Breaking the Panel! Comics as a Medium (original) (raw)
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Negotiating Culture through Comics
2014
This volume provides a complex view of the phenomenon of the comic book / graphic novel in the contemporary world, the functions the medium serves and its variations in individual parts of the globe. Although academic studies of sequential art are a relatively new phenomenon as is the comic book in relation to its older brother, the novel, they can already be seen to fill in a significant gap. The contributors to Negotiating Culture through Comics show that much like comic books serve as a medium for portraying and better understanding the world and especially its inhabitants, so do analyses of graphic novels help identify how such texts function and what role they play for the writer, the readers and the society in which they function.
Un-Defining “Comics”: Separating the cultural from the structural in “comics”
Perhaps the most befuddling and widely debated point in comics scholarship lies at its very core, namely, the definition of “comics” itself. Most arguments on this issue focus on the roles of a few distinct features: images, text, sequentiality, and the ways in which they interact. However, there are many other aspects of this discussion that receive only passing notice, such as the industry that produces comics, the community that embraces them, the content which they represent, and the avenues in which they appear. The complex web of categorization that these issues create makes it no wonder that defining the very term “comics” becomes difficult and is persistently wrought with debate. This piece offers a dissection of the defining features that “comics” encompass, with aims to understand both what those features and the term “comics” really mean across both cultural and structural bounds.
Research Article, 2023
Comics, characterised as a literary and aesthetic media, have a specific storytelling capability that combines visual and verbal components, resulting in a distinctive form of expression. This study undertakes a thorough examination of the various impacts of comics on narrative, communication, and culture. From the historical comic strips to the contemporary graphic novels, the study analyses the development of this artistic medium and its capacity to effectively depict and communicate complex narratives and concepts. When examining the interplay between visuals and text, it also analyses the ability of comics to surpass linguistic and cultural boundaries, providing a broadly comprehended form of communication that appeals to a wide range of individuals. Comics have established themselves as a powerful medium for communication and social criticism, extending their influence beyond popular culture to the domains of education and campaigning. This study explores the use of comics as a means to tackle pertinent social issues and delves into the ways in which comics have been employed to give voice to marginalised people to catalyse transformative societal shifts. Comics, being a medium that combines visual and verbal elements, serve to bridge gaps, facilitate comprehension, and prompt us to adopt a fresh perspective on the world. They have not only become a mirror of our culture but also a driving force for social progress.
A brief rundown of the cultural usages and services of comics
Kultura, 2019
As we end the second decade of the twenty-first century, it should not be necessary to make a case for the cultural value of comics and cartoons. Granted that defending comic art against charges of being morally reprehensible, intellectually degrading, and aesthetically inferior does not have to be made as frequently or emphatically as a generation ago. Comics and cartoons have climbed quite a few rungs of the ladder of respectability with the blurring of the once-firm dividing line between "fine art" and "popular" art, the encouraging (not just tolerating) of the use of comic books and graphic novels in the classroom, and the developing of a wide spread comic art scholarship presence.
Mediality and materiality of contemporary comics
Journal of graphic novels & comics, 2016
During the past few decades, the interdisciplinary field of comics studies has matured considerably, resulting not only in a growing number of dedicated conferences and journals but also in a multitude of methodologically different approaches to the study of comics, including various types of formal, semiotic, and narratological analysis as well as historical, political, and cultural investigations (for a selection of pertinent examples, see
Unsettled Narratives: Graphic Novel and Comics Studies in the Twenty-First Century – A Preface
Dialogues between Media
Comic art and graphic narrative constitute a varied and multifaceted chapter in the cultural history of the contemporary age. When comics gained a foothold on the mass-media scene, they appeared as an object that was new, and indefinable. As is often the case when facing a novelty, there was a reactionary response. In fact, the slippery nature of the emerging medium resulted in widespread rejection by the establishment and a variety of negative connotations. Labelled for much of the twentieth century as a genre intended for children, or as second-rate cultural products, or even as morally harmful, in recent times, comics have begun to be re-evaluated by academics, particularly in the West. Even though today there remains a tendency to emphasize the literary value of individual works rather than their nature as sequential art, many negative connotations of the past have given way to an increasing need to understand how the comics medium works and what makes graphic narration so peculiar.