Passionate Journey is my favorite of the three or four of his books that I’ve read. In rereading it, I appreciate not only the technical skill, but also the narrative itself. The book follows a man as he wanders and lives life. There’s little to be said of plot. He arrives by train in a city, and the images convey his wonder and the pleasure he seems to take in everything: food, drink, dancing, women, buildings, speeches, reading, playing with children, throwing snowballs even. Masereel conveys much joy in his images as the man takes on life with gusto. The “passionate” used in the title is manifest without words, with only the sharp blacks and whites to communicate. The literal translation of the original title “Mein Stundenbuch” is more like “My Book of Hours,” a title which I think would have been better used, as it adds a certain level of meaning to the book. While Masereel seemed clearly, at the least, anti-clerical (note a page where the protagonist seems to fart in the direction of a priest), using the term for a prayer book, sets up the book as a spiritual book of a less religious nature, a book grounded in the appreciation of this life rather than the next.

Note how the figure is walking, head held high, a posture he takes frequently in this book.

The narrative is not all joy, as life goes, the protagonist falls in love and is rejected, then seems to have his money stolen while with a prostitute he had picked up. In an odd sequence, my reading is that he rescues a young girl from a man who is beating her. We see her as a child in two or three pages, then she seems to be grown up and, a page later, is standing naked in front of him (there appears to be a canvas in the background, so it is not clear if she is modeling for him or if it is a sexual encounter (though even in the former case we might assume the latter). Then the woman dies three pages later, leaving the man grief stricken. The ambiguity of this sequence (is the girl not as young as she appears at first? has a lot of time passed in between the pages?) is part and parcel with these silent narratives.

While there are some points in Passionate Journey where Masereel builds a scene out of multiple image pages, in most cases, the narrative is built of images that take place in separate places at separate times. Masereel ties it all together with his hatless protagonist who appears in every scene. Through that character we can see each image as taking place in a succeeding moment of time.

These visual leaps in time are something that separates Masereel’s books from most comics, particular the comics contemporary to his work. A lot of the early comic strip are very focused on a shorter and closer sequencing of time, think of Little Nemo’s transformations or the early gag strips. Even later comic strips tend to pay a closer attention and give more direct pointers to the sequencing of time and place in a narrative. Masereel’s work is, in this respect, closer in alignment to all the varieties of comics avant la lettre like Hogarth’s “A Rake’s Progress.”

What we end up with, throughout this book, is something more akin to a filmic montage, than to most comics. Masereel is unafraid to leave ambiguity in his narrative, an element that most comics seem unwilling to do, favoring the “clear” narrative that doesn’t require too much interpretation on the part of the reader.

He's fully satisfied with these.

Hergé: …I am quite happy with the panel showing the panic in the ranks of the pillagers [above left]. It’s one of the two panels that satisfy me fully: in a single panel, a series of movements, broken down and distributed among several characters. It could have been the same individual, lying down first, then getting up slowly, hesitating and finally running away. It’s basically, if you will, a shortcut through space and time.

Sadoul: What is the other drawing you’re happy with?

Hergé: It’s in Red Rackham’s Treasure [above right]. Everything is condensed, too, but in a different way. By looking at the drawing itself, which shows the captain walking barefoot on the beach while his companions are pushing the dinghy ashore, the spectator/reader mentally reconstructs what happened before: the “Sirius” has dropped anchor, a dinghy was lowered in the water, Tintin and his companions boarded; they rowed and finally reached the island where the captain just set foot. All this, which preceded the action depicted in the drawing, is expressed within that same panel. This drawing is based on a principle different from Crab’s – which I just described – where the effect is the result of both the simultaneity and the succession of movement. In this one, on the contrary, this is an unconscious reconstruction, by the reader, of movements which happened prior to the drawing. It’s like a self-generated mental flashback. Although the reader doesn’t realize it, he/she is unconsciously subjected to this entire analysis.

Sadoul, Numa. “The Hergé Interview.” The Comics Journal 250 (Feb 2003): 201.

I’ve collected and read a lot of articles on comics in the past few years, but I rarely manage to write about them in any manner. I’m going to try to write more posts about comics theory/criticism, as I make my way through the various pdfs and photocopies.

Abbott’s article from 1986 seems to be one of the earlier examples in English that takes a more formal approach to discussing comics. Most of what I have that pre-dates this is in French (with a few exceptions). I did a citation search in a few places to see if there was much discussion about this article, but I found little. It’s cited a few times, mostly, I think, because it was a scholarly source that could be cited on comics for some common sense elements of comics (words affect the pictures, pictures affect the words).

A few points worth mentioning:

A. Abbott loses points immediately for starting his discussion with the work of Lichtenstein. I guess it’s a safe option, to start with a “fine” artist who uses comic imagery, but it immediately reinforces the sense of high/low art, going along with the idea that Lichtenstein has to be in there to prop up the discussion of comics. This is understandable as an opening gambit (particularly in the context of a time when “comics aren’t just for kids” wasn’t an overused cliche), but he compounds the issue by using numerous examples from Lichtenstein in his discussion, rather than actual, you know, comics. Throughout he also stresses Lichtenstein’s use of various elements of comics, an authority of which I would like more proof, as Lichtenstein was taking his imagery from actual comics, not making it from whole cloth. For instance here’s one of example’s Abbott uses next to the original:

Original on the left, Lichtenstein on the right.

(Image from the Deconstructing Lichtenstein Project by David Barsalou)

Lichtenstein’s alterations in this case are minimal, other than moving the narrative caption to the right of the image.

B. “The borders of the panel, similar to the borders of a representational painting, define a framed opening through which one sees the scene behind.” (156)

This is conventional notion, of the panel as a kind of window onto a world, becomes problematized in many cases, particularly if one looks at abstract comics. Abbott is careful to say “representational painting,” and, not unexpectedly, considers all comics as representational too. In fact, much of Abbott’s discussion suffer a similar problem of discussing the structure of “conventional narrative comics” in the guise of “comics as a whole.”

C. Abbott’s considerations are of a literary nature: “the manner of perception is to a great extent determined by the literary nature of the comic art panel. The perceiver is, after all, termed a ‘reader’–and the subordination of the pictorial to the literary in comic art is one of the subtlest realities of the medium. Of course, this subordination in no way reduces the importance of the comic art drawings, which can create images and enhance the narration with greater power and economy than words; it merely indicates that the comic art drawing, as a narrative element must conform to an order of perception that is essentially literary.” (156)

Just the way some of that passage is structured points to Abbott’s literary and word/textual/verbal focus. The drawings “enhance” the narration in comparison to words. The art is like an addition, not a base.

Further proof of Abbott’s textual focus: “When a panel or series of panels contains artwork only and no written text, obviously the burden of narration falls solely on the pictorial element. Such sequences can be successful, but the demands placed on the drawings are quite stringent. One may say, in fact, that the drawings must generate a ‘visual text’ that can be read without ambiguity.” (166) He makes it sound like wordless sequences are rare and difficult to accomplish, yet there is (and was) no dearth of examples of such. Not to mention cases where the narrative text is redundant and in excess of narrative needs.

In the article to provide some well done readings of a few panels and sequences from that same Amazing Spider-man #4 (Lee and Ditko 1964), though sticking to his ideas that the “main ordering force” of comics is “literary, not pictorial” (167) and actually having to address the issue of what quality the pictures adds to the panel. He brings up the idea of the “characteristic moment” but never defines it. I’m still not sure what he means, though it deals with the images, the breakdowns, I think.

I can’t over emphasize how much importance he gives to the text even in a sequence from Spider-man that is all action with mostly superfluous talking.

D. He discusses the conventions of text in comics (this is the part that gets cited the most). He focuses on “three main types” of text in comics: narration, dialogue, sound effect. Once again, the expected conventions, though overlooking diegetic text and other varied uses of text.

Abbott posits and diagrams the textual elements as sitting on the same level as the panel itself, separate from the drawings in the panel with the sound effects acting a mixed level of the visual and the verbal. He discusses these issues using images from Lichtenstein (were no comic panels available?). Discussing the hierarchy of text and image in narration by using Lichtenstein’s out-of-context panels is problematic. Narration in comics cannot be understood in isolation like that (he does get to sequences later).

He mentions the “limiting or guiding factor” that text has on understanding the picture’s meaning, an idea which can be easily connected to Barthes’ anchorage and relay.

E. One of the more useful ideas in the article, and the one that stick with me, is the idea of
an “order of perception” in comics. He describes eye movement through comics as a combination of textual “reading” (left to right, top to bottom) and “pictorial perception” (the way one views a painting, directed by content/form rather than a pre-defined system of movement). Again, a Lichtenstein example proves problematic. Isolating the panel to discuss reading a comic, takes away the level of the page. Abbott gives prominence to the textual reading over pictorial perception in the panel (read the text, then look at the picture), which discounts the pictorial view a reader can take of the page (or spread) as a whole before reaching any individual panel.

He diagrams an example of eye movement through a Lichenstein diptych. I can’t say my path through the image matches the one he posits. Though, again, out of a page context, it’s hard to match the same reading as in a comic page. Part of Lichtenstein’s work is about recontextualizing those images into paintings, gallery work, which is “read” differently than a comics page/panel.

F. A discussion of “duration” is one of the most contentious (to me) sections of the article. “Each drawing on the comic strip/book page has its allotted reading time, without which narrative continuity would be severely hindered” (162) He posits that text creates the time frame of a panel. I disagree with this idea, it makes it sound like there is some absolute notion of time and reading in comics. I do believe that there is relative rhythm that can be created in comics, a sense of speed that affects our reading and our perception of the diegetic time, but this sense of “allotted time” is far too cut and dried.

This is emphasized by Abbott’s second example of duration. His first, a panel with lots of word balloons not unlike the one McCloud uses in Understanding Comics when discussing the same issue, does point out clearly the way the text can create the reader’s sense of time in a panel. But the second example, a panel from Amazing Spider-man #4, shows a character (I think its the Sandman) mid-motion after bursting out of a now broken door. Above him, a thought balloon tails off-panel with a long thought by Spider-man. Abbott notes: “The few seconds that it takes to read Spider-Man’s thought thus create the time element necessary for the action to take place, even though only an instant of time is depicted.” The action in question is Sandman bursting through the door, the end of which is shown.

This statement, to me, creates a weird image of the comic as a film running while we read. While we read the panel, the action plays out behind the scenes, until we finish the text and the film stops on the image at that moment. I find it highly unusual, and again, the idea is working too hard to make the text-image interaction too organized and consistent a system.

G. Abbott’s main, admirable, goal is inquiring into comics ability to be a serious art form. Abbott’s focus in this enquiry is visual-verbal relations, throughout which he seems to work hard to overemphasize the text and underemphasize the images in comics. This is a strange article, in that I feel Abbott is pushing and pulling against himself and comics. One step forward, one step back.

In the end, Abbott sums up by noting how juvenile the Spider-man comic is, but stressing how there are an increasing number of sophisticated stories being told in a number of countries. Yet, not only is one left wondering why he didn’t choose one of those stories to use as examples, but one is left wondering who these sophisticated comic artist are, because he doesn’t name names, not a single one.

This panel/page from Shannon Gerard‘s Unspent Love (found at Top Shelf 2.0, another one of their best offerings) is a slightly surreal at first but then subtly brilliant composition. Gerard has overlapped two moments in time, showing us the protagonist waiting for the subway. We see the train approaching, the woman looking forward, and then the train arrived, with the women looking away. But shifting the angle slightly we can see two instances of the nonslip material that runs along the edge of platform. While the image has a calm appearance it also points at the speed of the train, it is upon us before we can blink. (Click on the image to the get the original at it’s normal/larger size.)

One formal element of the narrative that jumped out at me is the way it jumps across time in very abrupt, undemarcated ways. Early on, Shingo (the protagonist) is considering locusts and the way his granddaughter plays with them. Then he thinks of his daughter, who has left her husband and is now living with the family:

…A decision was postponed from day to day, as if the principals were all waiting for nature to take its course.
“Isn’t Father nice to Kikuko,” said Fusako.
Kikuko and Shuichi were both at the dinner table.
[a page of conversation at the dinner table and Shingo considering his feelings for Kikuko, the daugher-in-law, and how she brings him relief because his blood kin (son and daughter) did not turn out as he would have wished]
Fusako’s remark, he felt, brushed against his secret.
It had been made at dinner some three or four evenings before. (36-7)

Note how the time shift is abrupt and only noted after the scene has played out (okay, so it’s not so obvious without me actually copying out a lot more text). This kind of wandering eye on time is an excellent representation of Shingo’s thoughts and memory recall. The ordering of time is rather fluid and combines with his frequent considerations of his age and the passage of time, as if, feeling his life coming to its end, time has begun to mean less as individuated moments.

But what really interests me is the abrupt time shifts that offer no immediate markers. This is something that might have use in comics. That disorienting moment where you wonder “Where did this speaker come from? When did they get to the dinner table?” could be replicated in a panel transition similar to McCloud’s scene-to-scene but of a more oblique nature (but less-so than the non-sequitur).

I was also thinking about the classic Japanese nature of Kawabata’s work and how that is so little seen in manga (or at least manga translated into English). The only examples I can think of are the beloved Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou and the minimalism of Nananan’s Blue. So much of what I said above about Kawabata’s novel could easily apply to YKK: the undetermined time frame, nature and the seasons, aging and death, the fleeting moments of change. That’s probably why YKK appealed to me so much. Blue is more relevant for its minimalism and sparsity. I wish I could find more manga in that vein.

Missed out on this the first time around, but after reading issue 2 I was excited to get this. The issue features a few short stories. The first and best one is “NST ’04″ which features Glenn Ganges and his wife/girlfriend Wendy. Huizenga does interesting things with time here, mixing the real and the imaginary as well as jumping back and forth chronologically. Glenn and Wendy hang out at a diner late in the night and talk with the other insomniacs. Panels of them at tables with others are interspersed with panels of the individuals telling us how they spend their time (a very interesting section that speaks to my own interest in how people occupy their time). We also see Glenn and Wendy skipping the diner one night to go for a late night bike ride and visit a grave yard. In part of the graveyard scene Glenn is whistling a song and Wendy makes a two guesses as to the song. A few pages later, during which we see other earlier or later (its hard to tell) events, there is a panel where Glenn tells her the song name. It takes a moment to connect this single panel back to the earlier one, but then, when one does, the dislocation of time becomes even more obvious. Another section of the story features Glenn and Wendy riding their bikes and dragging their feet in the leaves gathered at the curb. The art starts as realistically as the rest of the story and then becomes abstracted with motion. The effect is startling for its change of style but also successfully integrated into the feeling of bike riding and fluttering leaves.

The way time is dislocated, repeated, and folded back is something I haven’t seen much in comics. It’s not just a flashback, it’s a whole reorganization of time. It makes me think of Alain Robbe-Grillet’s use of time in such novels as La Maison de Rendez-vous where we get repeated scenes, slightly changed, out of order. In a novel this requires a good amount of words to recreate the scene and make the reader know that the scene is repeating, but, and this speaks to a strength of the visual language of comics, in comics its a simple matter of a panel redrawn or a background redrawn with characters in place. There’s a goldmine to mine in this area, a kind of nouveau roman of comics…

Another stand out story in the book is “Jeezoh” which explicates the origin of small statues of the same name that are found in mid-western graveyards. Huizenga puts the non-fiction into a frame with Glenn and Wendy (at the graveyard again) and then illustrates the essayistic explanation.

I can’t recommend this highly enough. I even want to push it off on non-comics readers. See Huizenga’s site for examples of his work.