A couple bloggers have started a new blog called Graphic Language focused on comics related interview. They start off with a bang interviewing Douglas Wolk who writes monthly comics reviews for Salon (excellent stuff) and wrote the long Cerebus article in a recent issue of The Believer. He gets asked about criticism in general and comics criticism in particular.
If we’re now spoiled for choice in terms of what we’re talking about when we talk about comics, is it worth thinking about how we’re talking about it? Does comics criticism do itself a disservice by co-opting the vocabulary of, say, film (how the “camera” moves, the composition of shots, illustrators’ “acting”), or is that the nature of the beast?
It’s a problem, absolutely—using the language of film suggests that comics are somehow subordinate to film as a discipline: a movie that doesn’t move. (Ditto for using lit-crit terms.) I think “composition” is a perfectly fair term to use—it’s used for all of the visual arts. “Shots,” though—maybe not. For “camera” you can say “perspective” or something similar… It’s something worth paying attention to, anyway. On the other hand, borrowed language is, as Hedwig said to Tommy Gnosis, what we’ve got to work with: It’s sometimes a fair trade-off for clarity. It’s probably more important to pay attention to, say, the arrangement of panels on a page than to be too nitpicky about not using language from other kinds of criticism. The occasional “mise-en-scène” is a good thing.
Something I’ve been thinking about a lot with a project I am setting up. More on terminology to come.
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2 Responses to “Douglas Wolk on Criticism”
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VERY good points about terminaology. on the one hand you define much of your world-of-possible-discussion simply by choosing or creating terminology. on the other, it all has to be understandable by a normal, intelligent reader (who may not be an “insider”). I created the term “iconosequentiality” out of necesity to describe the compositional trope I use in my own work and yet also to help gain a modicum of respect and understanding fo the inventiveness of comic artists (for use when talking to art historians and the like). Hmmm. “Camera” this and that has always bugged me — because historically comic creators invented such techniques BEFORE cinema, yet film has had far better theorists, so their terms are more prevalent. Maybe “viewpoint” — I don’t know. I think we are stuck with “camra angle.” Many other terma are less loaded, so can be used. I think comic critics should become versed in literary terms to — as much as I love Scott McCloud, in understang Comics he was often creating new terms for concepts that had long been discussed in philosophy and literature. Also ALL painting terms are now open season — they are used by graphic designers as if they invented them (they are often taught that they did, which is false). They work for comics even better than for installations and the like. I look forward to your glossary of comic terms. I’ll try to help out, if you would like.
Geez — if I do help you out, I had better PROOFread my own comments first — I type to fast and click “send” too fast. Sorry about the plethora of typos above.