plays with that aspect of the form too, drawing panels within panels:

I also really appreciate the hand-written quality of Russell’s lettering — which adds to a general feeling of memoir, while also allowing a sudden shift in emotional intensity:

And note that pleasantly unexplained shift to a painting-by-numbers conceit — perhaps because, as the rendering of the words becomes more evocative, the representational meaning of the image flattens? I’m not sure, but I love the effect.

Russell and Kang are also wonderfully different, even as they each further refine comics possibilities.

Check them out at the new Shenandoah.

What Should a Faculty Handbook Say about Academic Freedom?

My school is beginning a process of revising our faculty handbook. The entry on “Academic Freedom” might be a good place to start.

The American Association of University Professors identifies four main elements:

Teaching: freedom to discuss all relevant matters in the classroom; Research: freedom to explore all avenues of scholarship, research, and creative expression and to publish the results of such work; Intramural speech: freedom from institutional censorship or discipline when speaking or writing as participants in the governance of an educational institution; and Extramural speech: freedom from institutional censorship or discipline when speaking or writing as citizens. 

That seems fairly straightforward, and when I looked at my handbook, I expected to find some version of it. I didn’t.

Here’s the current entry:

There’s a lot there, so I’ll break it down sentence-by-sentence.

A faculty member “is entitled to full freedom” in two areas: “research” and “publication of the results.” Those two areas match the AAUP’s second category, “Research.” Except at my school those freedoms are contingent on other factors.

A faculty member must perform their “other academic duties” adequately. None are not named but presumably those duties include teaching. Since faculty are evaluated in three areas (teaching, research, and service), service could be another. There is no indication of how “adequate performance” is determined or by whom (I assume by the administration, but is that my chair or my dean or my provost, or all of them collectively, and so then really just my provost and president? And what if the board of trustees decides someone isn’t fulfilling their undefined “duties”?). Regardless, according to the handbook a faculty member does not have the freedom to research and publish if their teaching (and possibly their service) is not deemed adequate.

Also, you can’t make money (“pecuniary return”) from publishing. I make a pittance from my publications, but since I have no “written understanding” with my administration, I am in overt violation of the handbook policy.

What about academic freedom in teaching? The AAUP lists that first, and it’s the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear the phrase “academic freedom.” And yet my school’s policy says not a word on the topic. According to our handbook, we do not have a stated “freedom to discuss all relevant matters in the classroom.”

A form of The AAUP’s “Speech” falls under the second part. It begins:

“Members of the Washington and Lee Faculty are citizens, members of a learned profession, and officers of the institution.”

In what sense am I an “officer of the institution”? And how does being an “officer” differ from my also being a “member” of the faculty? And what do those have to do with my being a “citizen.” I think the sentence might just be preamble, a sort of rhetorical clearing of the throat. Probably no need to parse the semantic phlegm further.

The second sentence begins:

“When speaking or writing as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline,”

Behaviors other than “speaking or writing” (such as, say, attending a rally) are not included. Why not? Wouldn’t something like “acting as” cover the bases better? AAUP uses the legally broad term “speech,” which is likely best.

Regardless of the actions, the phrase “as citizens” is (again) unclear. The “when” implies that there are times when faculty members are speaking or writing as citizens, and times when they are not. What is the distinction and how is it made? And why should faculty members “be free from censorship or discipline” only when acting “as citizens”?

The AAUP’s “intramural” and “extramural” is clearer. An article by Don Eron in the AAUP journal describes extramural speech as “the kind of thing we say at the city council meeting or in letters to the editor,” while intramural speech is “the kind of thing we say in the classroom, journal articles, and conference presentations.”

If that’s the distinction intended by the handbook’s phrase “as citizens,” then the policy only covers extramural speech, meaning you only “should be free from institutional censorship or discipline” when talking outside of work. There’s nothing about intramural speech – which means that at my school faculty members can be censored or disciplined for things they say in classrooms and faculty meetings.

And even freedom for extramural speech is vague, because of the verb phrase “should be.” An “is” or “will be” establishes a fact, while “should” suggests the “free from” is in some way weaker.

The rest of the sentence is strange for a policy titled “Academic Freedom”:

“but their special position in the community imposes special obligations.”

Is the “special position” distinct from being a member/citizen/officer of the institution and/or learned profession? Is that the same as the “community”? The “imposes special obligations” is rhetorically stronger than the “should be free from” of the previous sentence. And despite the brevity of the previous descriptions, the obligations receive two more sentences: First:

“As persons of learning and edu­cational officers, they should remember that the public may judge the profession and the institu­tion by their utterances.”

Faculty are again “officers,” now “educational” ones, which seems more general than “officers of the institution.” The “persons of learning” is even broader. And, although the handbook is specific to the school, the obligation is equally to “the profession.” Why? And what does “should” mean in this case?

Finally:

“Hence at all times they should be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indi­cate that they do not speak for the institution.”

Accuracy, restraint, and respect are all good things for anyone, including a faculty member of my school, to display. That they are listed under “Academic Freedom” is at best confused. This policy would be more accurately titled “Special Academic Obligations.”

Given my special position and obligations as a citizen, member, officer, and person of learning, I look forward to my school revising this and other faculty handbook policies.

Teaching Comics (Theory)

This is the final week of my advanced special topics course on graphic novels. By “advanced” I mean it’s a 300-level literature course taken primarily by English majors. I taught it previously at the introductory 200-level which attracts students from across the college. I had intended to maintain both courses, but our administration recently announced what they termed a teaching “reduction” (we will teach one fewer courses every two years but those courses will be larger so that we still teach the same number of students). Since I need to maintain my two other advanced courses (fiction writing and contemporary fiction), this semester’s advanced comics turns out to be a one-off.

I’m still thrilled I taught it – and not just because I got to invite Qiana Whitted to campus for my department’s annual guest lecture and retreat. Working with a small seminar of mostly department majors and minors (plus one Art History student writing a senior thesis on Magneto) has been amazing. And, while I brought in a range of secondary readings in earlier iterations of the course, the 300-level designation allowed me to double down on theory.

When I first had to redesign from a Tuesday/Thursday 90-minute format to a Monday/Wednesday/Thursday 60-minute, I divided a given week’s primary reading between Monday and Friday and moved any secondary reading to Wednesday. That worked surprisingly well. We would devote a whole period to breaking down new theoretical concepts and applying them to the first half of that week’s graphic novel – and then continue the application on the second half during the following Friday discussion.

I kept that structure for the 300-level, doubling the Wednesday reading. Actually, I tripled it and then went back and (reluctantly and often at the last minute) trimmed. In the 200-level, I assigned almost half my own writing – which felt narcissistic, but (I rationalized) it’s the same as giving a lecture. Also, my chapters often summarized and harmonized other scholars, which my students said made the concepts easier to understand. This round, I still included plenty of my own work, but only if it contained some key point not made elsewhere.

The essays vary in length (the bracketed numbers in the list below are the number of pages for each), but density and difficulty are harder to gauge and account for. Sometimes the scholars agreed or expanded on a shared point, but just as often they presented contradictory opinions, requiring students to figure out their own. Jargon is a problem, especially in a multi-discipline area of studies like comics. So on day one, I projected two lists of terms that cluster around the two most central concepts for comics analysis.

Diegesis (diegetic):

NarrativeStoryStorylineStoryworldSequence (of events)Mental modelSchemaSpatiotemporalFabula (Russian)Linear, linearlyWhat images “show”

 Discourse (discursive):

Ink on paper, pixels on screenPhysical object of the comic bookArtist’s marksStyleSjuzhet (Russian)Tabular, tabularly Symbols that “tell”Surface

On the first day I also asked each student to give a working definition of “comics” – a topic we returned to on the last week. The weeks between I divided by formal concepts and paired them with graphic novels. Some of the pairings felt ideal (how can you teach Beautiful Darkness without applying Witek’s comics modes?), while others felt a bit arbitrary, since essentially every graphic novel displays and benefits from the analysis of all of the formal concepts. Still, they all worked, with Thorogood capping the semester as a kind of formal tour de force.

My graphic novel selection changes each time I teach the course, and while still overall balanced, this semester ended up unexpectedly international and heavy on French authors — which wouldn’t bother me so much if I could pronounce French names more plausibly in my western Pennsylvania accent.

During the semester, students wrote two open-topic essays, pairing any two novels for each, plus two short final exam essays, and lots and lots of daily assignments (all of which I’ll include below).

Here are the weekly reading units:

1. Secondary readings on FORMAL OVERVIEWS:

Charles Hatfield, “The Art of Tensions” (p32-67), Alternative Comics (2005) [30pp] Pascal Lefevre, “Some Medium-Specific Qualities of Graphic Sequences” (2011) [17pp]

Paired with Nora Krug’s Belonging. Additional sources:

Jake Murel, “Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home” [5pp]“Your Job in Germany” (play 2 minutes starting at 6:35), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Your_Job_in_Germany

2. Secondary readings on STYLE:

Mort Walker, Chapters 2-4 (pp 26-65), The Lexicon of Comicana (1980)Joseph Witek, “Comics Modes,” Critical Approaches to Comics (2012) [13pp]Pascal Lefèvre, “No Content Without Form: Graphic Style as the Primary Entrance to a Story” (2016) [16pp]Andrei Molotiu, “Cartooning” (2020) [16pp]Chris Gavaler, “Modes,” (pp39-44), Chapter 2: Image Narration, The Comics Form (2022) [5pp]

Paired with Fabien Vehlmann and Kerascoët’s Beautiful Darkness

3. Secondary readings on LAYOUT:

Benoit Peeters, “Four Conceptions of the Page” (1998/2007) https://imagetextjournal.com/four-conceptions-of-the-page/. [11pp]Neil Cohn, “Navigating Layouts” (2013) [14pp]Renaud Chavanne, “The Composition of Comics” (2015) p. 111-124 [13pp]Barbara Postema, “A Taxonomy of Layouts,” Narrative Structures in Comics (2013) [16pp]Chris Gavaler, “Undemocratic Layout” (2018) https://www.comicsgrid.com/article/id/3568/.

Paired with Adrian Tomine’s Killing & Dying.

4. Secondary readings on WORDS:

Scott McCloud, “The Power of Words,” Making Comics (2006), pp 128-157 [19 comics pp]Thierry Groensteen, “The Monstrator, the Recitant and the Shadow of the Narrator” (2010) [9pp]Thomas Wartenberg, “Wordy Pictures” (2012) [16pp]Chris Gavaler, “Foucault is not a Comics Scholar” (2023) https://thepatronsaintofsuperheroes.wordpress.com/2023/08/21/michel-foucault-is-not-a-comics-scholar/.

Paired with Ronald Wimberly’s Prince of Cats. Additional sources:

Wimberly’s “Lighten Up” [4-page comic] https://thenib.com/lighten-up-4f7f96ca8a7e/.Wimberly’s “Do or Die” [1-page comic] https://thenib.com/do-or-die/.Romeo and Juliet (complete text) http://shakespeare.mit.edu/romeo_juliet/full.htm.J. Caleb Mozzocco, review, https://comicsalliance.com/ronald-wimberly-prince-of-cats-review/.Etelka Lehoczky, NPR review: https://www.npr.org/2016/11/13/500419553/prince-of-cats-melds-comics-hip-hop-and-shakespeare.“Hip Hop: A Culture of Vision and Voice,” https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/resources-for-educators/classroom-resources/media-and-interactives/media/hip-hop/hip-hop-a-culture-of-vision-and-voice/“The Art of Hip Hop DJing,” https://pirate.com/en/blog/hip-hop-djing/

5. Secondary readings on IMAGE RELATIONSHIPS:

Scott McCloud, “Blood in the Gutter,” Understanding Comics, (1993) [34 comics pp]Ann Miller, “5.1.3.1 Tressage (Groensteen’s ‘general arthrology’ code),” Reading bande dessinee (2007), p. 95-97 [3pp]Thierry Groensteen, “The Art of Braiding” (2016) [10pp]Neil Cohn, “Visual Narrative Structure” (2013) [18pp]Chris Gavaler, Chapter 5: “Juxtapositional Inferences,” The Comics Form (2022), pp 113-127 [14pp]

 Weng Pixin’s Let’s Not Talk Anymore. Additional sources:

At Home with Weng Pixin, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGYcj87eBkM.Singapore Comix, http://singaporecomix.blogspot.com/2021/08/lets-not-talk-anymore-chatting-with.html?m=1.

6. Secondary readings on VIEWPOINT:

Laura Mulvey, “Woman as Image,” from “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1975) [5pp]Randy Duncan, “Image Functions: Shape and Color as Hermeneutic Images in Aesterios Polyp,” pp 43-54, in Critical Approaches to Comics (2012)Silke Horskotte and Nancy Pedri, Experiencing Visual Storyworlds: Focalization in Comics, Chapter 1 (2022) [27]Gavaler, “Focalization,” pp 55-59, in Chapter 2, The Comics Form (2022) [4]

Paired with Jul Maroh’s Blue is the Warmest Color. Additional sources:

Film trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2OLRrocn3s.Ella Taylor, “‘Blue Is the Warmest Color’ Review: Porn? No. Sexy and Moving? Absolutely” (2013) [3pp] https://www.thewrap.com/blue-warmest-color-review-porn-sexy-moving-absolutely/.“‘Blue Is The Warmest Color’ Author Julie Maroh Not Pleased With Graphic Sex In Film, Calls It ‘Porn’” (2013) [2pp]  https://www.indiewire.com/news/general-news/blue-is-the-warmest-color-author-julie-maroh-not-pleased-with-graphic-sex-in-film-calls-it-porn-97557/.Jul Maroh, “International Day of Trans Visibility” (2020) [2pp] https://web.archive.org/web/20200423042042/http://www.juliemaroh.com/2020/03/31/journee-internationale-de-la-visibilite-trans/.

7. Secondary readings on ONE-PAGE COMICS:

Summerfield Baldwin, “A Genius of the Comic Page” (1917) [6pp] http://john-adcock.blogspot.com/2012/04/genius-of-comic-page.html.Umberto Eco, “A Reading of Steve Canyon” (1965) [6pp]Umberto Eco, “On ‘Krazy Kat’ and ‘Peanuts’” (1985)Mark Newgarden and Paul Karasik, “How to Read Nancy” (1988) [7pp]Roy T. Cook, “Why Comics Are Not Films?”, from The Art of Comics: A Philosophical Approach (2012)

Paired with Pascal Jousselin’s Mister Invincible: Local Hero

and

George Herriman’s Krazy Kat, 1916-1920 Sunday selection from  https://joel.franusic.com/krazy_kat/.

8. Miscellaneous secondary readings:

Natsume Fusanosuke, “The Functions of Panels (koma) in Manga” (1995/2021) (p4-12) [8pp]
https://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/ejcjs/vol21/iss2/holt_fukuda.htmlLinks to an external site.Natsume Fusanosuke, “Panel Configurations in Shōjo Manga” (1995/2020) (p62-73) [11pp]
https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/5/article/791017Links to an external site.Lisa Zunshine, “What to Expect When You Pick Up a Graphic Novel” (2016) [19pp]Neil Cohn, “Navigating Meaning in the Layout of Comics” (2023) [12pp]

Paired with Zoe Thorogood’s It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth.

9. Secondary readings on DEFINITIONS:

Scott McCloud, Chapter 1: “Setting the Record Straight,” Understanding Comics (1993) [22pp comics]Neil Cohn, “Undefining Comics” (2005) [11pp]Aaron Meskin, “Defining Comics” (2007) [11pp]Roy Cook, “Do Comics Require Pictures?” (2011) [12pp]

DAILY ASSIGNMENT:

For each reading, select 3 passages of interest to you.

For each passage, include an excerpt/photo, page number, two analytical questions, and related pages list.The first question should focus on just the passage.The second question should address an overarching issue or pattern that relates to other textual moments.Include page numbers for at least two of those related passages for the second question.Written responses to the questions are not required, but be prepared to lead discussion and introduce your own insights.

PAPER TOPICS:

Monday:

Create a combined document that includes: all of your daily question assignments andmy Canvas comments after each assignment.Read the whole document and list ideas that repeat across multiple assignments (those could be the start of paper topics).Select and expand on 3 potential topics, each combining any two of the graphic novels. Write an involved paragraph for each potential topic. List 5 of our secondary sources to use as tools in your analysis. Write 2 sentences for each explaining the specific analytic tool.

Wednesday: Partial draft (minimum of 4 complete pages or 1,200 words)

Friday: Complete draft (minimum of 8 complete pages or 2,400 words)

FINAL EXAM:

The final exam is take-home and open-book. It consists of two 1,000-word essays (each must fall between 900 and 1,100 words). Works Cited lists are necessary, but are not part of the word count. Each essay requires six secondary sources; no more than two may overlap between essays, so you will use a total of at least ten different secondary sources. You will have until the end of the exam period to upload your essays in a combined document on Canvas. You should devote roughly the equivalent time and effort that you would to prepare for a traditional, closed-book exam, and then to take an exam during a three-hour exam period. 

ESSAY ONE:

Select a comic to analyze. The comic cannot be one of the four you’ve written about in your two major essays. Analyze the comic using six different works of comics scholarship that we studied during the semester. The essay does not need to present a unified argument. You are instead demonstrating your ability to apply tools of comics analysis to a comic we have not studied together. Be sure to briefly cite elements of the scholarship in your essay using internal citations. Quote with precision. Also include screenshots of your visual examples.

ESSAY TWO:

Develop an argument that relates six scholars from six secondary readings.

Krazy Kontexts: Kontrasting Krazy Kat’s Natural Environment

While working on a close visual analysis of a 1919 Krazy Kat comic, I noticed an unexpected juxtaposition as Ignatz Mouse exits the bottom right frame:

According to the ad, Stearns’ Electric Paste also kills “WATER BUGS, RATS and MICE.” I think it’s safe to assume that George Herriman had no awareness, let alone control, of the San Francisco Examiner‘s page layout that or any other week. And yet while I would say that original context is at most secondary, it’s still worthwhile to see Krazy Kat in its intended environment. Later reprints of course only include Herriman’s artwork, eliminating even the typeset title banner that originally appeared above them.

That’s why I appreciate Joel Franusic‘s online archive. His scans include full newspaper pages:

While the textual juxtapositions are intriguing (there was more light verse printed in early twentieth-century newspapers than you might think), I’m most engaged by the pictorial pairings. From the 1916-1919 range I’ve been browsing, they almost inevitably involve advertisements, AKA “Business Notices.”

Some are one-offs, such as the anti-balding treatment endorsed “By an Eminent European Specialist”:

But I was more surprised by the repetition of two products. The first is “Gets-It,” a corn-removal treatment:

The first four ads above include lone figures, usually female, while the next two show couples, one of them dancing. Though not as pleasantly discordant as an anti-mouse product, the happy couples do juxtapose the absurdist romance of Krazy Kat and Ignatz.

And those last two are the most odd. Why invert the figure in a reflecting pool while cropping out most of the body above it? And those giant polka dots on the dress — are they associative representations of the corns? The last is just interesting for its algebraic simplicity.

The final two corn-removal ads depart in two ways: by emphasizing the pain of the corn (rather than the pleasure or ease of its removal), and (in the very last ad) by departing from the naturalistic drawing rules governing all of the other images.

That last one I’d place in what Joseph Witek helpfully identifies as the “cartoon mode,” in contrast to the “naturalistic mode” of the others. The juxtaposition is revealing since Herriman also worked in the cartoon mode, which means the comic’s original pictorial pairings usually produced stylistic contrast.

The art of the comic and the art of the advertisements were rendered according to different visual norms, which in turn created the impression of different visual worlds. When a viewer’s eye crossed the boundary framing Krazy Kat, the leap was conceptually wider than the width of the line.

That contrast effect is even stronger with the second set of ads.

The above two soap ads include black areas, the first for a pair of silhouettes, the second for a seemingly three-dimensional object produced by “white” lines where the newspaper page is visible in thin negative strips and letters.

The soap’s other images are more interesting because they are instead contour drawings that leave most of the page surface visible in internal negative spaces.

The style again contrasts Herriman’s, though the naturalism is relative since the images are highly simplified by not exaggerated — a combination that lacks a consistent term (which is why I refer to it descriptively as “unexaggerated simplification” in The Comics Form).

Visual analysis aside, I’m also really intrigued that the product was advertised to both women and men — specifically to men in the context of the Great War.

Since Cuticura cures dandruff, pimples, cuts, bruises, and gray hair, it might belong in Herriman’s absurdist world of Krazy Kat.

Finally, I’m reprising my favorite ad image for last.

The stylistic flourishes of the background pattern both evoke and contrast Herriman’s abstract backgrounds, revealing a final level of contextual contrast.

Revising Reality: The Cover! The Blurb! The Release Date!

Very happy to report that Nathaniel Goldberg’s and my next book, Revising Reality, will be released on May 30, 2024!

We just got our cover too:

Plus part of the back cover:

Bloomsbury is still revising the font color. The title is supposed to be, and often is, white, but sometimes it’s red, we think either because of differences in Bloomsbury’s nation-based websites (US, UK, AUS) or between hardcover and paperback, which then feed into other websites. So at Amazon it’s (currently) red:

While the white/red variation is accidental, the hardcover/paperback variation is happily intentional. My last book, The Comics Form, was originally released in hardcover, before it earned a paperback printing (currently available as a January pre-order). Revising Reality is being released in both formats simultaneously — plus an ebook.

Nathaniel’s name vacillates too. I’m one of the very people who calls Nathaniel “Nathaniel” (the name he used when first introducing himself to me), but future readers will know him as “Nat” (the name most people use). Though now “Nat” on this cover, he’s “Nathaniel” on all of his previous book covers and currently in his book cover bio.

Revising Reality includes a chapter called “Naming Change,” which is about various reasons people revise their names (marriage, religious conversion, gender identity, etc.) and their implications: some name changes are retroactive, revealing what we call a Mandatory Character Trait. Nathaniel’s is probably only a forward-moving sequel — unless my co-author’s name was always “Nat” and the new cover reveals that pre-existing but misunderstood fact, and then it’s a retcon.

Revising Reality keeps revising its categories too. The Bloomsbury website started by listing it this way:

That’s probably because I’m a comics scholar who has published more than one book with Bloomsbury under “Comics and Graphic Novels,” even though Revising Reality is not one of them. That’s going to be revised to “Literature and Philosophy.” And yet the Amazon listing instead says this:

It’s a little mysterious why Amazon slotted it there — especially since it’s correct. Revising Reality does address both politics and social sciences. One of the categorical challenges of the book is its multi-disciplinary scope.

One of our external reviewers wrote last summer: “An accessible and engaging exploration of how storytelling frames our engagement with history and current events, through a lens that seamlessly combines literary theory, media studies, metaphysics, and historiography.”

Another said: “No one will be an expert in each of the topics addressed, so any reader is sure to come away with an improved knowledge of one of science, law, fiction, pop culture, and so on.”

And my favorite: “This really is quite an original book, which means that it competes in its own kind of field.”

Not surprisingly, the Amazon algorithm doesn’t include that category.

Nathaniel (AKA, “Nat”) and I just finished reviewing the page proofs, which go to an indexer next. We also just contacted a publicist. Revising Reality is a sequel to our Revising Fiction, Fact, and Faith: A Philosophical Account, presenting similar concepts to (we hope) a general interest audience.

Return of the Ventriloquist Dummy, Starring GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson

Some Americans may have forgotten, but there was once a Republican Speaker of the House named Kevin McCarthy who a pair of political cartoonists likened to a ventriloquist dummy operated by a MAGA extremist drinking Kool-Aid.

If you forgot McCarthy opened a Biden impeachment inquiry, I amassed that cartoon history in a September post. Though House Republicans have since changed the name of their Speaker, little else has changed, including visual metaphors. Since Mike Johnson took the gavel, the presence of ventriloquist dummies in political cartoons has tripled:

While I’m not impressed by political cartoonists recycling even their best jokes, I’m significantly less impressed by politicians recycling their worst positions — many of which Speaker Johnson champions.

A few things to know about Johnson:

He is a 2020 election denier who argued in court to overthrow results in four key states. He’s a climate-change denier financed by oil and gas companies. Though he’s not a member of the House Freedom Caucus, members Matt Gaetz and Andy Biggs nominated him. And he’s most vocal about abortion and LGBTQ issues.

On abortion, Johnson:

supports a national ban criminalizing all abortionsco-sponsored a bill establishing that “the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution” is present from the moment of fertilizationthreatened “hard labor” for doctors who perform abortionsblamed abortion rights, the sexual revolution, and radical feminism for school shootingsis a former attorney and spokesman for Alliance Defending Freedom, the legal group behind states’ strict anti-abortion legislationearned an “A+” rating from Pro-Life America

On LGBTQ rights, Johnson:

called homosexuality an “inherently unnatural” and “dangerous lifestyle” that would lead to legalized pedophilia and people marrying their pets.wrote amicus briefs backing the right of individual states to criminalize gay sexsaid that “homosexual marriage is the dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that could doom even the strongest republic.”proposed the Marriage and Conscience Act to protect people who discriminate against same-sex couplesdefended Louisiana’s same-sex marriage ban before the Supreme Court in 2004 and 2014led a hearing on limiting gender-affirming care, arguing that “homosexuality and cross-dressing are things you do… we don’t give special protections for every person’s bizarre choices.”believes LGBTQ teens are victims of coercion: “Today, nearly one in four high school students identifies as LGBTQ. Whether it’s by scalpel or by social coercion from teachers, professors, administrators and left-wing media, it’s an attempt to transition the young people of our country.”

This is the dummy the GOP unanimously perched on their highest seat.

Johnson is also overwhelmingly likely to oversee a government shutdown at the end of this week — another recycled political joke from the cartoon world of MAGA extremism.

What is the definition of “sexually explicit”?

Open letter to the Lexington City School Board about removing the graphic novel One Fine Summer from the middle school library.

First, I want to thank the entire board for responding to these book concerns thoughtfully and carefully. I’m also grateful for having had the opportunity to speak at the last board meeting. I limited my two minutes to Kiss Number 8. I would like to expand those comments in response to a “Request for Reconsideration” of another graphic novel, This One Summer.

The complaint includes the following:

According to the definition of “sexually explicit” presented at the school board meeting, this novel is not sexually explicit. It also does not meet the definition of “R-rated.” It does not include any representations, visual or textual, of sex acts. It only briefly represents individuals talking about sex acts. The complaint also takes those statements out of context, failing to note that they are spoken by antagonist characters and that the statements do not reflect the attitudes of the main characters and therefore presumably the authors.

Using the film industry rating system, this might fall under PG-13: “A PG-13 motion picture may go beyond the PG rating in theme, violence, nudity, sensuality, language, adult activities or other elements, but does not reach the restricted R category” (filmratings.com).

However, since the novel does not include any nudity or directly represented adult activities, it might fit a PG rating: “A PG-rated motion picture should be investigated by parents before they let their younger children attend. The PG rating indicates, in the view of the Rating Board, that parents may consider some material unsuitable for their children, and parents should make that decision. The more mature themes in some PG-rated motion pictures may call for parental guidance. There may be some profanity and some depictions of violence or brief nudity. But these elements are not deemed so intense as to require that parents be strongly cautioned beyond the suggestion of parental guidance. There is no drug use content in a PG-rated motion picture.”

An R-rated film typically includes “sexually-oriented nudity,” which this novel does not.

The misleading use of the term “sexually explicit” is not limited to the individual who wrote the complaint. This One Summer is listed under “Sexually Explicit Materials” in a school document:

Though I’m not sure what definition the school is using for “mature content,” I personally believe that This One Summer would fall under that label. It does not, however, belong on any “Sexually Explicit list” – at least not according to the definition of “sexually explicit” provided to the public at the last board meeting or to any other definition that I’ve encountered.

The phrase “sexually explicit” was also used in text messages between the principal and superintendent:

This, I believe, was in regard to the novel Kiss Number 8, but as with One Fine Summer, the use of the phrase “sexually explicit” is false. More concerning, the principal and superintendent do not appear to have read the novel they decided to remove. The statement “based on these two pages alone” indicates that they accepted the out-of-context excerpts of the person who made the complaint, and, more strangely, assume that the rest of the novel includes similar material. This is a disturbingly ignorant process for judging the appropriateness of any material.

While I’m writing specifically about One Fine Summer, the “Request for Reconsideration,” the school’s “Sexually Explicit Materials” list, and the messages between administrators further demonstrate the need for objectively verifiable definitions that do not allow subjective attitudes to enter into any decision process.

Thank you again for your time and attention.