Broken Frontier

Beginning the Saturday panels with an intellectual flair, cartoonist Patric Lewandowski (of comixtalk.com) and Assistant Professor David Beard of the University of Minnesota, Duluth headed up the panel "Comics and Culture: Defining the Genre." The duo discussed the varying definitions for the comic medium and the impact of letter columns and other forums in fostering community.

Lewandownski began by citing how past theorists described the medium of comics. To Will Eisner, a comic was simply sequential art. Scott McCloud had a more elaborate definition involving "juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or produce an aesthetic response in the viewer." Lewandownski rejected both definitions as too narrow. A hieroglyphic is sequential art but not a comic. Likewise, a single panel comic strip like The Far Side falls outside McCloud’s definition, as it is not juxtaposed with other images.

Lewandownski offered an alternative. A comic is defined by criteria such as Intent of Creator, Audience Experience, Closure and Synthesis, and Use of Visual Language. Obviously if a creator intends something as a comic (or doesn’t), his or her wishes should play a role. The audience’s experience is unique in a comic as they "come in alone" and experience the work at their own rate and approach.

Lewandowski defined "Closure" as "filling the gaps between known quantities" and "Synthesis" as "combining different elements of a given unit." Both are used in comics to carry the reader’s eye from one image to the next in a logical sequence and to derive meaning from that sequence (an image, word balloon, and sound effect working in tandem). Visual language such as shorthands, speed lines, and energy effects are also important comic elements that convey meaning.

With these new criteria, many works can be placed under the comics umbrella. Even single panel cartoons can be said to offer "Meta-Closure," closure between the art and the text or caption. Looking at comics from Lewandowski’s perspective, one can see the medium as part of an evolution, building from hieroglyphics and illustrated books all the way to theatre, animation, and film.

Switching gears, Beard turned our attention away from comics themselves to their community aspect. He used the letter column (a feature rapidly disappearing from many modern comics) to illustrate his point. Letters tell us about a comic’s readership—what their age demographic is, what genders or ethnicities find the story appealing, etc. A letter column reinforces a sense of shared tastes and of membership in an exclusive club of fandom. The give and take nature of a letter column also allows readers to feel they can influence a comic and its creators and that the work fills a social or emotional need for the fans.

As examples, Beard showed excerpts of letters from Marvel’s 1970s series, Master of Kung Fu, and its Charlton Comics rival, House of Yang. While Marvel’s fans were shown to feel a strong sense of community and engaged in dialogue with the creators and each other, Charlton’s readers were frequently met with terse and ambiguous responses from the editors.

Bringing his theories into the present day, Beard remarked that by eliminating letter columns, the major publishers have lost a powerful marketing tool and in some ways hurt the sense of fan community. It’s true that the Internet has largely replaced the lettercol as the mode of interaction and discussion. But its sense of immediacy, of being able to post any reaction to a comic instantly, has lessened the well-thought out fan dialogues of yesteryear. Spreading such discussions out across message boards, publisher websites, creator websites, and Twitter pages has removed the single centerpiece of fan communication.

Both scholars agreed that the advancements of technology and communication will continue to redefine what comics are and how its community interacts with this unique medium we all love.