comic art theory: a concept
Comics, we see ‘em on the shelves. We buy ‘em. We read ‘em. That product, we can agree, is a comic. But comics are also other things (it’s a concept at heart and i’ll explain why). So, I wondered, what are the factors that connect abstract comics to traditional or manga style comics. The usual stuff: readership, panels, sequence, gutters, time passes for sure, and there were plenty on paper. How far can you push the interpretation of defining elements? Probably extremely far, right? Willem de Kooning and Liechtenstein brought comics into painting experimentally, so there's some cross action.
That's been a thing for a while now, people painting comics. I learned how big that was in 2021 or so. When comics crosses into craft but it's still craft, even though it has comic elements that also make it a comic. I'm going to use math logic for a moment: because of the change in how a comic can be expressed person from person, project to project, the constant, the core elements in the art connect all of the different artworks together (this is x). What x is absolutely the same and unchanging, unbiased and objective? A concept. A rule, a guide, a law. A concrete idea. Comics is a concept. Everyone has their own interpretation and expression of what comics means and looks like. There could be 7 billion vastly different creations that all use at least the passage of time, readability (the ability to be read visually, through word, emotionally) for narrative, and sequence. Those three, vital organs must be Comics in its true face. None of those organs exist so, our buddy comics doesn't either— not until it is made physical, or I like composed, by a physical medium like with pencil or ink or whichever kind of. Comics exist in the same way abstract exists or cubic, as an adjective. Maybe that sounds really wrong to you—understandable. That's just not how we think of comics.
Usually comics is automatically a noun; it is a book, or a series of images with the purpose of sharing a message or story. American industrial, journalist, newspaper, minis, fiction, and on and on. In our collective daily word use, is comics refers to books or webcomics or something in between, and then we study those, talk about those, get very serious about those. Sure, comics can also be a non-book. It's not just it's surface but also how the artist applies comics to that surface. I went to a comic shop in Portland and asked if they had abstract comics. They had so idea what I was talking about. I’m like, they can look like collage work or abstract paintings sometimes. A lot of them can be wordless.
She had no clue but passing and every time differently mententioning in ways she could help. I was treating it like a thrift shop. I let her help me after a few times, it seemed she wanted to. It went nowhere. Poorly, actually. We ended up looking up the Abstract Comics anthology in a laptop so excruciatingly slow—taking absolutely forever to load the screen to the book. When it did, I recommended they take a look. She had an idea and walked me over the sales floor to see, none other than, a traditional style comic. Usually in conversation, people I meet don't know about abstract comics or aren't super familiar. it isn't just the surface of a comic thatI propose the thought dominant thought of comics wasn’t defined by American comics and Manga. The unexplored corners of comics are like gems we're not finding that could be with an evolution in comics theory. And on top of that, people don't know abstract or experimental comics exist. Even in book form. That makes sense considering how new of a medium comics is.
Comics is a unique medium in that it isn't a medium at all. It actually needs a medium in order to exist. Film has delegated tools for filmmaking. A painter uses paint to paint. Illustration has tools for an illustrator to illustrate. How does a comic artist illustrate? In a comics form. You cannot comic. You have to draw the comic. You have to paint the comic. You have to write the comic. You animate, enliven, the comic. Comics isn’t the book, like Scott McCloud wrote in Understanding Comics. It is a mindset. The book is where the technique is recognized.
This is a theory though and like with any theory, there should be questions raised against it. One of those answers could prove this wrong. Comics are books. Not always. Comics can't be made in [insert method]. They absolutely can and this absolutely is. I can't think of any rebuttle that doesn't stem from disbelief.
Moving on.
Abstract.
“...While in painting the term applies to the lack of represented objects in favor of an emphasis on form, we can say that in comics it additionally applies to the lack of a narrative excuse to string panels together, in favor of an increased emphasis on the formal elements of comics that, even in absence of (verbal) story [written word: caption and dialogue], can create a feeling of sequential drive, the sheer rhythm of narrative or the rise and fall of a story arc.”
Did that interrupt you? Has your reading been interfered? I originally wrote this in a more forward and semi- academic way that I used that quote for. I’m going to keep it. It's perfect and there's no need for me to say anything about it other than: rhythm can be felt and visual rhythm can be read. Emotional reading, like looking at a painting or body language or the room, is a skill just as much as it's something we will always be doing as long as we can engage our senses. Reading that doesn't need words or form. Maybe just color. Have you ever considered Mark Rothko to have painted comics?
