The Rewriting Ethos of the Vertigo Imprint: Critical Perspectives on Memory-Making and Canon Formation in the American Comics Field
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Comicalités La bande dessinée : un « art sans mémoire » ? ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ Christophe Dony The rewriting ethos of the Vertigo imprint: critical perspectives on memory-making and canon formation in the American comics field ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ Avertissement Le contenu de ce site relève de la législation française sur la propriété intellectuelle et est la propriété exclusive de l'éditeur. 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Référence électronique Christophe Dony, « The rewriting ethos of the Vertigo imprint: critical perspectives on memory-making and canon formation in the American comics field », Comicalités [En ligne], La bande dessinée : un « art sans mémoire » ?, mis en ligne le 18 avril 2014, consulté le 20 mai 2014. URL : http://comicalites.revues.org/1918 ; DOI : 10.4000/ comicalites.1918 Éditeur : Université Paris XIII http://comicalites.revues.org http://www.revues.org Document accessible en ligne sur : http://comicalites.revues.org/1918 Document généré automatiquement le 20 mai 2014. Tous droits réservés The rewriting ethos of the Vertigo imprint: critical perspectives on memory-making and ca (...) 2 Christophe Dony The rewriting ethos of the Vertigo imprint: critical perspectives on memory-making and canon formation in the American comics field 1 Vertigo, DC’s adult-oriented1 imprint, is generally thought to have contributed to the transformation and new perception of the comics medium in the US in the 1990s (DANIELS, 1995; LOPES, 2009; RHOADS, 2008; ROUND, 2010). It is often noted that this transformation followed the renewed interest in comics after the publication of Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, and Maus I in 1986, which coincided with the attendant embracing of the elegant albeit problematic term “graphic novel” by the critical community and publishers alike. In fact, Vertigo is often praised for having “fully joined the fight for adult readers” in the early 1990s (WEINER, 2010, p. 10). So far, however, little attention has been devoted to the implications of how and why this “fight” was played out by and within the Vertigo imprint. 2 One exception is Julia Round’s analysis of some of the editorial and marketing strategies employed by the label in the 1990s. In her essay, Round maintains that Vertigo redefined the comics medium in bringing it “closer to the notion of literary text” (ROUND, 2010, p. 22), notably in observing that the imprint adopted the concept of the star-creator “whose name sells the book” (Idem, p. 21), “the graphic novel format”, and “a new self-awareness and literary style” (Idem, p. 22). In further maintaining that Vertigo initiated marketing strategies as well as experimented with industrial practices and techniques, Round points to the (un)conscious label’s agenda of self-canonization, that is, its possibly deliberate efforts to install a new set of norms within the American comics landscape, and thereby a new canon.2 3 Needless to say, the idea of canonicity is based on key notions such as selection and hierarchy (BLOOM, 1973; MORGAN, 2011), but these notions need not only be articulated by communities of readers and/or viewers. Publishers, producers, and artists certainly participate in the creation of a canon as well, especially when they recurrently refer to and/or draw connections with specific movements, traditions and/or artists whose themes, works and/ or aesthetics they either glorify and celebrate or, on the contrary, subvert and challenge. Following this line of reasoning, one might argue that the sector actors of any cultural domain can propose new historical and canonical matrixes of an art form as they engage with the philosophy of intertextuality and its many implications. More specifically perhaps, publishers and artists alike can attempt to redefine and hence rewrite a canon in terms of socio-cultural and patrimonial issues. And I believe that this is precisely what Round fails to see in her analysis of the Vertigo imprint. Round does not to take the poetics animating the editorial project of the label into consideration as further evidence of Vertigo’s endeavor to “redefine” the medium and its canon(s). In fact, she downplays the importance of the underlying discourse of postmodernist reprise that has been part and parcel of Vertigo’s programme and cultural identity. In short, Round fails to note that the label’s rewriting ethos is yoked to a politics of commemoration that calls into question the structuring forces of the industry. 4 There is no denying that strategies of rewriting pervade the Vertigo catalogue. The core titles that launched the label in the early 1990s (The Sandman, Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Hellblazer, Shade: The Changing Man and Doom Patrol), for example, are critical transformations of characters from the DC universe. These titles offer new versions of previously existing characters that are dislocated from their original contexts and re-articulated in new ones that explore horror and the occult as well as mix self-reflexive elements that one can associate with generic subversion. The revisiting of (popular) genres is in fact one of the most recurrent means through which Vertigo deploys its rewriting ethos. Preacher (1995-2000), for example, revisits the Western and its attendant American frontier mythology. Comicalités The rewriting ethos of the Vertigo imprint: critical perspectives on memory-making and ca (...) 3 The ongoing series Fables (2002-present) recasts traditional folk and fairytale characters in present-day New York as a result of their forced exile from their magical lands and, in so doing, challenges many of the codes of the conventional fairytale. In his series Northlanders (2008-2012), Brian Wood engages in a redefinition of the Norse sagas and the Viking Age in blending historical details and mythology with modern storytelling techniques and narrative genres. Other shorter Vertigo series and original graphic novels also rewrite and reinvent existing icons, stories, and cultural artefacts. Uncle Sam (1997), for example, is a narrative corporealization of the personified allegory of the US that radically differs from the eponymous superhero of the DC universe; The Nobody (2009) is a modern take on H.G. Well’s The Invisible Man (1897); Greendale (2010) is a graphic adaptation of Neil Young’s eponymous concept album released in 2003, and the recent Prince of Cats (2012) is a modern hip-hop retelling of Romeo and Juliet that focuses on Tybalt and mixes samurai action with Shakesperean theatre. 5 This non-exhaustive list clearly illustrates that the concept of rewriting has been one of the foundational pillars on which Vertigo has relied on for over 20 years in order to build its editorial project and develop a specific poetics. Implicitly, it also hints at the critical approach and framework under which I intend to study the politics of commemoration deployed by the label as a whole. The different comics mentioned above indeed point to my understanding of rewriting as a primarily literary, social, and cultural phenomenon. More specifically, I believe that a wide array of Vertigo titles such as the ones mentioned above not only engage with rewriting strategies that range from mere quotation to the recasting (and mixing) of various genres, works, and themes, but also with the rewriting of old discursive systems, categories, and patterns, including the mainstream/alternative dialectic. In other words, it is my contention that Vertigo’s archival impulse reflects a broad range of implications which entail the transformations of texts as well as the rewriting of some of the structuring forces of the American comics field. 6 I do not deny the fact that applying the term “rewriting” to a medium which generally mixes images with text has its limits. Potential detractors may claim that this non-visual approach results from a problematic methodology and/or terminology which aims at implicitly defining comics as literature for ideological purposes. This could not be further from the truth. I do not wish to try and “elevate” the art form in engaging in a discussion whose purpose is to define comics