Re:Comics as real literature
on
Reading Comics
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Thanks for the comment. This is Douglas Wolk, the author of "Reading Comics." I'd actually argue--and this is an argument that's gotten me in some trouble, so feel free to dispute it--that comics are not literature (in the same way that they're not film or sculpture or cuisine), and that reading them as if they're supposed to work the same ways as prose literature is missing the point. Comics are drawn, and their essence is the fact that they're a kind of narrative in a form that's come from an artist's eye and hand.
To put it differently: "good writing" in the context of prose is different from "good writing" in the context of comics (or film, or whatever other medium you'd like to substitute), and writing is only a part--a significant part, but not the main part--of how comics work.
Re:From reading the summary....
on
Reading Comics
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Thanks for commenting. This is Douglas Wolk, the author of the book. It's true: "Reading Comics" deals almost exclusively with comics currently in print in the U.S. in English, and basically doesn't touch on manga or European (non-U.K.) comics at all, for reasons I explain in the book. (I did include a chapter on David B.'s "Epileptic," because it's pretty much the best thing ever.) It's not meant to be a comprehensive survey of the entire medium, just of some interesting channels within the medium, but there are only so many qualifiers one can put in a book's title...
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Thanks for the comment. This is Douglas Wolk, the author of "Reading Comics." I'd actually argue--and this is an argument that's gotten me in some trouble, so feel free to dispute it--that comics are not literature (in the same way that they're not film or sculpture or cuisine), and that reading them as if they're supposed to work the same ways as prose literature is missing the point. Comics are drawn, and their essence is the fact that they're a kind of narrative in a form that's come from an artist's eye and hand. To put it differently: "good writing" in the context of prose is different from "good writing" in the context of comics (or film, or whatever other medium you'd like to substitute), and writing is only a part--a significant part, but not the main part--of how comics work.
Thanks for commenting. This is Douglas Wolk, the author of the book. It's true: "Reading Comics" deals almost exclusively with comics currently in print in the U.S. in English, and basically doesn't touch on manga or European (non-U.K.) comics at all, for reasons I explain in the book. (I did include a chapter on David B.'s "Epileptic," because it's pretty much the best thing ever.) It's not meant to be a comprehensive survey of the entire medium, just of some interesting channels within the medium, but there are only so many qualifiers one can put in a book's title...