Of Definition and Repetition / R. W. Watkins

Of Definition and Repetition:

The Problem of Ambiguity in Understanding Comics

R. W. Watkins

This essay, a critique of Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, was written in the winter of 1995—96, and subsequently offered up to Gary Groth at The Comics Journal; not surprisingly, given the editor’s reputation for disrespecting contributors, it was rejected without even as much as a written reply from said editor or one of his underlings. Now, for the first installment of The Comics Decoder, I have decided to resurrect my buried manuscript and finally allow my scrutiny the light of day—albeit with a few revisions and updates.

It goes without saying that Scott McCloud’s 1993 graphic textbook, Understanding Comics, has proven to be a ‘mover and a shaker’ that simply refuses to be ignored. Over the past sixteen years, this book has done for comics what Camus’s L'Etranger did for the philosophical novel, 8½ did for cinema, and Pink Floyd’s UmmaGumma did for rock ’n’ roll. In fact, no other publication, including Will Eisner’s Comics and Sequential Art, takes such a groundbreaking theoretical slant on the art form as does this one. It is truly impressive in its scope, well-researched in its historical data, and, above all, noble in its intentions. Is it a classic? Yes. Is it perfect? No. A worthy successor to the earlier Eisner work? We’ll see....

There’s no denying that McCloud has given us a ‘little treasure’. Historically, he delves back into the mists of time and presents us with what he sees as the roots of comics: Egyptian pyramid paintings, a French tapestry, and a pre-Columbian manuscript from Mexico “discovered” (read ‘pilfered’) by Cortes. He demonstrates the complexities of Time; allows us insight into the role of line-drawing in generating mood and catering specific comics to specific age groups; and supplies us with a categorisation of the various ways in which words and pictures combine to convey an idea or message. The author also provides us an entire chapter dedicated to the “six steps” involved in becoming a ‘master’ at creating comics. This particular chapter is excellent in its portrayal of the processes involved in locating one’s niche and muse in the comics field, and functions very well as a concise portrait of creative development in general.

However, there is one major flaw in this work which places a limit on McCloud’s achievement: the book’s failure to establish exactly what the author considers to constitute comics. One of the most important objectives of a (Dare I say it?) philosophical text like this should be to afford the reader a definitive set of guidelines or ‘blueprints’ for identifying (as precisely as possible) examples of the artistic form in question. Unfortunately, Understanding Comics, despite all its insight, research and good intentions, falls short of doing this, and leaves the reader—especially the analytical one—somewhat bewildered. It’s not that the book fails to give us a definition, but rather it fails to give us a precise and constant definition.

In the third chapter of Understanding Comics (‘Blood In The Gutter’), McCloud discusses closure, i.e., the reader/viewer’s mental ability to perceive a reasonable relationship between the image in one comics panel and a different image in another—the capacity to ‘fill-in-the-blanks’, so to speak. These transitions from one panel to another usually fit into one of six distinct categories on what McCloud calls the ‘transitional scale’: moment to moment, action to action, subject to subject, scene to scene, aspect to aspect, and the non-sequitur. So important is each reader/viewer’s own unique vision of what goes on in the space between the panel, that McCloud is led to conclude that “in a very real sense, comics is closure” (p. 67).

If we accept this passage as a definitive statement about comics, and not as merely an example of McCloud using dramatic language to stress the (obvious) importance of closure, then a real problem presents itself: How do repeating panels fit into all of this? Where there is a sequence of only exact-same images (i.e., exact-same, barring unintentional differences that result from shortcomings in the printing process), there is no transition. Without transition from panel to panel, there is no necessity on the part of the reader to practise closure. If this be so, then it stands to reason that McCloud does not consider repetitive panels to constitute comics, in spite of the fact that they do not conflict with his official definition of comics found in Chapter One—i.e., “juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer” (p. 9).

This clash, between McCloud’s official definition and his ‘unofficial’ definition (or should that be ‘supplementary determiner’?) that he so rashly sets forth in Chapter Three, results in a confusion bordering on a dilemma for the reader who attempts to utilise this book as a guide for extensively identifying examples of the comics medium.

To demonstrate the full weight and extent of the entailing confusion, let us consider a comparison of two series of images that definitely fall outside the realm of what is traditionally seen as comics. For example, consider the front and back covers of Sonic Youth’s 1987 LP Sister :

Then consider Panel I from Andy Warhol’s 1962 Marilyn Diptych (keeping in mind that any discrepancies between the images of the starlet is not intentional, but merely the result of the limitations of freehand painting and shortcomings in the silkscreening process):

If he or she is to take the official definition as the Final Word, then either one of these artistic works may be considered comics. However, if one is to absorb the passage from Chapter Three as a key to the Real Gospel, then only the Sonic Youth covers may be regarded as such.

Now it is at this point that I should re-emphasise the obvious: that neither the album art nor the Warhol portrait fits our traditional mental image of what comics are or what comics should be.

Still, one must admit that it is the Warhol, with its:

• • limited range of bright, ‘violent’ colours;

  • silkscreen on acrylic on canvas production (which somewhat resembles the comics printing process, and—due to the silkscreened black paint or ink being out of register with the colourful pigment already on canvas—often produced for Warhol the same ‘shifty’ images so typical of the four-colour comics-printing process utilised in so many newspaper strips and pre-1980s magazines); and

  • despite a lack of borders, more conventionally organised ‘panels’,

that comes the closest to resembling anything like comics—at least according to our traditional and most elemental criteria for identifying works of this artistic form.

By comparison, the work that is ‘undoubtably comics’ (by virtue of its fulfilling both McCloud definitions), the album art, appears to be nothing other than a collage of photos with a superimposed title. Its ‘panels’ are unconventionally arranged and lacking in a common theme, to the point where no proper ‘reading’ sequence can be determined with any degree of certainty. In addition, the ‘panels’ are photographs—not a popularly recognised comics medium, especially in North America. This combination of idiosyncratic or, at best, ‘fringe’ elements simply does not fit any traditional image we have of comics; or, from another angle, the work is simply lacking in too many of the components which we have traditionally held as essential to this art form. (McCloud himself warns as early as page 4 that a definition must not be “so broad as to include anything which is clearly not comics”.) In fact, the Sonic Youth covers would look far more at home hanging next to Carlos Ginzburg’s collage piece, Chaos Fractal 1985—86 [see below], in a gallery show dedicated to the chaos aesthetic, than it would in a hefty tome compiling various comics styles of the Twentieth Century.

Details from Chaos Fractal 1985—86

Ironically, at first glance, Warhol’s Marilyn painting bears more resemblance to a comics strip than it does a portrait, even after forty years in the limelight of popular culture! It might also be said that many of his repetitive images of electric chairs [see below], car crashes and race riots do not so much resemble 1960s still lifes or quasi-photojournalism as they do pages from old 1940s and ’50s crime and detective comics—especially to those unfamiliar with Warhol or pop art in general.

Lavender Disaster, 1963

It should also be pointed out that early in his career (circa 1958—61), Warhol would often do reproductions of Batman, Dick Tracy, and other comics characters. A year or two later, Roy Lichtenstein would also do full-scale blow-ups of comic-book images, particularly panels from ‘action’ and romance comics. As a result, there seems to have been over the years a sort of mutual relationship between the pop-art and comics-art camps: the pop artists referring to comic books/strips for subject matter and inspiration, and many comics artists—through benefit of association—basking in the sunlight of the Fine Art moniker, which was applied to pop art virtually overnight (especially in Europe), and which had previously eluded the comics medium altogether. (‘Fine Art by Association’ was almost undoubtedly at the root of Marvel Comics becoming Marvel Pop Art Productions for one brief stint in 1965. Probably the ultimate extension of this phenomenon would be Superman co-creator Joe Shuster’s attempts at full-blown pop art beginning in the mid 1960s.)

Yet, in spite of these close links between pop art and the comics industry, there is no way a painting like Panel I of the Marilyn Diptych—or any sequence of repetitive panels from an accepted comics strip or magazine—can ever be interpreted as comics, as long as he or she takes McCloud seriously when he states, “Comics is closure”. And how can the reader do anything else but than to take him seriously? After all... he has even gone so far as to subtitle the book The Invisible Art.

Even if one still goes ahead and accepts without question that comics is closure, there is still potential conflict awaiting the said reader, simply because the author neglects to point out that that although comics (as he sees it) depends on closure, closure does not depend on, nor automatically equal, comics. Towards the end of Chapter Three, McCloud writes, “Closure can be a powerful force within panels as well as between them, when artists choose to show only a small piece of the picture” (p. 86). Now, if comics truly is closure as he asserts, then without the addition of the clause emphasised above (i.e., Closure does not depend on, nor automatically equal, comics), it may stand to reason that, for McCloud, a single panel can be exemplary of comics. But this, however, is in direct conflict with a definitive assertion made in Chapter One, that single panels are “no more comics than [a] still of Humphrey Bogart is film!” (p. 21). A final confusing contradiction for the reader? I’m afraid not—there’s still more.

If one reads on through the following chapter (‘Time Frames’), one will discover that McCloud has indeed included a sequence of repetitive panels on page 101 [see below]. Thus, if one accepts McCloud’s Chapter Three premise that comics is closure, then one must also come to accept that Understanding Comics—contrary to the emphatic observations (read sales pitches) of its publishers (Tundra, DC, etc.) and comics dealers and critics alike—has not been composed entirely in the comics medium!

The way I see it, upon discovering the two individual definitions at work in Understanding Comics and experiencing the confusion that ensues, the analytical reader will react in one of two basic ways: He or she may toss the book aside as a lost cause—a cowardly reaction, and both an insult to McCloud and an injustice to an otherwise excellent work; or the said reader may respond to the book as I have, and conclude that McCloud has failed to provide us a precise and constant definition of comics—a failure, however, that is detrimental to a philosophical text like this one. It is the latter reaction that proves to be the most positive and constructive, for the simple reason that it gets the reader thinking. Recognising the author’s failure to establish a precise and constant definition, one may begin to utilise one’s brain in developing his or her own guidelines or blueprint for identifying examples of the art form. (Bearing this in mind, one is tempted to speculate that McCloud’s inconsistency in defining comics might actually be intentional! Could this be an ulterior motive for the creation of dual definitions? Might he not be leaving ‘snags’ and ‘loose ends’ in an attempt to stir up public thought and debate, thus establishing his book as a sort of Les Temps Modernes of comics?)

All this brings me to a final point I should make. In the writing of this analysis, I have made examples of a record album’s artwork and a painting. They were used merely to emphasise that when McCloud introduces an additional definition, he subsequently creates a disturbing irony: that which heretofore (i.e., prior to McCloud’s official definition) had been virtually unrecognisable as comics maintains its bizarre elevation to comics status, while that which is composed of elements traditionally accepted within the medium is suddenly left without a leg on which to stand. I did not mean to suggest that collage art cannot at any time in the future ever be interpreted as comics, any more than I meant to suggest that Andy Warhol was the greatest comics artist since Jack Kirby. The arts and humanities have a long history of oversights, redefinitions, and reinterpretations. For example, philosopher Søren Kierkgaard (1813—1855) was an existentialist—we just didn’t realise it until the Twentieth Century. Alexander Calder, by introducing the element of motion, changed the way we perceive sculpture. The music of The Doors, Jethro Tull, King Crimson and others is considered ‘classic rock ’n’ roll’ of the 1960s and ’70s... in spite of the fact that as much as 75 percent of such recordings is actually Broadway-style show tunes, improvisational jazz, modern classical and other non-rock forms. Therefore, if a montage of thematically unrelated photographic images was suddenly admissible as comics—or (although more unlikely) if the repeated image was rendered unacceptable as a comics component—it should come as no surprise to an art historian, and the instigator(s) of such a change would be keeping good company with past artists and thinkers from other mediums and studies.

Could Scott McCloud be one of those people who will have a lasting impact on the way we observe and define comics? It sure seems possible. However, he will not establish his maximum role in the philosophical or theoretical history of the medium if he rests content with the first edition of Understanding Comics; for—as I made clear from the outset—although a classic, it is not perfect. In its present form, the book is plagued with two inconsistent definitions of comics. As a result, we are left to wonder: Is McCloud of the bold liberal opinion that the term ‘comics’ can encompass collage or ‘combine’ art, children's ‘mix and match’ books, photograph albums, etc.? (He does maintain [on page 20] that car owner’s manuals, Monet’s series paintings, traditional photo-booth prints, and even stained-glass windows displaying sequenced biblical scenes [!!!] are examples of the said form.)¹ Is he of the uncanny restrictive opinion that closure between panels is of such necessity that repetitive panels cannot be justified as comics? Is it possible for him to be of both persuasions and still be perceived of as logical? Does he place a limit on the contingency of comics on closure? And, if so, at what point does he draw the line? i.e., specifically, how many repetitive panels would be permissible and in what particular context?

Of course, McCloud could clear up a lot of this speculation by simply preparing a revised edition for publication.² The addition of a chapter clarifying his intended definition and what role (if any) closure plays in it, would at least elevate his book to the level of mechanical perfection. As well, I think that Understanding Comics would stand an even better chance of surviving (and insuring its author’s immortality) if McCloud would actually limit—if not extinguish altogether—any bearing that closure has on the definition; I’m a firm believer that both average readers and critics alike are much more receptive to a set of blueprints that embraces the ‘fringe’ and idiosyncratic, but doesn’t simultaneously nullify the accepted and ‘time-worn’. However, as long as the book remains in its present state, and no revisions are made whatsoever, McCloud must be content in his role as the Camus of comics, while Eisner remains the Sartre.

Repetition is a fundamental principle

of Twentieth Century art.

—John Cage—

¹Another crucial question might be asked at this point: Where does one draw the line between comics and such literary forms as illustrated novels, children’s picture books, Big-Little Books, etc.? And should one even consider such latter works to constitute literary forms? (Unlike Will Eisner—who remained adamant that comics were a literary form—McCloud tends to play down the literary aspects of the medium when discussing its properties in depth; note how words is absent as a defining element in both his official definition and the contentious closure ‘clause’.) McCloud briefly discusses how some of the Twentieth Century’s most “inspired and innovative” comics have not been recognised as comics because their creators (Lynd Ward, Jules Feiffer, Raymond Briggs, etc.) preferred to be known by such artistic euphemisms as ‘illustrators’, ‘commercial artists’ and ‘cartoonists’; but he doesn’t explore the issue as deeply and extensively as Yours Truly would have desired. My attention is drawn particularly to the work of Paul Zindel. In books of his such as The Pigman and The Pigman’s Legacy, there are sections where the text more or less depends on ‘cartoonish’ drawings for some degree of explanation (as opposed to simply embellishment), and vice versa. Are such works—heretofore known as novels—also (actually?) comics?

²Although McCloud has since published two sequels to Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics (2000) and Making Comics (2006), neither directly addresses or lends any clarity to the issue at hand, with the former focussing primarily on the somewhat precarious future of comics, and the latter dealing with the basics of comics construction.