



In my junior year, I was assigned Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Criticism”. After reflecting on this reading for awhile, I have come to realize that in the field of comics also, the thing most needed is good critics. We need critics who, to paraphrase Pope, can at the same time praise greatness and condemn crassness. Critics are ambassadors between the world of creators and consumers, and it is greatly through the efforts of such ambassadors that a genre can become refined. Criticism is not a glorious field, but good criticism is of great value. Here is my first very general assay into the field of comic criticism.

“Definitionality”

Comics are radically subjective. Some scholars (Theirry Groensteen) argue that comics are defined by their larger systemic nature. But I say that comics are not defined by anything so much as by definition itself. They are a medium whose format is a structure for defining concepts, and the concepts defined are structures to define the larger world. This is true of every comic, but most true of the best comics.

In “Mushishi”, by Yuki Urushibara, the “definitional nature” is explicit. The comic is focused on defining the concept “Mushi.” Each episode builds on this concept, and Mushi in themselves are a tool and framework to look at the world. They are an opening in the philosophical space of human thought in order to consider the world in a new way. Mushi are not merely physical creatures. Nor are they exactly spiritual, but in between-

A new category, created by the definitional functionality of comics.

The physicality of the comic format creates this “definitional functionality”. We see an object and the brain asks: “what is this?”

Either the brain does or does not already have an answer. If not, it creates one.

In this process it looks for context clues. In comics, it sees other objects and more importantly, it sees words- containers for definition. Adam defined animal names to have dominion over them. The comic defines the visual forms within itself. This places the forms in the hierarchy of meaning -both the hierarchy of the comic, and the hierarchy of reality. Thus the comic is definitional.

Further, comics involve an endless number of subjective visual narrative choices, from the size and shape of panels, to the frequency of panels, to degree of contrast in tone and value, etcetera. And within any given comic, each of these visual narrative choices effects all of the others radically. So, (as Thierry Groensteen also says,) each comic creates its own set of rules, and its own methodology by which it conveys narrative. Therefore, in comics, definitionality is even the means of conveying narrative. The definition of meaning even becomes the mode of narrative within comics. There is no narrative without definition. The comic is a new type of story: a story made of definitions.

Prose form takes pre-made concepts and reassembles them to suggest new definitions as the end product. But in the comic form, the new definitions are not the just the end product, but the process. The entire narrative is carried forward by the suggestion of new definitions. All progression implies new definition. And this is powerful.

In Mushishi, The protagonist confronts a mushi that overwhelms people with noise. The characters overcome this noise-mushi by a focus on the sound of the human body. The solution is the rediscovery of reverence for the human body.

This is a new way to think about a real-life subject. Rather than science or spirits, the reverence for life itself.

“names hold power because they help define the unknown.” (Otsmane-Elhaou, 9) Comics do not only define the unknown but ‘create’ the unknown they define, by the fusion of concepts (philosophical, mythological, etc.) in the mind of the author, and subsequent physical representation in the form of an image.

Fusion of modern power fantasies, humanist values, and ancient archetypes, for example, creates a Superhero. And it also creates a new definition, which is the point of superheroes. The definition does not end with their creation, but continues as part of their existence. We ask: How powerful is superman? Can Spiderman beat him? Why does superman work a day job? Etc., etc. We constantly define and re-define them, because this process of definition is what generates interest.

And all comics are “defined by definition.” Including non-fiction. Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” is a radical example of this. The definition of racial groups is put to question via the image of various animal bodies (mice, pigs, dogs..), and the representation of these animal bodies and their meaning is the focal point of the argument of the comic, both in the comic world and out in the context of the larger world.

But even in a more realistic non-fiction comic such as Fetter-Vorm’s “Trinity” the artistic dimension introduces subjectivity, and with subjectivity, ‘naming’ and ‘defining’. We see a character’s frowning, cartoon face, and we say: he is frowning sincerely. Or: He is faking a frown. Or: he is sadistic. The physicality of the image forces us to define it. By the comic recreation of the physicality of things, the definition of them is re-enacted.

A larger problem with “Definitionality”

The definitional nature of the comic lets an author portray his inner thoughts, and convince the reader to redefine his own world along similar lines. This ‘definitionality’ makes it a medium of positive cultural change, and also a candidate to be a respected form of literature.

So, why aren’t comics reaching such heights? The obstacle is in their definitionality. Why? It is in direct contradiction to the nature of the rest of literature.

Let me digress for a moment. In literary studies, there is something called “The Canon”. This term roughly describes those works which are considered ‘respectable’ in the field of literature- the great works of mankind. This ‘Canon’ is the compounding thought of many thinkers- From the Bible, to Shakespeare, to Jane Eyre, to The Lord of the Rings. And each new contribution only gains its place in “the Literary Canon” because it builds significantly on what came before it. Thus, within this “Canon”, each work is considered part of the shared conversation of civilization, and you have to engage with the conversation to be part of it.

The literature of humanity was not created like comics, definitionally, but rather, contextually, as a cohesive part of a greater conversation.

But because of its extreme subjectivity, the comic as a medium is inherently incongruous with this historical Canon. Comics is a system which redefines itself with every new pane. It is thus not even consistent from comic to comic, let alone several thousand years of accumulated culture.

Congruity with historical context is what makes literary works great. Comics, however, because of their definitional nature, find no place in this historically-formed mind of man. They cannot get into the nitty gritty of the human mind, and seem doomed to stay forever the idle pastime of the fantasy-obsessed reader.

But I will show you a better way.

A biblical digression

The byword of the current world is ‘newness’. We worship newness. And justifiably so. Scripture says: “I make all things new” and “Behold, a new thing”. What do these scriptures describe? The bodily incarnation of God.

At some point in human history, something happened. “Newness”, still worshipped, changed its definition. It became no longer God in the body, but the body as God. Materialism. Faster cars, better medicine, better telecommunications.- these became worshipped because seen as the true benefit of the body.

But there is another “newness”. The newness that scriptures intended. The incarnation. God’s self-sacrificial adoption of mortality. The newness of the cross. This is the offering up of bodily welfare for the benefit of another. Self-sacrificial love .

Thankfully, this “newness of sacrifice” is situated at the apex of the trend of refinement of the literary form of comics;

Comics are subjective. But one thing about them is not. The human body.

And the comic, among all mediums, shows the body on its own terms. This is because the reader’s experience, when perceiving the body in well-crafted comics becomes the experience of sympathy. This is an artistic medium where self-sacrificial love can be explored and communicated to the reader with a special fullness.

But this requires accurate, and therefore respectful depiction of the narrative of the body.

I was reading Fraction & Aja’s “Hawkeye”, and happened to come across a panel which popped out to me. On it, the main character was alone, and was looking down and contemplating his life. His posture made me feel sympathy for him. I imagined his feelings and for a moment, forgot myself in sympathy with him.

By evoking empathic feelings in the reader, a comic creator creates something objective- a shared emotion- from out of the subjectivity. This moves them out of themselves in sympathy with another.

This shared state, the shared emotional experience of compassion is a profoundly objective one.

To prove this objectivity is beyond the scope of this essay. I will, however sketch the reason.

The physical body elicits this compassion involuntarily. It is the result of a biological instinct: The presence of a physical body involuntarily evokes sympathy. We see a body on the comics page and we instinctively sympathize with it. If we perceive it to be suffering, our biological nature causes us to feel suffering. This does not need to be physical suffering- it can be emotional or psychological as well, as noted by Ian Williams (Williams, 125).

It is this moment of sympathy, empathy even, which allows the comics reader to move out of himself towards the character. And this movement out of himself is a movement towards greater virtue- caring about others with the love that is, by its self-forgetfulness, already, in a small way, self-sacrificial.

All this shows that the goodness of comics lies in the inherent goodness in the biological nature of life.

A small caveat

It cannot be ignored that the creator of a comic has the option to elicit many different emotions besides compassion. S/he can elicit, for example, anger, sexual arousal, sadness, fear, or disgust. But of these emotions, the reader experiences the gratuitous as selfish. Selfishness, in turn, leads directly to subjectivity, which is selfishness in its purest form. So the exploitation of the comics form as a pornographic or gratuitously violent medium, is antithetical to its growth as a literary form.

This is because the unique quality of comics as a radically definitional (and thus subjective) format places it already on extreme edge of the literary world. It must cling to objectivity in order to become a respected art form. There is no significant danger of low-brow comics being inducted into the status of respected literature, because they disqualify themselves.

Gratuitousness in any form obsesses the reader with his/her own feelings. Only compassion moves the reader to value the character. So the exploitation of comics for gratuitous agendas is not only morally depraved, but also denigrates the literary potential of the medium.

A dignified depiction of human suffering moves the reader towards selflessness and compassion. So the entire key to the refinement of comics is giving of the human body the dignity that is its due. If the comic conveys accurately the narrative of the body, the feelings conveyed by this dignity lead the reader “into” the character’s mind- to feel the emotions of the character instead of his own. This emotion, empathy, conveys the truth that every “body” has equal worth. This is an objective truth, and by the conveyance of this truth, these feelings lead a reader towards objectivity and the larger narrative of the body. Therefore, because it reports the truth, the most valuable feeling is compassion- the sympathy with another’s suffering.

A smaller caveat

Some recent comics creators try to subvert even this instinct of compassion, by eliciting compassion for the sexually deviant. They try to use the physicality of comics to redefine the nature of the human body itself- in particular, comics have become the battleground for various debates over what constitutes acceptable sexual behavior and gender definitions.

This expression of compassion is counterfeit because it fails to recognize the antipathy between authentic compassion and ungodly lust. (The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel) But nonetheless, this effort, even more than gratuitousness, cannot gain lasting permanence. It moves the only objective object- the body- back into the realm of subjectivity. More than any other comic genre, therefore, sexually explorative ones are doomed to be ephemeral.

The truth of this ephemerality can easily be perceived in the rejection of this type of book by comic book fans as a whole; Whether or not they support the progressive agenda, they do not consume it.

[Let not the reader argue an inconsistency in my arguments because of the example of Maus as a comic which re-subjectifies the body. The objectivity of the body is not based on its form, but on its ontological nature; the body is created to love and be loved- Not to lust and be lusted after- and any depiction of the body whatsoever that affirms this ontological truth is a depiction which fulfills the writerly contract of honesty.]

Putting it all together.

But what does all this have to do with literature? Let us go back to the literary canon. The literary canon is a conversation, in which all the parts relate to and build on each other. Because of this building on each other, some parts of the canon have more importance than others. Some parts have had greater influence. Shakespeare and Dante, for example, - whose influence can be recognized merely by counting cross-references from other works. But the work that has influenced the most other works is the Bible.

Why is this significant? Let us see. The Bible is defined as a condescension of God to man. Its first part preaches the enduring love of God for sinful man. Its second part shows this love, in the self-sacrifice of the cross.

To put it shortly, the Canon is the root of western civilization. The Bible is the root of the Canon, and the cross- self-sacrificial love- is the root of the Bible.

So, The Comic Medium, far from being disconnected from the context of great literature, has in its essence a radical capacity for a return to the root of great literature and great culture- the defining attribute of God- essential, self-sacrificial love.

Though radically subjective by nature, it is also radically objective when its potential for greatness is maximized, because the only objectivity that it can possess is an objectivity that relates directly to the core of the Gospel. When it is present, it becomes a light in the darkness, and a profound locus of contrast with the subjectivity of everything else.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no alteration or shadow of change”. The objective goodness of comics is the goodness of the body created in the image of God. The very good human nature was created for no other purpose but to love and be loved by another. The comics creator does not create this light in darkness, but he magnifies it with the lens of his mind, and creates for it a refuge- clothing the nakedness of the body with the dignity of a well-ordered rational world.

As Art Spiegelman said, comics work the way the brain works. The brain does not order memories according to their chronological order. Rather, it orders all things based on meaning. We discover this meaning via our shared experience of self-sacrificial love, starting from our mother’s womb, and continuing through all the experiences of compassion of our lives, both from man and from God. Then, via this meaning, we restructure the world internally.

This restructuring is Narrative- the shared objective. Narrative- the objective experience which is no longer subject to mortality, time and decay. Narrative- the experience of meaning. God willing, Comics can and will overcome their lesser selves and become a locus of this meaning- a locus of self-sacrificial love. Maranatha. Come Lord Jesus!

Works Cited

The Bible, various versions.

Groensteen, Thierry. The System of Comics. Jackson, MS, University Press of Mississippi ,

2009.

Otsmane-Elhaou, Hassan. Interview with Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook. Panel X Panel, vol. 01,

no. 12, 2018, pp. 6-15.

Pope, Alexander, “An Essay on Criticism”, Poetry Foundation.

www.poetryfoundation.org/artic…

Spiegelman, Art. “STEMFEST 2019.” Art Spiegelman/Re-Constructing Comics: Explorations in

Sequential Art, 2013, lakeland.edu/Campus-Life/re-constructing-comics-explorations-in-sequential-art.

Urushibara, Yuki. Mushishi Vol. 1. New York, NY, Del Ray , 2007.

Williams, Ian. “Comics and the Iconography of Illness." Graphic Medicine Manifesto”, edited by

Susan Merrill Squier and Ian Williams, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015, pp. 115-141.