

Certain things are true in the ‘worlds’ described by fictional narratives: Although Batman doesn’t really exist, “Bruce Wayne is wealthy” is nevertheless true (in some sense) in virtue of the fact that Bruce is described as rich in the Batman comics. The metaphysical details of fictional worlds are notoriously unclear, but we can set that aside. What is clear is that the following thesis naturally suggests itself:

The panel transparency thesis: Characters, events, and locations within the fictional world described by a comic appear, to characters within that world, as they are depicted in the panels.

There are good reasons for thinking that we should take panels, no matter how odd their content, to accurately represent the appearances of fictional characters unless given some substantial evidence otherwise, including:

Characters in comics sometimes comment on the strange appearances of other characters. Costumes based on comic characters typically resemble the characters as they appear in the panels.

Unfortunately, the panel transparency principle has disturbing consequences. For example, the Joker, during the events depicted in The Long Halloween, has six-inch teeth. In other stories, however, the Joker has normal dentition. So what is going on?

First, perhaps the Joker’s appearance changes dramatically from one story to the next. Sometimes he has six-inch teeth, and sometimes he doesn’t. This, however, implies that the fictional worlds described by mainstream comics differ drastically – in their basic physics and physiology – from the actual world.

Second, perhaps the Joker does not change appearance from comic to comic. Instead, different comics are describing different Jokers. Some of these Jokers have six-inch teeth, and other don’t. This, however, imposes an implausible proliferation of characters onto an already complex Batman continuity, and also fails to explain why the six-inch-toothed Joker remembers and reacts to events that happened to the normal-toothed Joker (and vice versa).

The obvious solution is to draw a principled distinction between those aspects of the art that accurately depict the appearance of the Joker, and those that are merely stylistic (presumably placing the length of the Joker’s teeth, as depicted in The Long Halloween, in the latter category). The problem is determining how we are to make such a distinction. It cannot depend on whether or not the art resembles the real world, since there are clearly characters in Batman comics that do not resemble anything in the actual world (after all, Killer Croc is not merely a regular dude with scaly green skin!) In fact, the only data we have regarding what Batman’s world looks like is the visual content of the panels –there is no independent ‘standard’ against which we can compare the panels to determine which aspects are accurate representions and which are merely stylistic. So why are we tempted to treat Sale’s depiction of the Joker’s teeth as stylistic, and other depictions as an accurate representation, rather than vice versa?