British Journal of Aesthetics Vol 49

---

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.

 All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [e-mail]

              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.  

 at University of Athens on June 19, 2011

bjaesthetics.oxfordjournals.org

Downloaded from 

---

 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.  

 at University of Athens on June 19, 2011

bjaesthetics.oxfordjournals.org

Downloaded from 

---