Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Comic Books >

Comics: "Literature" or "Funnybooks"?

12:29 / 01.08.02

Comics are more often being recognized as “literature” rather than “funnybooks.” Is this a valid distinction? Do comic books succeed or fail as literature?

Nabokov insisted that literature should have nothing whatsoever to do with reality; Joyce attempted to translate consensual reality into literature. I’m not certain that either can be argued for or against as a general technique. We would have to take each piece of writing and ask, “Does this succeed as Creation of its own reality or Re-creation of consensual reality?”

And more specifically, is a comic book that creates its own world (e.g. The Invisibles) apt to be more successful as literature than a comic book that deals with consensual reality (e.g. Maus)? Does it make any difference?

I’m perched on the fence between two camps on this one. I’d like to see comic books become a vehicle for more intricate and meaningful stories (rather than settling for “mature themes”-- the arrested adolescence of an Ennis book sells units, but a giant testicle or a kid with a “face like an arse” are not exactly what I call maturity--and this is endemic to the Vertigo line), but I’m not certain that the medium would allow it.

A book like The Invisibles can be considered a “novel” in three volumes...but it troubles me that Morrison built the whole thing on the shaky foundation established in volume one. It’s akin to publishing serially, I know, but it also meant that there was no way to go back and revise the work once his feelings about it and understanding of it changed (as noted in Anarchy for the Masses). In the end the whole thing, depending on your point of view, dissolves into its own complexity or disappears up its own ass.

Then you take a book like The Watchmen, which succeeds greatly as a piece of genre fiction and a creation of its own world. Application to real-world themes leaves it a bit muddled, though. I suppose this leads to yet another question: do comics require a cogent and insightful analysis before they become literature?

12:49 / 01.08.02

Totally false distinction.

The medium is not the message in comics, any more than it is in other media. Bridget Jones' Diary is a book. Ulysses is also a book. No one will ever call Bridget Jones' Diary "literature."

In one way, Bridget Jones and Ulysses are more like each other than either is like Watchmen (no "the," by the way: where did that fallacy get started?). Books are books, and movies are movies, and comics are comics.

Nabokov's argument I find unpersuasive. Archie and Maus are both comics. Archie has less to do with "reality" than does Maus: what would Nabokov make of that? Is Archie literature, and Maus mere reportage?

Here's what "Literature" is:

When a certain number of academics agree that a given work is "important" (and it is still the academy that determines this, to a large extent), then it is re-branded as Literature or as Cinema.

Circular logic. Maus is Literature because it's taught in schools, because schools teach Literature. Archie comics are not (generally) taught in schools, because (and therefore) they are popular culture.

And the medium does support a number of truly intricate and mature stories. It's the marketplace that doesn't--same as with all other media: Bridget Jones shifts a zillion units, Ulysses sells only to a specialized market (and of those copies that do sell, less than half ever actually get read). That's not a limitation of the medium, that's audience demographics.

The Natural Way

13:51 / 01.08.02

Not to mention the fact that I couldn't give a fuck.

16:32 / 01.08.02

Yet you care enough to make it known.

That's kinda funny.

The Natural Way

18:14 / 01.08.02

Unless you have a sense of humour.

Reasons: I was bored. Still am. Doesn't go any deeper than that.

I'll defend comics till the "Sun is Dust!", but I've no interest in trying to sell them to anyone as literature. Not big on high art/low art distinctions: tend to think they reek of puppyrunce. Fave TV show's Buffy, afterall.

19:16 / 01.08.02

Oh, look. A thread about comics thats not a fatbeard love fest or Kordey bashing gets derailed three posts in. Good job, lil bow wow.

Comics succeed or fail as literature on an individual basis. Most, if not all, literature is the result of a singular vision, one person controlling the show. Its the same with film where the director can call the shots. In comics the writer hands the script over to the artist not really knowing what he'll get back. Combine this lack of control with a smaller marketplace and you start to see why good writers arent exactly running to get into comics.

19:41 / 01.08.02

I'm with Jack.

Looks like the kind of discussion that could get itself into a philosophical quagmire.

As a lazy Wittgensteinian (that isn't prepared to write an essay), it seems to me, that whether particular comics* are literature or not depends entirely on whether our current Literature Talk can accomodate.

To speak in generalities would be misleading: are all books literature?)

19:53 / 01.08.02

I would like to throw this thought into the ring: Did the authors of the works considered "literature" in modern times set out to create just that? Did they really attempt to build in all that meaning, metaphor and symbolism we're taught to uncover in Literature Appreciation classes? Or did they simply set out to write a good story?

In my view, what we see as literature has had a lot of it's deeper meaning interpreted into it by modern analysts. A lot of the long-dead authors must be rolling around laughing their heads off at the amount of bullshit that's spouted about their work.

Comics, being a relatively young medium, haven't had the opportunity to have this level of interpretation forced upon them, bar the occasional discussion in circles much like Barbelith. Given time, I am sure that seminal works like The Watchmen, Sandman and even, yes The Invisibles will be regarded as literature.

We should probably also attempt to categorise within the realm that is comics. While I would regard The Watchmen as a possible contender for "Literature" status, I wouldn't neccessarily give an Archie collection the same status.

20:21 / 01.08.02

Grey area, did you miss the author's murder?

Much literary analysis only has a passing interest in authorial intent.

22:07 / 01.08.02

(where did that fallacy get started? - the proposed movie 'treatment', iirc)

22:07 / 01.08.02

Which author? The author of Archie?

01:59 / 02.08.02

Before we continue any further:

It's WATCHMEN. Full fucking stop.

No "The." never was a "The." There are no characters in the book who refer to themselves, or are referred to by others, as "The Watchmen." The word only appears in the book in context of (a) A JFK quote, and (b) a graffitto.

There is no "The" in WATCHMEN.

Thank you.

(and it's Frank Quitely, not "Quietly". For fucksakes.)

The Natural Way

10:40 / 02.08.02

Bio: I'm sorry I pissed on this incredibly *WORTHY* thread. I think giving the finger to the whole question altogether has something going for it - it's a perfectly valid stance. Anyway, I qualified my position when I went into one about the crapiness of the high art/low art "divide". If you don't give a fig for that, then the only reason I can see why you'd care if comics were considered "literature" would probably have something to do with their sales.

Now....I leave you to stroke yr beard and enjoy yr fine port.....

11:04 / 02.08.02

Actually its probably time to see what people postring here mean by 'literature' since its such an ideaologically loaded term.

do you mean,
are comics worthy of study?
are comics worth of intellectual acclaim?
are comic comparable to other (better respected) forms?
are comics a respectable medium?
all the above? none? a mixture? do tell.

11:39 / 02.08.02

I'm perfectly willing to use another term, for the reasons you cite, sleaze. I suppose what I'm wondering is, Are comics worth keeping? Culturally speaking, that is--not in the sense of putting them in plastic bags with acid-free backing boards. Are there comics that speak truth to enough people that they will last, continue to be read for years to come? Or are they a popular phenomenon; a symptom of the times? As much as I enjoy The Invisibles and Watchmen (happy, Jack?), I don't see them being in print in 2020. Maus may very well be. Then again, it might not.

As to the high art/low art distinction...I don't put much stock in it either, as far as my personal tastes are concerned. (If you actually enjoy "Buffy," recognizing such a distinction might lead to self-loathing of the highest degree.

) I read so-called "Classics of Literature" and I read comic books, and everything in between. I listen to all kinds of music. Citizen Kane is right next to Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back on my DVD shelf. Whether you recognize the distinction or not, some of those Works are going to last and be treasured by society, culture, subculture, cult or whathaveyou. Others will fade out and be forgotten.

Will comics last?

I also agree wholeheartedly with the idea that many dead authors are laughing/enraged over ideas that have been attached to their works by literary critics, theorists and academes. But in many cases, authors DO go through the trouble of constructing a piece of fiction around complex ideas and symbolism (again, take The Invisibles as example)...

11:57 / 02.08.02

Interesting that you single out watchmen as being part of a tranitory stream of comics when it has been in print and available for 15 years now, the same time that Maus has been around...

but quite aside from that i dispute the notion that cultural phenomanon are indeed transitory. Sure fashions and trends move on, but they always return. Sometimes in other forms or with differing levels of status. Rider hagard (Victorian pulp writer, created Allan Quartermain in the late 19th century - a century later Quartermain is reborn as indiana Jones, people still read haggard, people also watch indiana jones) pop-culture doesn't die because times change.

Yes the invisibles was very much of its time, but its time will come again.

12:18 / 02.08.02

As much as I enjoy The Invisibles and Watchmen, I don't see them being in print in 2020. Maus may very well be.

Will Eisner's The Spirit, a 1940s populist entertainment, has been back in print, under various publishers, for most of the last thirty years. Ditto Prince Valiant.

Brought To Light, by Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz—a groundbreaking, experimental, politically charged and undeniably Important Work—went out of print shortly after publication and has not been seen since.

Draw from this what you will.