While comics like Maus, Palestine, Pride of Baghdad and Persepolis may prove to the anti-comic hardliner that yes, comics not only have the potential of great significance but have found it, the lack of press and knowledge about these types of comics keeps the art form from being recognized as what it is-neither truly visual nor truly literal, but a wonderful, fresh hybrid of both, with the ability to contain messages, satire, revolutionary material just as visual arts and literary arts themselves are able to do alone. But this lack of spotlight in traditional news media is being circumvented by the internet, and those comics for which the audience finds significance, not the establishment, gain popularity by merit alone. Significance, defined lightly in this paper as causing a reader to stop, think, and perhaps, change either themselves or the environment around them, is found in many things: content, setting and characters, but also in style, reinvention of meaning, and yes, even humor.
When you look at a comic book, you’re not seeing either the world or a direct representation of the world; what you’re seeing is an interpretation or transformation of the world, with aspects that are exaggerated, adapted, or invented. It’s not just unreal, it’s deliberately constructed [...] But because comics are a narrative and visual form…you do believe they’re real on some level. [...] So the meaning of the comics story within the world we see on the page is different from its meaning within the reader’s world.[i]
If the reader does not find personal significance in a comic, why continue to read it? Even Spider-Man, Wolk argues, is a popular comic because it means something to the reader, because the writer and artist could create a world through which ideas could displayed and understood in a way which had the potential to make the reader think. In fiction, aspiring writers are advised to create conflicts and characters that are relatable-sympathetic-to the audience, because a connection, a parallel to the reader’s own life, makes the work significant in some way to that reader. Conversely, readers cannot like or relate to what they do not understand, and significance originates from understanding, even if the experience depicted in a work has never been undergone by the reader. Wolk writes, “…what all good Spider-Man stories have in common…is their exploration of the relationship between power and the obligation to use it correctly.”[ii] Readers can understand and relate to Spider-Man, even though they themselves have no superpowers, because of the essential conflict of the story: responsibility and obligation. Perhaps, as Wolk also theorizes, one reason why superheroes are such a popular device in comics is because of their ability to represent ideas larger than what regular people or characters are able to, because they are truly superhuman.
[Superhero comics are a] form that intrinsically lends itself to grand metaphors and subjective interpretations of the visual world goes well with characters who have particular allegorical values. Superhero cartoonists can present narratives whose images and incidents are unlike our own sensory experience of the world…but can still be understood as a metaphorical representation of our world. That’s something very easy to do in comics, and very hard to do in any other medium.[iii]
Wolk may use only superhero comics in his example of how comics as an art may function, but many other works far from the superhero genre also take advantage of comics’ unique ability to visually represent a world far different from our world yet still maintain the necessary realism to be understood or appreciated-and be of cultural significance-in the natural world. Colloquially, a comic may be defined as any illustrated story, narrative or joke, and the word applies to Spider-Man as well as to Inverloch,[iv] Garfield and Pride of Baghdad, and also to culturally pertinent political cartoons. Each of these comics may take advantage of the art form’s ability to metaphorically represent reality, but there is more to comics than this single aspect. Academically, “comics,” a plural noun denoting the art form, not the physical piece, is far more: comics contain subject matter that is fanciful and serious, mature and asinine, and comics art may be presented on a dynamic spectrum that includes everything from photo-realism to the completely abstract. Though McCloud’s definition of “comics”, and indeed his invention of the word, was scathingly rebuked by certain cartoonists such as Dylan Horrucks[v] in his essay “Inventing Comics,” or doubtfully believed by Wolk,[vi] comics as art form is gaining momentum and recognition. Every piece of illustrated narrative, be it humor, mystery, fantasy, science fiction, cyberpunk, or “furry,” be it drawn in conventional American (ex, Calvin and Hobbes, X-men, Boondocks), European (ex, Astérix le Gaulois, Tin Tin), or Asian styles (ex, Samurai X, Dragon Ball)-can all fall under the definition of comics, and any of these displayed on the internet are therefore considered webcomics. And, every single one of these comics has the potential to be significant in their own way, not only in meaning, but also in the pioneering spirit of creating change inside of an industry that often refuses to recognize or even print them. What allows webcomics to create this change is of course, the merging of a traditional art with technology, specifically, the internet.
[i] Wolk, 20-21.
[ii] Wolk, 93.
[iii] Wolk, 92-93.
[iv] a five-volume, epic fantasy series by Sarah Ellerton, located at seraph-inn.com.
[v] Hicksville.co.nz.
[vi] Who curiously made note of Horruck’s essay yet used the word himself throughout Reading Comics.