The graphic novel
Santiago Garcia
Astiberri, Bilbao, 2010
298 p.
The comics are appearing in bookstores such as novels
and museums as art.
Chris Ware
There, in recent years, the tendency of some scholars and artists to assert the importance of comics in the cultural system and the artistic sophistication and discursive half stigmatized for years, sentenced to the background art. The graphic novel to read, Santiago Garcia, is a timely book and opportunistic (appeared as a complement to theoretical and historiographical Barcelona Comic Fair 2010) that does not hide his intention never to elevate the status of comic art. However, seem necessary, just as happened with other mass media that were denied during much of the twentieth century, such as photography and cinema, certain voices to fight modernist prejudices that have accompanied the comic from its origins the sake of constructive criticism and justify oxygenate the current state of the art form.
The graphic novel is a study in the peak of maturity of the comic, in which the evolution of a particular language has reached heights of technical sophistication that allows you to work not only a wide variety of topics but also discursive. Not without academic rigor, the book investigates how the comic has reached its present state of maturity discursive, called the graphic novel. Santiago Garcia asked what the graphic novel and is informed answer from two perspectives: a theoretical-conceptual and a historical but an aspiration combined with essays by the author, intentionally subjective, at times, seems to taint the accuracy of the research ideas. That is, despite the respectable research of Santiago Garcia, his continuous unidirectional opinions cloud the speech from the academic world.
However, in terms of theoretical and conceptual perspective, Santiago Garcia explores the characteristics of the comic through certain fundamental studies, such as Scott McCloud, Kuntzle, Groensteen and Will Eisner, laying the foundation of the comic as the "art sequential "and problematizes rightly disputes over terminology and the conditions that fostered the birth of this new art form.
First, the author presents the problem of terminology with the comic in question and, in particular, the graphic novel (a term coined by Will Eisner) and currently used to differentiate a new product that, unlike other terms such as comics, comic, comic book or comic strip, is exempt from the negative charge that historically have accompanied these terms. Thus, the author understands the graphic novel as a new stadium (now) in the large comic book industry, whose products become "objects of critical reflection" that alienates certain products classified as comic alienating characteristics attributed to over history by researchers and critics of mass culture.
The comic, being a hybrid genre, shares characteristics with literature, art, film and illustration, but Santiago Garcia chooses to overcome these possible relations and circumscribe the space of the comic as one in which the premium on the image drawing and in which there is an "iconic solidarity" between the elements. Without going to define exactly what the comic, it is true that outlines a state of affairs that sets the tone for the reader to recognize when you have a comic book before.
Second, Santiago Garcia traces the birth of this medium, presenting a double feature that, in my opinion, should not be exclusive. This dual option divides scholars into two camps (those who want to see the birth of American comics as a landmark or those who consider it a landmark European) which is implicit consideration of comics as a product of culture-specific mass (the comic as American invention) or as a result of a process developed at the boundaries of art history (the comic as European invention), in which Rodolphe Töpffer would be the main precursor. While that may be interpreted as the work of prehistoric Töpffer comics (just as you can find the theoretical foundations of the comic in the column of Trajan) is also evidence that the comic is a product gestated from the project of modernity, mass culture is born "as a negative, homogeneously sinister background on which the successes and achievements of modernism can shine in all its glory" [1] (Huyssen, [1986] 2006: 9 .)
In regard to the historical perspective, which is the strength of the investigation, Santiago Garcia makes an exhaustive look at the history of comics, delving into the concepts that have taken him from the bottom rung of mass culture to your account as high art, or whatever it is, from the comic press of the late nineteenth to the graphic novel. The great success of the investigation, in this sense, is the treatment of comics as a cultural industry, ie as a production system that not only works but also care about conditions of creation, production, distribution and consumption. Garcia and outlines four stages in the history of comics, most notably the paradigm shift from 1968 to the underground comix as absolutely revolutionized the comic book production system. The cheapening of printing, publishing products without the restrictive Comics Code seal and the possibility for the artist to do the whole work (writing, drawing and labeling) created a new distribution system that laid the groundwork for that the 80 is to be drawn in comics a niche market that has enabled artists to explore and exploit the discursive possibilities of the medium.
In short, the graphic novel is a book written from the world of comics that attempts to ground from within artistic and expressive potential of the medium, which, at this point after the publication of certain products, it seems unquestionable. However, within the complex cultural fabric that describes Santiago Garcia, I find some gaps that I consider particularly important to understand this phenomenon in all its complexity, focusing on the consequences that the comic has had on the entire art scene, especially in the art world, as their presence in the project of modernity has been key, not only as an elitist Another modern art but as a participant in the artistic vanguard. The incursion of the comic at certain times of the vanguard has been an environmental impulse and an early claim (or at least ownership) of this "mass art" as "Art". Beyond the interest of pop art, many artists have been fundamental in the history of art whose debt to the comic should not be silenced: from "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" by Magritte to some collages of Max Ernst or Kurt Schwitters, through the "Dreams and Lies of Franco ', Picasso in the division of the canvas in nine vignettes alludes directly to sequential art, or works the Miró himself, which expresses a metaphysical landscape referentiality to Krazy Kat. If, as Chris Ware, comics are appearing in museums as art, do not forget the contribution that the artistic avant-garde itself has contributed to that effect.
Santiago Garcia
Astiberri, Bilbao, 2010
298 p.
The comics are appearing in bookstores such as novels
and museums as art.
Chris Ware
There, in recent years, the tendency of some scholars and artists to assert the importance of comics in the cultural system and the artistic sophistication and discursive half stigmatized for years, sentenced to the background art. The graphic novel to read, Santiago Garcia, is a timely book and opportunistic (appeared as a complement to theoretical and historiographical Barcelona Comic Fair 2010) that does not hide his intention never to elevate the status of comic art. However, seem necessary, just as happened with other mass media that were denied during much of the twentieth century, such as photography and cinema, certain voices to fight modernist prejudices that have accompanied the comic from its origins the sake of constructive criticism and justify oxygenate the current state of the art form.
The graphic novel is a study in the peak of maturity of the comic, in which the evolution of a particular language has reached heights of technical sophistication that allows you to work not only a wide variety of topics but also discursive. Not without academic rigor, the book investigates how the comic has reached its present state of maturity discursive, called the graphic novel. Santiago Garcia asked what the graphic novel and is informed answer from two perspectives: a theoretical-conceptual and a historical but an aspiration combined with essays by the author, intentionally subjective, at times, seems to taint the accuracy of the research ideas. That is, despite the respectable research of Santiago Garcia, his continuous unidirectional opinions cloud the speech from the academic world.
However, in terms of theoretical and conceptual perspective, Santiago Garcia explores the characteristics of the comic through certain fundamental studies, such as Scott McCloud, Kuntzle, Groensteen and Will Eisner, laying the foundation of the comic as the "art sequential "and problematizes rightly disputes over terminology and the conditions that fostered the birth of this new art form.
First, the author presents the problem of terminology with the comic in question and, in particular, the graphic novel (a term coined by Will Eisner) and currently used to differentiate a new product that, unlike other terms such as comics, comic, comic book or comic strip, is exempt from the negative charge that historically have accompanied these terms. Thus, the author understands the graphic novel as a new stadium (now) in the large comic book industry, whose products become "objects of critical reflection" that alienates certain products classified as comic alienating characteristics attributed to over history by researchers and critics of mass culture.
The comic, being a hybrid genre, shares characteristics with literature, art, film and illustration, but Santiago Garcia chooses to overcome these possible relations and circumscribe the space of the comic as one in which the premium on the image drawing and in which there is an "iconic solidarity" between the elements. Without going to define exactly what the comic, it is true that outlines a state of affairs that sets the tone for the reader to recognize when you have a comic book before.
Second, Santiago Garcia traces the birth of this medium, presenting a double feature that, in my opinion, should not be exclusive. This dual option divides scholars into two camps (those who want to see the birth of American comics as a landmark or those who consider it a landmark European) which is implicit consideration of comics as a product of culture-specific mass (the comic as American invention) or as a result of a process developed at the boundaries of art history (the comic as European invention), in which Rodolphe Töpffer would be the main precursor. While that may be interpreted as the work of prehistoric Töpffer comics (just as you can find the theoretical foundations of the comic in the column of Trajan) is also evidence that the comic is a product gestated from the project of modernity, mass culture is born "as a negative, homogeneously sinister background on which the successes and achievements of modernism can shine in all its glory" [1] (Huyssen, [1986] 2006: 9 .)
In regard to the historical perspective, which is the strength of the investigation, Santiago Garcia makes an exhaustive look at the history of comics, delving into the concepts that have taken him from the bottom rung of mass culture to your account as high art, or whatever it is, from the comic press of the late nineteenth to the graphic novel. The great success of the investigation, in this sense, is the treatment of comics as a cultural industry, ie as a production system that not only works but also care about conditions of creation, production, distribution and consumption. Garcia and outlines four stages in the history of comics, most notably the paradigm shift from 1968 to the underground comix as absolutely revolutionized the comic book production system. The cheapening of printing, publishing products without the restrictive Comics Code seal and the possibility for the artist to do the whole work (writing, drawing and labeling) created a new distribution system that laid the groundwork for that the 80 is to be drawn in comics a niche market that has enabled artists to explore and exploit the discursive possibilities of the medium.
In short, the graphic novel is a book written from the world of comics that attempts to ground from within artistic and expressive potential of the medium, which, at this point after the publication of certain products, it seems unquestionable. However, within the complex cultural fabric that describes Santiago Garcia, I find some gaps that I consider particularly important to understand this phenomenon in all its complexity, focusing on the consequences that the comic has had on the entire art scene, especially in the art world, as their presence in the project of modernity has been key, not only as an elitist Another modern art but as a participant in the artistic vanguard. The incursion of the comic at certain times of the vanguard has been an environmental impulse and an early claim (or at least ownership) of this "mass art" as "Art". Beyond the interest of pop art, many artists have been fundamental in the history of art whose debt to the comic should not be silenced: from "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" by Magritte to some collages of Max Ernst or Kurt Schwitters, through the "Dreams and Lies of Franco ', Picasso in the division of the canvas in nine vignettes alludes directly to sequential art, or works the Miró himself, which expresses a metaphysical landscape referentiality to Krazy Kat. If, as Chris Ware, comics are appearing in museums as art, do not forget the contribution that the artistic avant-garde itself has contributed to that effect.