Graphic Gothic: Reading the Comics Page
Authors: Round, J.
Conference: Graphic Reading
Dates: 19 May 2017
Abstract:This paper focuses on the Gothic qualities of the comics medium. It argues that many points of comics narratology can be rearticulated using gothic literary theory, including the spatial layout of the page and the depiction of time as space, the active role of the comics reader in the gutter, and the mobility of visual and verbal perspective. It reconsiders these areas using the gothic tropes of haunting, the crypt, and of excess.
It opens by discussing Gothic in comics, arguing that this mode of writing (Punter 1980) is not limited to the historical genres of horror comics but instead informs comics culture and content across genres. It then examines the formal properties of the comics medium more closely. Using examples taken from different genres of British and American comics it firstly looks at the layout of the comics page. It demonstrates that this is a haunted place where all moments co-exist and within which gothic motifs of doubling and mirroring are often used. It then discusses the active role of the comics reader using cryptomimetic theory (Castricano 2001): defining the gutter (between panels) as an encrypted space that can exist only retrospectively, in our ‘backward-looking thoughts’ (Davenport-Hines 1998). Finally, it considers the multiple combinations and subversions of perspective that are possible in comics as examples of gothic excess: for example the use of an extradiegetic/external narrative voice combined with an intradiegetic visual perspective (of a story character).
The paper concludes that Gothic informs the content, cultural status and structure of contemporary British-American comics.
References: Castricano, J. 2001. Cryptomimesis. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Davenport-Hines, Richard. 1998. Gothic: Four Hundred Years of Excess, Horror, Evil and Ruin, New York: North Point Press.
Punter, David. 1980. The Literature of Terror: A History of Gothic Fictions from 1765 to the Present Day. London: Longman
Biography: Julia Round (MA, PhD) is a Principal Lecturer in the Faculty of Media and Communication at Bournemouth University, UK, and co-edits the academic journal Studies in Comics (Intellect). Her research and teaching interests include gothic, comics, adaptation and children’s literature. She has recently published a monograph entitled Gothic in Comics and Graphic Novels: A Critical Approach (McFarland, 2014) and the co-edited collection Real Lives Celebrity Stories (Bloomsbury, 2014). She is currently working on a critical book and searchable online database of the British girls’ comic Misty (IPC, 1978-80). For further details please visit www.juliaround.com.
https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/29244/
Source: Manual
Graphic Gothic: Reading the Comics Page.
Authors: Round, J.
Conference: Graphic reading: a symposium
Abstract:This paper focuses on the Gothic qualities of the comics medium. It argues that many points of comics narratology can be rearticulated using gothic literary theory, including the spatial layout of the page and the depiction of time as space, the active role of the comics reader in the gutter, and the mobility of visual and verbal perspective. It reconsiders these areas using the gothic tropes of haunting, the crypt, and of excess. It opens by discussing Gothic in comics, arguing that this mode of writing (Punter 1980) is not limited to the historical genres of horror comics but instead informs comics culture and content across genres. It then examines the formal properties of the comics medium more closely. Using examples taken from different genres of British and American comics it firstly looks at the layout of the comics page. It demonstrates that this is a haunted place where all moments co-exist and within which gothic motifs of doubling and mirroring are often used. It then discusses the active role of the comics reader using cryptomimetic theory (Castricano 2001): defining the gutter (between panels) as an encrypted space that can exist only retrospectively, in our ‘backward-looking thoughts’ (Davenport-Hines 1998). Finally, it considers the multiple combinations and subversions of perspective that are possible in comics as examples of gothic excess: for example the use of an extradiegetic/external narrative voice combined with an intradiegetic visual perspective (of a story character). The paper concludes that Gothic informs the content, cultural status and structure of contemporary British-American comics.
https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/29244/
http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/edacs/departments/english/events/2017/salmi-brown-symposium.aspx
Source: BURO EPrints