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(Miller & Sienkiewicz 12)
Signs & Symbols
Semiotics is a small word that encompasses and tries to describe the seemingly infinite layers and variations of how signs impact the way creatures relate to their world, both internally and externally. From birth to death and every mundane moment in between, we encounter signs that communicate information.
For example, my turtle, Snapper, has her terrarium set up in our open plan kitchen/dining room/living room. Everyday she watches a parade of food—including delicious green leaf lettuce and plump little blueberries—spring from one place: the fridge. When I open the fridge, Snaps (ever hopeful of overcoming the laws of matter) tries to swim through the walls of her aquarium to get to the food she knows is there. By opening the fridge door, I have signed something to Snaps that she holds up against thirty years worth of past events to decide that this sign means food. Further, Snaps recognizes that more often than not, the preferred chain of events—me giving her a handful of blueberries to chomp into bits—is usually aided by some noisy splashing on her part. So, she recognizes the sign, decodes it, and responds with noisy splashing. You can see her in action in the video below. Please excuse the ridiculous voice that I use to speak to animals...
Our perception of what is self and what is other is central to how we decode the signs and symbols with which we engage. For an image or series of images to be impactful, to convey all the artist/author's intentions, it must be thoughtful in its deployment, form, and level of abstraction.
This might sound a bit high-flung; however, in his book Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, Scott McCloud manages to take the pertinent bits of semiotics and package them in neatly digestible panels for mass consumption. He builds our visual vocabulary starting with 'icon', and explores how the form of an icon communicates its function to the viewer/reader (McCloud 27). Most art demands some engagement from its audience. The simplicity of comics means they demand more from the audience, but that same simplicity also makes audience participation easier, and maybe more personally fulfilling. It also begs the questions: what is your favorite graphic novel, and what does it say about you?
Elektra: An Origin
I'm using a page from my own personal favorite graphic novel to explore McCloud's analysis of icons, abstraction, and identity. The page is from the collected eight issue biography Elektra: Assassin written by Frank Miller and drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz (pronounced shen-kyAY-vich). Sienkiewicz is my favorite comix artist. He has a painterly style that twists photorealism upwards, stretching it out to imply a sense of fragility. He employs large color fields, dynamic panels, and splatter patterns reminiscent of Ralph Steadman. I've split the page from Elektra into three sections to make it easier to see the visual rhetoric Miller and Sienkiewicz employ.
(Miller & Sienkiewicz 12)
The first three panels at the top of this blog are followed by the ones directly above this paragraph. All six panels feature clean outlines, deeply saturated color blocking, and simplified shadows. They are Elektra's memories from when she was a small child.
(Miller & Sienkiewicz 12)
By switching styles, Sienkiewicz has created a meta-masking effect. As McCloud points out, when we think of ourselves, our self-concept is more abstracted (36). So, this meta-masking alerts readers to the fact that Elektra is moving fluidly through her memories. Words aren't necessary for readers to perceive this time disruption. While a reader may intuitively understand what's happening in Elektra's mental world here, McCloud provides the language for us to articulate this phenomenon and discuss the impact it has on the storyline. If you haven't already read it, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art will completely change the way you read comix in the best possible way! Works Cited
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. HarperCollings Publishers, 1993.
Sienkiewicz, Bill, artist. Elektra: Assassin. Written by Frank Miller. 2nd ed., Marvel Worldwide, Inc., 2012.
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In Chapter 2 of Understanding Comics , McCloud talks about two key concepts I’d like to discuss: he identifies reality , language , and the picture plane as a representation of the pictorial vocabulary of comics, and he expresses a scale for iconic abstraction of comic art. As readers following the action in comics, we are guided by what objects and events cartoonists decide demand focus in each individual moment or panel. This focus via simplification of reality - referred to as abstraction - provides a rhythm of reading the visual representation of a sequence of events, controlling the timing of action and dialogue through spacing of panels and objects on a page. McCloud makes it clear that abstraction in comics is really just about the representation of ideas . Conceptually, we can perceive a specific drawn event, such as an explosion or a fight, without that event being pictured exactly or photorealistically. Rubble or glass flying midair can represent the impact of fights depi...
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