Type
Text
Type
Thesis
Date
2007-12-01
Keywords
comics | semiotics | graphic storytelling | grammar
Language
en_US
Source
This work is sponsored by the Stony Brook University Graduate School in compliance with the requirements for completion of degree.
Identifier
http://hdl.handle.net/11401/70810
Publisher
The Graduate School, Stony Brook University: Stony Brook, NY.
Format
application/pdf
Abstract
This thesis will specifically focus on the mode of expression in comic books rather than the content. It will be more concerned with questions of how people read comics than why they read comics. The questions of how people read comics can most productively be handled with semiotics, the branch of the philosophy of language that deals with signs. So far, this is just following in the footsteps of two pioneers in the field of semiotics. Both Umberto Eco and Roland Barthes have spent some time examining the nature of comics as a medium. The benefit of examining comics from the standpoint of semiotics is mutual. The benefit for semiotics comes from examining how comic books have a very systematic grammar for something that lies between showing and telling. This position itself is not unique; all literature has a tension between showing (mimesis) and telling (diegesis). What is interesting about comics is the presence of a grammar that partially determines this relationship. Comics provide an object of study that allows semiotics to move away from a primarily language based model without losing all of the complexity that is associated with languages. iii What comics have to gain is twofold. There is room for further understanding of the capabilities of comics. That is to say, a semiotic understanding may help develop comics as an art from. Here again, this thesis will find itself standing on the backs of giants. Will Eisner, Scott McCloud and Robert C. Harvey have set up a solid foundation for examining comics as the product of mastery over a complex grammar. The establishing of academic and medium specific vocabularies and methodologies is not the final answer for comics’ development into a high art form. It is neither the same thing as a body of talented and innovative creators and critics nor is it a substitute for them. The point that this thesis shares with those theorists that came before it is, that establishing such a vocabulary and methodology will raise the bar of the discussion of comics' merits. The next thing comics have to gain is the understanding of how they relate to other forms of expression. A semiotic understanding may help to appreciate how comics, as a form of graphic storytelling, relate to our understanding of the world. This ties into a classical dispute in philosophy that will be raised but not resolved. In Kant's metaphysics, a set of relational categories function as axioms for the understanding of space and time. Each category is associated with a form of propositional logic and subsequently to language itself. This thesis will not resolve how Kant can or should be related to the philosophy of language. Rather this thesis will explore how comics, as an extra-linguistic system for expressing narrative space and time, are and are not categorically rule governed.
Recommended Citation
Hirst, Matt Taylor, "Comics: The Underappreciated and Underdeveloped Art" (2007). Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions). 29.
https://commons.library.stonybrook.edu/stony-brook-theses-and-dissertations-collection/29