Saturday, August 31, 2019
Comic Books As History Essay
Comic books have long been regarded as a genre of literature for the immature and the trivial. The graphic representation of a story at first glance provides a lightweight medium to carry a serious message. The utilization of two types of media, the written word and the graphic portrayal, serves as a conflict of messages, a breach in the unity of form. However, in Joseph Witek’s book entitled Comic Books as History, he provides case points and works where comic books have both the authority as well as the authenticity to suitably serve as a medium for portraying history. Who has the right to speak? When does the gap between art and life become so wide that fiction becomes a blasphemous lie? Witken p.38 These are the questions put forth by Author Joseph Witek in chapters 4 &5 of his Comic Books as History. The first, â€Å"who has the right to speak?†denotes an active search for a medium with authority to portray dark parts of history. And few events could be much darker than the Holocaust. The era of the rise of Hitler and the Nazis and their atrocities to the Jewish people beg the question of how to portray it. The revulsion of providing aesthetic description to an evil event stems from authors’ reticence in taking another people’s suffering as their own. And yet, if the alternative is silence, then future generations will be unable to see a representation of those dark days. If the silence were to endure, then no condemnation, sympathy, no regret, no emotion whatsoever would be imparted to those unaware. Therefore, as Witek asserts, the alternative to silence is to speak out with a medium that resonates with both the authority to speak, and the authenticity to do so, which he implies in the second question â€Å"When does the gap between art and life become so wide that fiction becomes a blasphemous lie?†. In Art Spiegelman’s autobiographical comic Maus, the subject of the Holocaust and its survivors was taken up. To Witken, Spiegelman’s work is a credible medium to tackle the holocaust because he has the necessary authority and authenticity to do so. The authority, Witken claims, comes from a â€Å"personal psychological necessity†. Maus for Spiegelman is a kind of therapy, a way to comprehend his own history, both as a person and as a Jew. The comic becomes a way to breach a gap produced by the Holocaust, a distance between the Jews who experienced, and those who did not. This is evident in the portrayal of the interactions between Art and his Father Vladek, most noticeably in the scene showing making of Maus. The interactions show transference of the pain, the pain of the Holocaust to the father, and as a result, shaping the father to a being that brings emotional pain to the son. In a scene in the Prisoner on the Hell Planet, the story of Spiegelman’s mental anguish as a result of his mother is portrayed. Spiegelman feels that the emotion he feels from his parents is caused by their experiences in the holocaust and yet, he is unable to understand how those experiences shaped their person. Thus, in a way, the Maus was written to provide an understanding of knowledge just present at the back of the minds of the generation of Jews after the Holocaust. A generation, who like Spiegelman, won’t be content with just silence. To successfully portray history, the accuracy of the details is not enough to attain authenticity. The inclusion of every emotion felt, and every though, as well as their representation. And it is in this representation that Spiegelman defends his use of animals instead of people. In order to pass through the authentic message, the use of people would inevitably show a false image, but in using animals, Spiegelman portrayed the emotions as they are, not as people show them to be. This is evident in the dialogue of Art trying to draw his wife. The use of animals is limited to just portraying the themes, bestiality, extermination, but the humanity of each character is still there. Another case point in Witek’s book is the American Splendour series of comics made by Harvey Pekar in collaboration with various artists. This series is hailed by Witek as a comic genre separate from others, as it tries to make the reader experience the life and times of the author. This â€Å"autobiographical’ comic book portrays various events in Harvey Pekar’s life, from the exceptional to the more occurring dull moments. The reader sees what Harvey Pekar experiences in various situations, through various styles and viewpoints. The authority of the comic to tell an existing person’s story is exemplified by American Splendor. Pekar states his reason for the theme of American Splendor by saying I want to write literature that pushes people into their lives rather than helping them escape from them. Most comic books are vehicles for escapism, which I think is unfortunate. I think the so-called average person often exhibits a great deal of heroism in getting through a normal day, and yet the reading public takes this heroism for granted. They’d rather read about Superman than themselves American Splendor does exactly that. It let’s the readers face the reality of Harvey Pekar’s hum drum existence, and in doing so, makes the readers see the parallelism of it with their own.            So what right does Harvey Pekar have to exhibit such unbiased realism in comic book form? His authority, as Witek implies is in his persona. Pekar is a full-time employee, and just a part time comic book creator; in essence, he lives the life that his comic books portray. All the vulgarities, emotions, thoughts and experiences found in the comics are essentially his to share.            Witek focuses on Pekar’s use of various forms and styles within the comic to show the authenticity of the work. American Splendor has no underlying consistent narration or view point. The persona may shift from the Harvey talking, and then to his wife reminiscing, and then coming back to a past event shared by both. This, instead of confusing reality with various viewpoints, lets the reader fully grasp the Harvey Pekar experience. Every detail from every role is portrayed accurately just as the author experienced it, thus we may see strips of stories simply heard by Pekar, as well experiences seen from Pekar’s view point, or the viewpoint of others towards Pekar. This adds a dimension of realism that successfully conveys the feeling of experiencing a day in the life of Harvey Pekar.            The success of the American Splendor series comes from its realism. We see Harvey Pekar as a person, full of foibles, emotion, errors and triumphs. We see and yet we do not judge, for in seeing those things in him, we also recognize that we as persons are guilty of the exact same reactions. Harvey Pekar does not portray himself, but the experience he has in the run of a normal day. Thus, no overtones of glorification or damnation can be evidently found within the text, for Pekar describes it as it is, without thought for shame, pride and ego. He focuses on the situation, making it, not Harvey Pekar, the real protagonist of his comics.            According to Robert Harvey, the comic book is just the sum of its parts. The unity of form that is achieved when the written word and the visual depiction merges makes the comic an ideal medium for expressing mood and tone. To fully utilize the comic as this medium, all of the graphic elements, the page layout, style, the narrative and composition must meld with the written caption. This in effect highlights the authenticity of the comic in bringing across the message of the author.            Using these elements, we can find key scenes in both Maus and American Splendor which serve to support Witek’s argument of the comic as history.            On page 83 of chapter 4 of Maus, we see an example of the effect when the caption fits in perfectly with the visual depiction. Due to the nature of the characterization, the visual element depends on the caption to identify which animal is which. The first words of the page set the whole tone, a somber realization. The following scene further reinforces the message, the interplay showing the noticeable distress of Vladek when he comes home and recounts the news. The boxed captions showing Vladek’s thoughts serves to highlight the underlying tone that it could be him hanging on the streets instead of the people he deals with. The final emphasis comes from the use of shaded lines to color the masses witnessing the hanging, giving them an aura of unimportance due to their impotence.             In American Splendor- A Marriage Album, we can see examples that illustrates how the factors mentioned by Harvey colluded to heighten the experience of the reader.The story starts with Pekar seeing his wife Joyce off, then it shifts to a reverie of Herschel/Harvey about the marriage. The scene then shifts to Joyce’s recounting of their then budding relationship, with highlights on the difficulties. Both accounts fuse together in the end, and the final scene shows perfect timing in summarizing the totality of the story, the interplay of how other people see their actions, Joyce’s joy in telling Harvey, and Harvey’s discomfort, which he tries to hide by throwing the box he was loading into the truck.            The two stories justify Witek’s premise of comic as history. The Maus focuses on the interplay of Jewish generations and the gap between the Holocaust and post-holocaust jews. American Splendor on the other hand emphasizes the scenes found in real, normal life, showing a reality as experienced by the author, Harvey Pekar. Both the authors of Maus and American Splendor exhibit the authority to tell their story in the comic medium. And in analyzing the different factors they use in telling the story, we see that they have the authenticity to do so as well. References Witek, J. (1990). Comic Books As History (The Narrative Art of Jack Jackson, Art Spiegelman, and Harvey Pekar).
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