Something Borrowed : Interfigural Characterisation in Anglo-American Fantasy Comics
Varis, E. (2016). Something Borrowed : Interfigural Characterisation in Anglo-American Fantasy Comics. In M. Peppas, & S. Ebrahim (Eds.), Framescapes : Graphic Narrative Intertexts (pp. 113-122). Inter-Disciplinary Press. https://doi.org/10.1163/9781848884489_012
Tekijät
Päivämäärä
2016Tekijänoikeudet
© the Author & Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2016. This is a final draft version of an article whose final and definitive form has been published by Inter-Disciplinary Press. Published in this repository with the kind permission of the publisher.
It is no secret that comics’ formal structure resembles a pastiche: images, words
and gaps of different styles and abstraction levels mix to tell a story that is more
than their sum. Is it any wonder, then, that modern, myth-driven graphic novels
tend to borrow their content elements – such as characters – from several
heterogeneous sources as well? Wolfgang G. Müller's little-known but widely
applicable theory of interfigurality (1991) shows how literary characters gain depth
and resonance by sharing elements with characters in other works. The chapter
revises his theory and shows how it could also be used in the analysis of comic
book characters.
Fantasy comics from Vertigo series like Fables and The Sandman to works like
Hellboy or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen draw their readerly and
scholarly appeal from their eclectic, literary character galleries. Especially Mike
Carey and Peter Gross’ The Unwritten (2009–) realises every type of interfigurality
Müller has identified in experimental literature, and even adds alternatives of its
own. Close reading of this ongoing series underlines that interfigurality is a
flexible, transmedial phenomenon: characters of words and images can parallel
and reuse elements from purely textual characters in imaginative ways. This
flexibility, however, renders Müller’s name-bound character concept insufficient.
Since comparing characters to one another – especially intermedially – would not
be possible without complex cognitive processes, Müller’s structuralistic view
implies and should be supplemented with a cognitive basis.
Thus, combined with the cognitive character theories developed by Baruch
Hochman (1985) and Aleid Fokkema (1991), Müller’s notion of interfigurality
becomes a viable analysing tool for narratives of all kinds. Since comics is a
medium of gaps, fragments and “the invisible,” its heroes often read like puzzles,
and some crucial pieces can occasionally be found through interfigural
speculations.
...
Julkaisija
Inter-Disciplinary PressEmojulkaisun ISBN
978-1-84888-448-9Kuuluu julkaisuun
Framescapes : Graphic Narrative IntertextsAsiasanat
Julkaisu tutkimustietojärjestelmässä
https://converis.jyu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/25698016
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