British Journal of Aesthetics Vol 49 | Number 3 | July 2009 | pp. 219 – 239 DOI:10.1093/aesthj/ayp025
© British Society of Aesthetics 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society of Aesthetics.
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Comics as Literature?
Aaron Meskin
Not all comics are art. What about the comics that are art? What sort of art are they? In particular,
are comics a form of literature? For a variety of reasons it is tempting to think that at least some
comics are literature. Nevertheless, many theorists reject the ‘comics as literature’ view. And although
some reasons for resisting that view are misguided, I shall argue that there are other good reasons for
being hesitant about treating comics as a form of literature. This leaves us at an impasse with respect
to the classifi cation of comics. I suggest that the way out of the impasse is to recognize that comics
are a hybrid art form.
Introduction
Not all comics are art.
1
Like fi lm and photography, the medium can and often is used to
make art, but it can also be used in non-artistic ways. Various examples of instructional
comics plausibly fall outside the sphere of art.
2
I would suggest that the same is true of
some, but not all, pornographic comics (e.g. Tijuana Bibles). If you are not happy with those
examples of non-art comics, I suspect that you will be able to generate your own cases.
What about the comics that are art? (Art Spiegelman’s Maus , Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan:
The Smartest Kid on Earth , Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis , and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Family
Tragicomic strike me as pretty clear examples of comics that fall into that category.) What sort
of art are they? In particular, are comics a form of literature? They are, after all, typically full of
text, commonly found in bookshops where they are often sold in book form under the ‘ Graph-
ic Novel ’ heading, appreciated (at least in part) by means of reading, taught in literature classes,
occasionally discussed in academic journals devoted to literature, and often reviewed in the
book review sections of newspapers and magazines. For these reasons — as well as some others
that I shall discuss below — it is tempting to think that at least some comics are literature.
Such a view would be tendentious. There is a signifi cant strain of thought that rejects the
‘ comics as literature ’ view. And although some reasons for resisting that view are misguided, I
shall argue that there are other good reasons for being hesitant about treating comics as a form
of literature. This leaves us in an impasse — we have reason both to classify comics as literature
and to resist such classifi cation. I shall suggest that the way out of this impasse is to recognize
that comics are a hybrid art form that evolved from literature and a number of other art forms
and media. The hybrid nature of comics helps explain a wide range of relevant phenomena,
and underwrites the very impasse about comics’ literary status that I have described.
1
I take the extension of the term ‘ comics ’ to include newspaper comic strips, mainstream, underground and
‘ alternative ’ comic books, graphic novels, one-off comics in magazines, photocomics, and webcomics.
2
For discussion and examples, see Will Eisner, Comics and Sequential Art (Tamarac, FL: Poorhouse Press, 1985), pp.
142 – 145.
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220 | AARON MESKIN
The recognition of the hybridity of the art form also sheds light on a number of theo-
retical and critical issues that lurk under the surface of the apparently straightforward ques-
tion about categorization. Given the wealth of serious academic and critical work on
literature — and the dearth of such work on comics — the question of whether comics are
literature is especially signifi cant since a positive answer would legitimate the application
of the philosophy of literature, literary theory, and literary criticism to works in that me-
dium. In fact, I shall argue that once we have recognized that comics are a hybrid, we no
longer need to determine whether the category of literature includes comics in order to
apply what we know about the former to the case of the latter. Unsurprisingly, some theo-
rists reject the idea that comics are a hybrid. I shall argue that they are mistaken.
Categorization and/or Value?
Let me attempt to forestall an objection before I get to the main concerns of this paper. It
might be thought that the categorial issue I concern myself with is not as signifi cant as the
question of whether any comics ‘ possess the kinds of values that the great works of litera-
ture possess ’ .
3
That is surely an important question, and although it would require an en-
tirely separate essay in order to address it properly, it is worth saying a bit about it here.
On a straightforward reading of the question, the answer is clearly ‘ yes ’ . Some comics
possess some of the kinds of values that great literary works possess. For example, most
great works of literature are similar to other great works of art in being creative, original,
well-structured, and unifi ed. All of these values are exhibited by certain comics. Robert
Crumb’s drawing manifests a stunning degree of visual creativity — he has been described
by the art critic Robert Hughes as ‘ the Brueghel of the 20th Century ’ .
4
Maus is original in
its use of drawings of anthropomorphized animals to tell the story of the Holocaust. Alan
Moore’s Watchmen is precisely and effectively structured. Chris Ware’s works typically ex-
hibit a remarkable degree of thematic and design unity. And so on.
Presumably the more signifi cant question is whether any comics possess the kinds of values
that are especially important in great literature; for example, being well-written, having
depth of characterization, exhibiting what Peter Lamarque terms ‘ moral seriousness ’ in tack-
ling ‘ humanly interesting themes ’ ,
5
and being well-plotted (if they are narrative in form). Are
there well-written comics? Insofar as this is linked to uses of language that are appropriate to
overall artistic ends, then Harvey Pekar’s autobiographic dialogue in his American Splendor
strips plausibly fi ts the bill. Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic is, as Douglas Wolk argues,
largely concerned with the way in which the author comes to understand herself and her
family through works of literary fi ction,
6
and it manifests this concern in rich language and
the use of a variety of literary tropes. And although many comics lack depth of characteriza-
tion and much in the way of character development, this is not always the case. Satrapi’s
3
An anonymous referee for the journal suggested this.
4
Crumb . Dir. Terry Zwigoff, 1970. Distributed by Sony Picture Classics.
5
Peter Lamarque,
The Philosophy of Literature (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2009), p. 63.
6
Douglas Wolk,
Reading Comics Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo
Press, 2007), p. 364.
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