Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels

Series Editor Roger Sabin University of the Arts London London, UK This series concerns Comics Studies—with a capital “c” and a capital “s.” It feels good to write it that way. From emerging as a fringe interest within Literature and Media/Cultural Studies departments, to becoming a minor feld, to maturing into the fastest growing feld in the Humanities, to becoming a nascent discipline, the journey has been a hard but spectacular one. Those capital letters have been earned. Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels covers all aspects of the comic strip, comic book, and graphic novel, explored through clear and informative texts offering expansive coverage and theoretical sophistication. It is international in scope and provides a space in which scholars from all backgrounds can present new thinking about politics, history, aesthetics, production, distribution, and reception as well as the digital realm. Books appear in one of two forms: traditional mono- graphs of 60,000 to 90,000 words and shorter works (Palgrave Pivots) of 20,000 to 50,000 words. All are rigorously peer-reviewed. Palgrave Pivots include new takes on theory, concise histories, and—not least— considered provocations. After all, Comics Studies may have come a long way, but it can’t progress without a little prodding. Series Editor Roger Sabin is Professor of Popular Culture at the University of the Arts London, UK. His books include Adult Comics: An Introduction and Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels, and he is part of the team that put together the Marie Duval Archive. He serves on the boards of the main academic journals in the feld and reviews graphic novels for the international media.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14643 Paul Fisher Davies Comics as Communication

A Functional Approach Paul Fisher Davies University of Sussex Brighton, UK

Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels ISBN 978-3-030-29721-3 ISBN 978-3-030-29722-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29722-0

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifcally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microflms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifc statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affliations.

Cover credit: Paul Fisher Davies

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Preface

This book explores how comics function to make meanings in the man- ner of a language. It outlines a framework for describing the resources and practices of comics creation and readership, using an approach that is compatible with similar descriptions of linguistic and multimodal communication. I do not use ‘communication’ in its broadest sense, such that any form of signalling, no matter how simple, will count. Comics may indeed communicate by virtue of their status as objects of material exchange, for example, or as cultural artefacts. For the present purposes, how- ever, I mean communication in the sense of a language exchange in all its human capabilities. I aim to consider the practice of comics as a language in a sense more specifc than a metaphorical one, where it might allude in general terms to the capability of comics to draw on a more- or-less codifed set of tropes; but other than a dangerously literal one. I will not argue, for example, that comics have a lexis and a grammar, minimal units and a syntax in quite the way that languages do. Nor do I mean by ‘communication’ just information exchange, in the sense of Shannon and Weaver’s model (Shannon 1948). Shannon and Weaver’s engineering conception of communication takes for granted a pre-existing code, used to encode and decode a pre-existing message, and it envisages the action of communication as a transfer of that encoded message across a channel, from transmitter to receiver. In that transfer, the message hopes to survive intact, avoiding interference from the noise that may disrupt it. All this assumes that information transfer is

v vi PREFACE the only task; that a message is separable from its code; that the transmitter and receiver have no other engagement with each other, nor with the generation of the code, nor with the contextual contribution to the making of meaning that is exchanged. The approach I will adopt in this book challenges all of those assumptions. To what extent, then, can comics fruitfully be approached through a framework derived from the study of language? Comics have long been used to do a wide range of the things language does: tell stories, record memoirs, recount histories, and even to instruct and advise, or argue, promote and explain ideas. Comics incor- porate verbal language to those ends, as well as using images to serve and support those purposes. So, it will be useful to describe what comics are up to using a framework that has described the functions of language, rather than just the forms of language. Thinking of comics as a language has been a tactic deployed as a metaphor, tacitly recognising this, but a metaphor not typically followed through. Comics have been characterised with other metaphors as a ‘blend’ or ‘hybrid’ of language and images, metaphors which imply homogenisa- tion rather than structure. Alternatively, comics images and text have been described by a tacit metaphor of flm, as separate but parallel ‘tracks’. In my view, comics refect human communication on at least three levels. Each level takes the form of a dialogic collaboration. Firstly, comics are frequently a collaboration between creators, typically dividing up as writer and artist, responsible for word and image separately, though in (literal) dialogue with one another. Because of this, much comics production has been mediated through language during the creative process. Other collaborators such as editors, inkers, pencillers and letterers have also shared among them distinct practices of meaning-making. Even when a single creator produces a comics text, it is possible to carve up the task in like ways, adopting different roles at different stages of creation: being one’s own writer, penciller or inker. A second collaboration in comics is between reader(s) and creator(s), and this is a collaboration that has been remarked upon often in comics studies. To look at this collaboration as explicitly dialogue-like is again to draw on social semiotics as a basis for thinking about the shared assumptions and interactions between participants in comics meaning-making. It is this sort of interactive exchange that I have in mind when I speak of comics as communication: a communion more than a transfer of information. PREFACE vii

My interest in the present work will in large part focus on a third collaboration: how language and image themselves collaborate. To take them as semiotic practices, wordings and drawings contribute to a shared endeavour of meaning-making. This begs the question of how best to characterise that shared ground. I think it is productive to describe that mutual communicative endeavour in ways that separate the functions of the meaning-making practices from the resources adopted to realise meanings. Such an approach to meaning-making is offered by the social semiotics of Michael Halliday. This book seeks to employ Halliday’s account of meaning-making, which he characterises as a social practice realised across many disparate language forms, in order to generate a framework for thinking about communicative meaning-making in the medium of graphic narrative. Halliday’s framework has been deployed before, and fruitfully, to offer approaches to visual media texts, and to a range of visual and plastic arts, which can enable certain kinds of insight into what such works might be doing, and a set of suggestions about what ways they might perform their various functions. Halliday’s framework has not yet been adapted fully and specifcally at monograph length to describe how comics realise meanings: enacting a fully expressive range of functions using arrays of drawings, usually in a codex manuscript, presented to be read, usually along with language which supports this endeavour. This work outlines what such a description of the practice of comics might look like. Comics have been and can be used for many purposes. We can read them without attention to their form, mining them for their content, and discuss that. We can isolate panels or pages and appreciate them for their qualities as art. (This is often done with original authentic pages, stripped of their wordings, and sold and owned separately from the stories these artworks were created to tell.) Entire comics issues may be ‘slabbed’ as investments and exchanged as commodities. The present work does not focus on those usages, though they are important and valid aspects of the material and social reality of comics. The present work is interested in what comics do when they do what language does, and it seeks to identify and deploy a framework for describing that: what material resources and social practices serve to realise those sorts of meaning-making functions. The aim is that using a well-tested model as a basis for doing this will recruit a range of existing scholarship on language and image, whilst viii PREFACE tailoring the description to the resources and methods which have developed to realise comics meaning-making, so that they begin to characterise this particular social practice. The present work represents an initial attempt at such a complete approach in a single monograph. It may leave gaps and room for improvement and refnement. It does not intend to be the fnal word on comics, nor does it claim to be the only valid approach to thinking about them. It does not claim to be the frst or only approach. A reader may prefer to retain approaches to the image described in the other Hallidayan applications mentioned above, for example, or to innovate new ones. But I aim at least to be of assistance in initiating this work and have found the descriptions in the account that follows useful in framing my own thought about comics. I hope some of the frameworks, questions and approaches I offer may be of use to the interested comics reader too. I owe a debt of gratitude to many who have helped and supported me through the development of this book. First and foremost, I must acknowledge my deep indebtedness to the late Professors M. A. K. Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan for the inspiration that gave shape to the book. Dr. J. D. Rhodes helped to shape the initial ideas and gave invalu- able feedback on the early stages of exploration and writing of the work in its form as a doctoral thesis. Dr. Roberta Piazza’s close commentary and advice were crucial, especially as regards the linguistic theory, and Dr. Doug Haynes supported the project from beginning to end. The University of Sussex Doctoral School and the School of English provided sources of funding and support throughout. Staff at Sussex Downs College, later East Sussex College, have been gracious about time needed for academic work, and my students have provided inspiration for, and sometimes testing of, the ideas presented here. The Transitions Symposium team at Birkbeck have provided an annual venue for inspiration, development of and feedback about comics theory, as have the editors of Studies in Comics, in particular Dr. Julia Round, and of the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. I am indebted to reviewers at these journals for feedback on articles that share material with Chapters 2 and 3, and to Benoît Crucifx for comments on material shared with Chapter 5. Another constant through the process of exploring theory has been the membership of what became the British Consortium of Comics Scholars: from the earliest days, Dr. John Miers, Dr. Louisa Buck, PREFACE ix

Dr. Nicola Streeten, Dr. Paddy Johnston and Dr. Thierry Chessum, and many who have joined us, including Alex Fitch, Barbara Chamberlin and Clari Searle. For their help, friendship and lively debate I am deeply grateful. The wider comics scholarship community, in particular at the International Graphic Novels and Comics Conferences, have likewise provided invigorating support and stimulus year after year. I am grateful also to John Bateman and Neil Cohn for their feedback, though errors and omissions that remain in this work are my own. On a more personal level, Marina supported me through the start of the process, and Claudia has supported me through to the end, and does so still. This book is dedicated to my family and to the memory of my father.

Brighton, UK Paul Fisher Davies

Reference Shannon, C. E. 1948. A Mathematical Theory of Communication. The Bell System Technical Journal 27 (3): 379–423. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1538- 7305.1948.tb01338.x. Contents

1 Introduction 1 Communicating in Comics 1 Comics as Communicative Action 2 ‘Narrative Drawing’ 4 Language and Comics 5 Models of Comics 6 Ut Pictura Poesis? Comics as Resources for Meaning-Making 8 Three Problems of Comics Expression 10 The Imagetext as Utterance 11 Linguistic Approaches to Comics 13 A Functional Approach to Graphic Narrative 19 On the Nature of the ‘System’ in Comics Texts 22 Guide to the Book 23 Summary 27 References 29

2 Prelude: ‘Animating’ the Narrative in Abstract Comics 33 Introduction 33 Comics and Abstraction 34 ‘Comics’ 35 ‘Abstract’ 37 ‘Animate’ 45 ‘Narrative’ 50 Conclusion 57

xi xii CONTENTS

Summary 59 References 59

3 Representing Processes in Graphic Narrative 63 Introduction 63 Four Approaches to Rendering the Process 65 Participants Imply Processes: Composition 66 Difference Leads to Implicature: McCloud’s ‘Invisible Art’ 67 Abstract Line: The ‘Lexicon of Comicana’ 68 Verb Supply: ‘Blending’ Words and Pictures 69 Six Classes of Process Types 70 Processes Rendered by Composition 71 Implicature of Processes by Difference 71 Rendering Processes with Abstract Line 78 Verb Supply to Specify Processes 80 Applications 85 Mapping Theories and Genres 85 The ‘Comics Zone’ and Prototypicality 88 Summary 92 References 93

4 Games Comics Play: Interpersonal Interaction in Graphic Narrative 97 Introduction 97 Relation to Pragmatic Approach 98 Halliday’s Model 99 Kress and van Leeuwen’s Interpretation 101 A Practical Reinterpretation 102 Interactions with the Reader: ‘Games Comics Play’ 103 Giving Information: Making ‘Statements’ 104 Spot the Difference 105 Where’s Wally? (or, Wimmelbook) 107 Rebus 109 Demanding Information: Setting ‘Questions’ 111 Questionnaire 111 Caption Competition 112 Spot the Ball 114 Join the Dots 116 Colouring In 118 CONTENTS xiii

Demanding Goods-and-Services: Instructions and Actions 118 Mental Action 119 Jigsaw 123 Physical Action 125 Giving Goods-and-Services: What Do Comics Offer? 127 Summary: Games Comics Play 128 References 129

5 Abstraction and the Interpersonal in Graphic Narrative 133 Introduction 133 Halliday’s Two-Part Interpersonal Function 134 Mood, Modality, Modalisation and Modulation 136 Appraisal 138 Abstraction as a Set of Clines 141 What Abstraction Is 142 What Abstraction Is Not 143 Summary: Resources for Modalisation 153 Application 155 Thompson: Blankets 155 Koch: The Art of the Possible 156 Gipi: Vois comme ton ombre s’allonge 157 Pedrosa: Portugal 158 Personal Work 160 Colour and Metafunction 162 Functions of the Abstract Enclosure 164 Summary 166 References 167

6 Cohesion and the Textuality of Comics 169 Introduction 169 What Makes Comics One Text Rather Than Many? 169 Other Treatments of Cohesion 170 Textual Organisation in the Image 170 Cohesion and Textual Organisation in Picture Books 172 Treatments of Cohesion in Comics 173 Halliday’s Model of Meaning-Making 175 A Textual Model for Comics: Structural 176 Thematic Structure 176 Information Structure 177 xiv CONTENTS

A Textual Model for Comics: Cohesive 179 Four Comics Cohesions 180 Phoricity 181 Breakdown of the Cohesive Categories 183 Preliminary Table of Cohesions 196 Mapping Cohesion to the Ideational Metafunction 197 Mapping Cohesion to the Interpersonal Metafunction 199 Summary 200 References 201

7 The Logical Structures of Comics: Hypotaxis, Parataxis and Text Worlds 203 Introduction 203 The Clause and the ‘Cluster’ 204 Ranks 204 Structures of Narrative: Paratactic 206 And—so—Then 206 Reading Order 207 Cohn’s Branching Structure 207 Chavanne’s Subdivisions 208 Clusters and Reading 209 Parataxis and Hypotaxis 211 Expansion and Projection 213 Types of Expansion 214 Hypotaxis and Rankshifting 216 Projection 219 Text World Theory 220 Example: Carnet de Voyage 223 ‘Phatic Space’ 225 Modalisation and Text-Worlds 227 Example: The Red Sea Sharks 229 Application 231 The Arrival: Parataxis and Hypotaxis in Silent Comics 231 Maus: Classic Metalepsis 233 Lentement Aplati par la Consternation: Comics as Utterances 234 Castle Waiting: From Word Balloons to Panels 236 Logicomix: The Priority of Logical Relations 238 Summary 239 References 240 CONTENTS xv

8 Coda: Metaphor, Magic and Making Meanings 243 Introduction 243 From Metonymy to Metaphor 244 Three Types of Metonymy in Comics Images 246 Metaphor: From Concrete to Abstract 247 Grammatical Metaphor 249 Grammaticalisation 253 Towards a Visual Metaphor 257 Close Readings 261 Phoebe Gloeckner: A Periodic Fantasy 262 Mike Mignola: Pancakes 267 References 274

9 Conclusion 277 Models and Mappings 277 Comics as an ‘Utterance’ 278 Comparison of Models 280 Summary: Making Meanings with Comics 282 References 283

Appendices 285

Glossary 305

Bibliography 313

Index 325 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 From ‘Parcours Pictural’ (2005) by Greg Shaw (in Molotiu 2009) 39 Fig. 2.2 From ‘Time Lapse Growth’ (1973) by Bill Shut (in Molotiu 2009) 41 Fig. 2.3 Heider and Simmel’s animation represented in Scholl and Tremoulet. Reprinted from Scholl and Tremoulet (2000), ‘Perceptual Causality and Animacy’, Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4 (8): 299–309, with permission from Elsevier 46 Fig. 2.4 Michotte’s demonstrations of perceptual causality. Reprinted from Scholl and Tremoulet (2000), ‘Perceptual Causality and Animacy’, Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4 (8): 299–309, with permission from Elsevier 49 Fig. 2.5 ‘Parcours’ (1987) by Benoit Joly (in Molotiu 2009) 52 Fig. 2.6 ‘Stop Quibbling, Please’ (2001) by Ibn Al Rabin (in Molotiu 2009) 56 Fig. 3.1 Complete diagram of process types and approaches 72 Fig. 3.2 From The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes (Watterson 1992, 185) 76 Fig. 3.3 Abstraction diagram 80 Fig. 3.4 The process stack 82 Fig. 3.5 From Good-Bye Chunky Rice by Craig Thompson (1999, 26–27) 89 Fig. 3.6 From Fight Club, dir. David Fincher (2002) 92 Fig. 4.1 Table of exchange functions from Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) 100

xvii xviii LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 4.2 From M. Cryptogame (Töpffer 1845), in Kunzle (2007, 462) 106 Fig. 4.3 From Transat (Picault 2009, n.p.). Originally published in French under the following title: Transat by Aude PICAULT © Editions DELCOURT, 2009 108 Fig. 4.4 Rebus from The Lynn Transcript, Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts, June 7, 1873 (accessed at ‘The Olden Times Newspapers for Genealogy & History,’ n.d.) 110 Fig. 4.5 Palo Alto medical questionnaire 113 Fig. 4.6 From ‘The Passion of a Man’ (1919), in Passionate Journey (Masereel 2008) 115 Fig. 4.7 From The Lost Women (Hernandez 1988, 23) 117 Fig. 4.8 ‘Little Nemo in Slumberland’, 31st December 1905 (in McCay 2016) 121 Fig. 4.9 ‘Little Nemo in Slumberland’, 3rd December 1905 (in McCay 2016) 122 Fig. 4.10 From ‘The M61A1 Rife: Operation and Preventative Maintenance’ DA Pam 750–30, pages 4–5, illustrated by Will Eisner in 1968. Accessed via Persoff (n.d.) 123 Fig. 4.11 From The Arrival (Tan 2007) 124 Fig. 5.1 Diagram of abstraction (Arnheim 2004, 151) 143 Fig. 5.2 Diagram of abstractions 145 Fig. 5.3 From Visual Thinking (Arnheim 2004, 131) 147 Fig. 5.4 From Blankets (Thompson 2003, 59) 149 Fig. 5.5 ‘Tugboat Ted Comics’ (Koch 2004, 62). Copyright © 2004 by Kenneth Koch, from The Art of the Possible. Reprinted by permission of Counterpoint Press 157 Fig. 5.6 From Portugal (Pedrosa 2011, 64). Portugal © DUPUIS 2011, by Pedrosa www.dupuis.com. All rights reserved 159 Fig. 5.7 Diary comic 161 Fig. 6.1 Theme and rheme, and tonic 177 Fig. 6.2 Given and new in sequence 178 Fig. 6.3 Given and new in composition 178 Fig. 6.4 From Jar of Fools (Lutes 2008, 98) 184 Fig. 6.5 From Blankets (Thompson 2003, 39) 186 Fig. 6.6 From ‘100 Rooms’ in Locas (Hernandez 2004, 68) (Copyright © Jaime Hernandez. Courtesy of Fantagraphics Books [www.fantagraphics.com]) 188 Fig. 6.7 ‘22 Panels That Always Work’ (Wood and Crouch 1980) 190 Fig. 6.8 From Blankets (Thompson 2003, 118) 193 Fig. 6.9 From Jimmy Corrigan (Ware 2001, n.p.) 194 Fig. 6.10 From Jimmy Corrigan (Ware 2001, n.p.) 195 Fig. 6.11 Preliminary table of cohesions 197 LIST OF FIGURES xix

Fig. 6.12 Approaches to rendering the process in comics (from Chapter 3) 198 Fig. 7.1 Conceptualisations of comics 212 Fig. 7.2 Projection, expansion and comic strips (Halliday and Matthiessen 2004, 443) 214 Fig. 7.3 From Hildafolk (Pearson 2010, n.p.) 218 Fig. 7.4 Projection and comics (Halliday and Matthiessen 2004, 520) 220 Fig. 7.5 From Carnet de Voyage (Thompson 2004, 10–11) 224 Fig. 7.6 From The Red Sea Sharks (Hergé 1992, 96). © Hergé/Moulinsart 2019 228 Fig. 7.7 From The Red Sea Sharks (Hergé 1992, 108). © Hergé/Moulinsart 2019 230 Fig. 7.8 From The Arrival (Tan 2007, n.p.) 231 Fig. 7.9 From The Arrival (Tan 2007, n.p.) 233 Fig. 7.10 From Lentement Aplati par la Consternation (Ibn al Rabin 2013) 235 Fig. 7.11 From Castle Waiting (Medley 2006, 350–51). Copyright © Linda Medley. Courtesy of Fantagraphics Books (www.fantagraphics.com) 237 Fig. 7.12 From Logicomix (Doxiadis and Papadimitriou 2009, 230–31). © Doxiadis and Papadimitriou, 2009, Logicomix, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC 238 Fig. 8.1 From Polina (Vivès 2011, 51) (© CASTERMAN S.A) 251 Fig. 8.2 Diagram of clines of abstraction 255 Fig. 8.3 ‘A Periodic Fantasy’ (1989; in Gloeckner 2001, 65) (From A Child’s Life and Other Stories by Phoebe Gloeckner, published by Frog Books/North Atlantic Books, copyright © 1998, 2000 by Phoebe Gloeckner. Reprinted by permission of publisher) 263 Fig. 8.4 ‘Pancakes’ page 1 (in Mignola 2003, n.p.) (© Mike Mignola, with permission from the author) 268 Fig. 8.5 ‘Pancakes’ page 2 (in Mignola 2003, n.p.) (© Mike Mignola, with permission from the author) 272