This dissertation argues that the gap, which according to Wolfgang Iser’s narrative theory is a characteristic of all fictional narrative, in comics works at all levels of signification. Gaps or absences signify in the drawn image, the...
moreThis dissertation argues that the gap, which according to Wolfgang Iser’s narrative theory is a characteristic of all fictional narrative, in comics works at all levels of signification. Gaps or absences signify in the drawn image, the page layout, the sequence, and image-text combinations, as well as in the narrative.
Comics images rely on minimizing and absence of information, rather than representation in detail. First I establish the notion of the gap as an inherent part of the abstraction that is typical of the comics image. Then I trace other gaps in comics. The page layout is created by frames and gutters which separate out the individual panels, creating structure and order. The gaps between panels are ultimately the condition for creating sequence and continuity from a series of separate panels. In relation to the layout, gutters are literal gaps, empty spaces on the page, while in relation to the sequence, gutters are gaps in time, gaps in sequences of events that call for interpretation of action rather than of structure.
Another means besides the sequence through which comics offer to close gaps is provided by the insertion of text, the verbal code which as a separate register introduces another way in which to interpret and connect the images in the comics sequence. Text can be an alternate way of bridging gaps between panels. The concept of gaps is familiar from a narratological point of view, as inherent to and productive of narrative. It provides yet another way in comics in which the reader is invited and engaged as a participant. Through the narrative gap, and the recognition of the gap operative at all levels of their signification, comics create a self-awareness of these absences, often by creating narratives in which the gap itself takes on a thematic role, not just a signifying function.
In my interrogation of the function of the gap as creative presence/absence in comics, I take a central characteristic of comics as my theoretical foundation: the form involves a different kind, and in fact many different kinds, of reading, only one of which is the reading of words. The other forms of reading that comics require deal largely with the image. Due to the role of the image in comics, it is sometimes assumed that reading comics comes naturally, that the meaning of these texts is transparent because they are visual. The idea is that it is not necessary to learn this kind of reading, let alone that such texts might require explanation. However, in this age of visual literacy, that view has been superseded. We have learned that images and their power should not be taken for granted, and that images can carry a host of messages.
The process of reading in comics is not natural, is not inherent, and my dissertation sets out to lay bare that process, break down the numerous functions that are actually involved in reading comics. One problem with discussing these levels is that they are all intertwined: when a person reads a comics, the signifying functions of the drawings, the sequence and the story all work at the same time. The gap offers a way of breaking apart the levels of signification. It offers a way into these processes, since the gap operates slightly differently at each level—image, layout, sequence, text-image relations, and narrative.
The area of study to which my work contributes is not a brand new field, but it is certainly still developing. The man who is sometimes hailed as the inventor, the father of comics, Swiss Rodolphe Töpffer, also wrote the first theory of comics, in his Essay on Physiognomy (Essai de Physiognomonie) from 1845. The field has expanded from there, with histories of comics written since the 1940s, and dissertations and sociological studies of comics following shortly after. In terms of the popularization and visibility of comics studies (certainly in North America) two texts have been of great significance: Will Eisner’s Comics and Sequential Art (1985), and Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics (1994). These texts share with Töpffer’s ur-comics study that they are written from the point of view of the writer. While these works analyze the form of comics to some extent, they are mostly invested in a how-to approach, explaining how comics artists can craft their stories, can achieve certain effects.
My own study of comics signification comes at the form from the other side. My analysis is based in the experience of the reader. When a person is faced with a comics text, how does he or she make sense of it? European comics criticism has a longer tradition of comics studies from a readerly point of view, and most often rooted in a semiotic approach, as my dissertation is. Examples of this school are Strips Anders Lezen or Pour une lecture moderne de la bande dessinée by Pascal Lefèvre and Jan Baetens (1993), and Thierry Groensteen’s Système de la bande dessinée (1999). This last work was translated into English in 2007, and marks an important development in American comics criticism: the introduction of the European school of formal analysis of comics. Groensteen’s work has been of some influence on my own. My work is in dialogue with Groensteen’s, building on some of his ideas but creating a vocabulary in English. Also, the francophone tradition of comics studies, not surprisingly, draws on the Francobelgian tradition of Bande Dessinée. This is a tradition of comics that North American readers tend not to be very familiar with, and one that operates quite differently from American comics. Thus, besides furthering the understanding of signification in comics, my work also offers an entry into francophone work on comics by applying theoretical concepts like braiding (tressage) and the multiframe, but applying them in American comics.
At the center of my semiotics of comics is the gap, the notion of creating meaning out of absences. While the gap functions and is coded in different ways for each layer of signification in comics, its presence in all these levels creates the coherence in my understanding of the form. The most familiar conception of the gap in relation to narratology is Wolfgang Iser’s application of the gap or blank as a productive force in narrative, drawing the reader into the process. Comics, like any narrative medium, display this function of the gap. The text that produces the narrative gaps is itself riddled with other gaps and absences as well. Comics narrate in sequences of images, which rely on gaps to create continuity. Actions and movements have to be shown in fragments, in separate images, in order to evoke the complete action. Comics create wholes from holes.
The sequential production of narration, of action, in comics is the result of the layout, which is a feature that is very specific to the comics form. The layout makes the gap literally visible on the page, in the form of the empty gutters between panels. The blanks signal that the sequences of panels signify in relation to one another. The gutter invites an involvement from the reader, who is called upon to produce a continuity, a coherence from the discontinuous fragments shown on the page.
While there are absences between the panels in comics, absences also exist within the panels. Imagery in comics signifies through simplification and abstraction. Its reduction of detail is related to caricature, but the aim of caricature is to foreground and ridicule certain actual qualities of its real-life subjects, which is not generally the case with comics drawings. The cartoon style of drawing in comics contains gaps in its lack of detail. The images make up for a lack of information through the use of strong outlines. In what Rudolf Arnheim calls the “completion effect,” the reader is again called upon to fill in the absent information. One aspect of the gap in comics is representational economy. At all levels of comics signification the discourse displays an economy of detail. From the point of view of the writer/artist in comics the question always seems to be: how little can I show, how much can I leave out, and still produce a viable narrative. I use Charles Schulz’ Peanuts throughout to illustrate this economy of image, of sequence, even of narration.
The gaps and openings that are left on the comics page create space for the production of meaning. Signification is a dynamic process in comics, one that requires reading multiple layers of meaning at the same time. Although all these layers of signification involve a similar process, namely finding and filling in absences, these gaps are created using different codes and signs at each level of signification (drawings, layout, sequence, narrative), and consequently they require different forms of decoding at each level. One might think that all these different layers would become incomprehensible, that the variety of different codes used, and the complexity of signifying systems would be overwhelming. Comics, however, communicate instructions for how to read them along with their narrative, through their very use of codes. In my dissertation I have brought those latent codes to the forefront and show how they work in a number of different texts. This analysis denaturalizes the various kinds of reading that comics require, and shows the sophisticated processes of signification at work.
Comics supply readers with the keys to their decoding. Through conventions, in their application of self-referentiality, and often by reference to other media, comics provide both the text and the manual for how to read that text. This is once again a way in which comics very directly involve and address their readers. What needs to be inserted into the gap that is left in comics, is, ultimately, the reader.
