The Lexicon of Comicana by cartoonist Mort Walker (Beetle Bailey, Hi and Lois) was something of a thematic forerunner of Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics. It represents Walker’s attempt to catalogue the language of comics at a point where only those heavily invested in the form would have even recognised its specific visual storytelling tools. First published in 1980, this reprint comes to us from 2025 Broken Frontier Award-nominated New York Review Comics and is edited by Walker’s son Brian.
Walker’s approach here is idiosyncratic to say the least, with categorisation adopting his own eccentric names for various conventions of comics. Visual characterisation, for example, is split into sections for teteology (facial expressions), oculama (portrayal of eyes), and oralology (depictions of mouths in comics). It adds a somewhat zany element to the book, couching an altogether more serious exploration of the medium’s unique properties in terms of the wacky and the oddball, and making the book all the more accessible and fun as a result.
As the reader progresses through the pages of The Lexicon of Comicana they will be treated to examinations of body types in cartooning (“morfs”), emanata (those various lines and squiggles coming from a character’s face to depict movement or emotion), fumetti (speech balloons), maladicta (curse words blocked out by symbols in lettering), and symbolia (those familiar effects like Zzzzs to denote sleeping or ears on pillows). These are examples of just a few of the terms Walker uses in his creative lexicon which never takes itself too seriously and yet simultaneously communicates exactly why comics is a language in itself.
As The Lexicon of Comicana moves on it takes in advice on how to draw and provides a history of visual humour in comics, analysing techniques of such important names as George Herriman, Otto Mesmer, Cliff Sterrett, Chic Young and many others. Forget simply the historical value of this reprint – it’s also an essential reference book for any aspiring (or established!) cartoonist to have in their collection.
A context-setting introduction by Chris Ware gives added value to enjoying yet another reproduction of classic comics material from New York Review Comics that may otherwise have been consigned to relative obscurity.
Mort Walker (W/A), Brian Walker (E) • New York Review Comics, $27.95
Review by Andy Oliver
