Rich, thought-provoking and timely essay–your best yet!
A hundred years ago, the woodblock novel was growing in critical and popular esteem. The form was killed by WWII. Why? The postwar academic consensus held that image-based storytelling is inherently fascist, or at least that it appeals to the lizard-brain in ways antithetical to smooth-functioning liberal technocracy.
I think you’re right that McCloud’s rehabilitation of comics, half a century later, came at a cost: the graphic novel was granted respectability to the extent that it subordinated the image to the word. I’d argue that the generative AI revolution recapitulates that maneuver on a cosmic scale: it promises to greatly increase the ratio of imagery to text online, but all of this imagery is controlled and mastered by a hidden semantic layer.
I love your paraphrase of Gombrich on William Hogarth: that the latter was engaged in discovering a “grammar” of objects. And I second your call for cartoonists to re-ground themselves in this primary practice, for McGilchristian reasons.
As for you, here’s where I’d love to see you develop your thesis: you give us some intriguing stuff about the development of allegorical illustration in the early print era–frontispieces and emblem books–and you give us equally interesting stuff about the invention and development of caricature during the same period. But I’m not getting the connection between these two developments. In fact they would seem to be almost antithetical: emblems and the like are about distilling abstract ideas into concrete representations, while caricature in its purest form eschews abstract “meaning” to focus on distilling forms and relationships. Or is there a commonality I’m missing?
Thanks for these comments. That information about woodblock novels is very interesting, I didn't know that. I do know that postwar left-wing art critics turned against Soviet Realism, but do you have any good reading material on their criticisms of that form of visual narrative in particular? That would be fun to read about.
Regarding the frontispiece/emblem illustrations and the birth of caricature, those were two separate points entirely. In the case of the allegorical drawings, it was only to point out that highly detailed, complex images can work in concert with highly detailed, complex writing, the opposite of what McCloud says. Because even though they don't interact with each other directly on a printed page, they can still interact conceptually to a fairly precise degree. Regarding caricature, that's a purely formal kind of experimentation that I think led to the birth of the cartoon -- but cartoons, however they're drawn, can still convey abstract ideas if the cartoonist wants them to. So I don't think these two points really oppose each other.
I admit I was extrapolating--I can't cite any contemporary critical takedowns of the woodblock novel. Clearly the form was gaining steam into the mid-30s, then fell out of favor rather abruptly. I connect this with the critical turn against representational art, associating it with nationalist and capitalist propaganda (e.g. Clement Greenberg's "Avant garde and Kitsch"). Of a piece with H.W. Janson's polemics against regionalism, and Wertham's later broadside against comics. Visual storytelling as inherently suspect.
I appreciate the interest, but there's really just not much for me to say. I read it once and didn't find it very compelling, interesting, or relatable, I guess beyond the fact that we all have issues with our parents. There's an interview with Peter Chung, the Aeon Flux guy, who expresses his distaste for Maus, and he mostly had the same reasons as I do, but I can't find it -- maybe it was with Cartoonist Kayfabe, I'm not sure. Frank Thorne also called it ponderous in some online interview way back in the day, though I suspect it's long gone now.
Rich, thought-provoking and timely essay–your best yet!
A hundred years ago, the woodblock novel was growing in critical and popular esteem. The form was killed by WWII. Why? The postwar academic consensus held that image-based storytelling is inherently fascist, or at least that it appeals to the lizard-brain in ways antithetical to smooth-functioning liberal technocracy.
I think you’re right that McCloud’s rehabilitation of comics, half a century later, came at a cost: the graphic novel was granted respectability to the extent that it subordinated the image to the word. I’d argue that the generative AI revolution recapitulates that maneuver on a cosmic scale: it promises to greatly increase the ratio of imagery to text online, but all of this imagery is controlled and mastered by a hidden semantic layer.
I love your paraphrase of Gombrich on William Hogarth: that the latter was engaged in discovering a “grammar” of objects. And I second your call for cartoonists to re-ground themselves in this primary practice, for McGilchristian reasons.
As for you, here’s where I’d love to see you develop your thesis: you give us some intriguing stuff about the development of allegorical illustration in the early print era–frontispieces and emblem books–and you give us equally interesting stuff about the invention and development of caricature during the same period. But I’m not getting the connection between these two developments. In fact they would seem to be almost antithetical: emblems and the like are about distilling abstract ideas into concrete representations, while caricature in its purest form eschews abstract “meaning” to focus on distilling forms and relationships. Or is there a commonality I’m missing?
Again, thanks for a great and inspiring read.
Thanks for these comments. That information about woodblock novels is very interesting, I didn't know that. I do know that postwar left-wing art critics turned against Soviet Realism, but do you have any good reading material on their criticisms of that form of visual narrative in particular? That would be fun to read about.
Regarding the frontispiece/emblem illustrations and the birth of caricature, those were two separate points entirely. In the case of the allegorical drawings, it was only to point out that highly detailed, complex images can work in concert with highly detailed, complex writing, the opposite of what McCloud says. Because even though they don't interact with each other directly on a printed page, they can still interact conceptually to a fairly precise degree. Regarding caricature, that's a purely formal kind of experimentation that I think led to the birth of the cartoon -- but cartoons, however they're drawn, can still convey abstract ideas if the cartoonist wants them to. So I don't think these two points really oppose each other.
I admit I was extrapolating--I can't cite any contemporary critical takedowns of the woodblock novel. Clearly the form was gaining steam into the mid-30s, then fell out of favor rather abruptly. I connect this with the critical turn against representational art, associating it with nationalist and capitalist propaganda (e.g. Clement Greenberg's "Avant garde and Kitsch"). Of a piece with H.W. Janson's polemics against regionalism, and Wertham's later broadside against comics. Visual storytelling as inherently suspect.
Ah, alright. Thanks for getting back to me, and yeah, I think your train of thought here seems about right.
Would love to read a review from you about why Maus isn't a masterpiece (even though it is)
I appreciate the interest, but there's really just not much for me to say. I read it once and didn't find it very compelling, interesting, or relatable, I guess beyond the fact that we all have issues with our parents. There's an interview with Peter Chung, the Aeon Flux guy, who expresses his distaste for Maus, and he mostly had the same reasons as I do, but I can't find it -- maybe it was with Cartoonist Kayfabe, I'm not sure. Frank Thorne also called it ponderous in some online interview way back in the day, though I suspect it's long gone now.