Comics Beyond Text and Image conceptualizes comics as “bodies,” exploring the substance and the many movements and expressions of comics first and foremost in terms of corporeality.
The book centers on the metaphor of the comics body as a way of opening up our understandings of what comics do. It begins from the position that narrative in comics is corporeal, expressed in and through the visual bodies into which the page can be divided analytically, and from the interaction of the human body with the comics body. Drawing on the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza, the author argues for the primary role of visual narration over textual narration, develops a theory of the comics text as a cohesive and variegated cartography, and shows how thought is expressed in the extensive space of the comics page. This theory is then applied in snapshots of individual comics works that each in their own way continue the philosophical discussions of embodiment.
This book moves beyond traditional modes of narration or narrative and will appeal to students and scholars of comics studies, as well as to those thinking about visual narrative more broadly, and to scholars of Spinoza and Deleuze.
Table of Contents:
Introduction. What Comics Can Do: Visual Narration and Philosophy
Part I. Theory
1. Corporeal Voicings (Art Spiegelman, Ben Katchor, Nick Drnaso)
2. Iconic Cartographies (Joe Sacco, Sole Otero, Ana Penyas, Liniers)
3. Thinking with the Body (Keum Suk Gendry-Kim, Adrian Tomine, Seth, Julie Doucet)
Part II. Commentary
4. The Body in Motion: Alison Bechdel, The Secret to Superhuman Strength (2021)
5. Propulsion: Eric Drooker, Flood! A Novel in Pictures (1992)
6. Respiration: Laura Pérez, Ocultos (2020)
7. The Sudden Scream: Bishakh Som, Apsara Engine (2020)
8. Pores: Emil Ferris, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters (2018)
9. Plumage: Brecht Evens, The City of Belgium (2021)
10. Pulling Hairs: Ebony Flowers, Hot Comb (2020)
11. Digestion: R. Sikoryak, Terms and Conditions (2017)
12. The Cinematograph of the Mind: Martin Vaughn-James, The Projector (1971)
13. Sheets of Past: Richard McGuire, Here (2014)
14. Tactile Memory: Nora Krug, Belonging (2018)
15. The Skin of Comics: Marc-Antoine Mathieu, Le Processus (1993)
16. Puzzling Pieces Together: Chris Ware, Building Stories: Vortex of Anamnesis (2021)
Conclusion
Index
