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Category Archives: Guest Writers

The Art of the Cartoon: Exploring the Collections of the Library of Congress by Sara W. Duke

13 Aug

The Library of Congress has long collected original cartoon art so that scholars, fans, and the general public may study, understand, and then share information about the Ninth Art. The Prints & Photographs Division makes more than 125,000 original cartoon drawings and prints available to researchers in person in its reading room. It has scanned selected works to improve access to those who cannot trek to Washington, D.C., to see them in person.[1] In addition, the Library encourages researchers to use millions of cartoon images through its vast holdings of such print publications as periodicals, newspaper microfilm, comic books, and book compilations.

The Library of Congress,[2] founded in 1800, serves as the national library for the United States as well as an information resource for Congress. Since acquiring a large trove of copyright deposit satirical prints in the nineteenth century and 10,000 British cartoon prints in the 1920s, special attention has been devoted to cartoons as works of art on paper. The Library has reached out to individual cartoonists to acquire original drawings and also taken on impressive collections compiled by Caroline and Erwin Swann, Art Wood, Ben and Beatrice Goldstein, and Herblock. From the late 1600s to the present day, on just about any topic you can name, the Library has cartoons. Studying the art form and content of these original works of art on paper has been an exciting experience for people who visit the Prints & Photographs Division from many different countries.

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Posted by on 2012/08/13 in Guest Writers

 

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“Avant-Garde Comics? The Very Idea.” by Martha Kuhlman

10 Aug

A few years ago, art critic Peter Schjeldahl noted that “graphic novels…are to many in their teens and twenties what poetry once was, before bare words lost their cachet.” In other words, graphic novels—long-form comics—are what all the cool kids are reading. This claim, in and of itself, is hardly new or shocking, but what interests me is his use of the term “avant-garde” in reference to graphic novels, or, as he somewhat disparagingly comments, “pumped-up comics.” “Avant-gardes,” he asserts, “are always cults of difficulty,” before launching into a discussion of his first example, Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware. Coming from the field of arts criticism, it may seem self-evident to refer to experimental or “difficult” comics as avant-garde [1], but in comics criticism it’s not as obvious; more frequently, the cartoonists Schjedahl mentions (Art Spiegelman, Dan Clowes, Marjane Satrapi) are referred to as “alternative”—to differentiate them from the mainstream publishing houses such as DC and Marvel—rather than “avant-garde.” This distinction, however, raises even more questions: is the avant-garde part of mass culture, or is it inherently antagonistic to “bourgeois” art forms and institutions? Does the “avant-garde” imply a kind of rebellion, and, if so, is the nature of this revolt political, or is it more directed at renewing and reinventing art forms, or both? What are implications of using the term “avant-garde” for comics?

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Posted by on 2012/08/10 in Guest Writers

 

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A Note on the Woman who Gave Birth to Rabbits One Hundred Years Before Töpffer by Laurence Grove

17 Jul

The fait divers involving Mary Toft, the servant from Godalming who in 1726 was announced to have given birth to a litter of rabbits, is of interest not just for pre-tabloid titillation whose appeal would still do the National Enquirer proud, but also in what the telling of the story, particularly the visual versions, might indicate about the international development of the aetas emblematica.[1]

Having given birth on 27 September 1726 to what appeared to be the body of a cat, Mary Toft called upon John Howard, a leading Guildford obstetrician, who attended and presided over the subsequent ‘births’ of a variety of animal parts as well as nine dead rabbits.[2] Howard’s reaction was to seek publicity, sending letters to the country’s leading surgeons as well as to the secretary of King George I. The case was investigated, on George I’s request, by Nathaniel St. André, surgeon to the King, and by Samuel Molyneux, the Prince of Wales’s secretary. Mary Toft’s renown increased, aided by St. André’s statement that he believed the phenomenon to be genuine, an account of which was published in pamphlet form as A Short Narrative of an Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbets as early as December 1726, with a second edition in 1727.[3]

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Posted by on 2012/07/17 in Guest Writers

 

Into the depths of The Fountain: a study of visual layers in Aronofsky and Williams’s vision by Malin Bergström

09 Jul

Synesthesia refers to the uniting of the senses: when the reader transfers ‘qualities from one sensory domain to another’ (Heyrman, 2005, np) by translating experience into a psychological reaction. For example, comprehending colour as sensation, like warm, cold, loud or silent and so forth, describes a synesthetic reaction (McCloud, 1994: 123). Because art relies on sensory appeal the manipulation of synesthetic effects within comics gives the creator an opportunity to engineer analogies and metaphors into the visual landscape of a narrative (Heyrman, 2005, np). Describing the method Sarah Wyman adds that:

…a metaphoric relationship develops in which form stands in for feeling/sensed experience and that the reader/viewer makes the leap via figuration, signified linguistically or graphically… one witnesses great technical control of rhythm, gravity and balance. These considerations communicate both the artist’s primary experience (actual or imagined) and reflect the contours of the potential viewer’s perceptual processes.

(Wyman, 2010: 41)

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Posted by on 2012/07/09 in Guest Writers

 

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The Sequential Art of the Past: Archaeology, comics and the dynamics of an emerging genre by John G. Swogger

29 Jun

Comics and archaeology should be natural cousins. After all, most ancient languages – Egyptian hieroglyphics being an obvious example – exploit the same image/text synergies as comics. What is perhaps surprising is how limited a role comics have so far played in either formal or informal archaeological discourse – particularly given the fact that archaeology is a highly visual science, and the presentation of archaeology depends to a great extent on visualising specialist concepts and practices. Watch any episode of Time Team, and it becomes clear why it works as television: the presenters’ language is about showing, not telling. “Look over here,” Tony Robinson will call to the film crew, “Have a look at this,” Phil Harding will say, scraping away with his trowel, “This is the remains of a ditch,” Mick Aston will explain, “Running all the way along there, over the field to the edge of the hill.” As arms wave and fingers point, patches of dark and light soil become castles, forts and houses in the mind’s eye. This is the language of visual explanation, and it is used just as much in professional discourse as public presentation.

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Posted by on 2012/06/29 in Guest Writers

 

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