something out of nothing
Julia Moszkowicz
Abstract
Paul Ricoeur is a philosopher who wrote three volumes on entitled Time and Narrative, highlighting the capacity of story-telling to touch and reconfigure people’s lives (temporarily). His work suggests that narrative has the capacity not simply to re-present events but to provide rich contexts of experience wherein ideas can be explored and, to some extent, lived-through. This paper will argue for the value of applying such ideas to the reading and development of graphic novels within an educational context, encouraging students to develop aspirations for their practice that include making sense of the world, exploring its referential function, its claims on truth, the re-structuring experience and – as an aspect of this – the poetic potential of the gutter.
Quoting Aristotle, Ricoeur argues that drawing resemblances to and from the world can enhance people’s understanding of it: ‘bringing together terms that at first seem ‘distant’ … suddenly ‘close.’” Through the application of such understandings, this paper suggests that graphic novelists might see their function in terms of providing ‘semantic pertinence,’ unifying miscellaneous elements in order to secure deep understandings. The paper will explain the themes of mimetic and metaphoric value, arguing for a re-examination of the space between – as well as the content within – the frame of the graphic novel. The work of illustrator Tom Gauld will be used as an example of this poetic potential, leading to the question: is the metaphoric potential of graphic novels in the hands of the art worker or audience?
Key Words: Tom Gauld, graphic novel, gutter panel, imagination, Paul Ricoeur.
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1. The Gutter as a Space of Imagination
reading a literary text. This paper would like to consider, however, what happens when this type of reading-relation is applied to a space of emptiness, such as the gaps between the panels in comic books and graphic novels? What happens when one applies philosophical thinking to the gutter as one applies to the linguistic and illustrational content of its frames? Does the gutter perform a comparable
referential function? Has it the capacity to offer ‘semantic pertinence’? To what does it pertain? Do the spaces in-between the panels have a role to play in the re-structuring of experience and – as an aspect of this – is there any poetic potential to be found in the gutter of graphic works?
Speaking of literary imagery, Ricoeur argues that drawing resemblances to and from the world can enhance people’s understanding of it: ‘bringing together terms that at first seem ‘distant’ … suddenly ‘close.’” This reading makes sense in relation to the contents of a panel, whereby miscellaneous elements are drawn from the world and unified in order to secure deep understandings. However, the space of the gutter - being one of the absence of content - takes these ideas in a different direction. If one applies Ricoeur’s notion of temporal concordance and discordance to the spaces in-between, does one find something rather than nothing?
According to Mila Bongco, ‘one important and distinct feature of comic art narrative and panel composition is the concept of the “gutter”.’1 Drawing on the
work of graphic novelist and critic, Scott McCloud, Bongco describes how the gutter is a significant part of the story-telling process, providing opportunities for comprehension by the reader that exist alongside the content-rich panels of illustration and text.2 Each interval between a comic’s frames and panels is
construed as an invitation to close a gap, encouraging the reader to fill the spaces in-between. This ability to complete the story is attributed to the reader’s capacity to engage in a process of imaginative reconstruction, accomplishing a leap of faith between the content of one frame and another via the act of reproductive
imagination.3 Bongco concludes that:
[The gutter] is an important, albeit invisible, structural crutch used widely in comics in order to provide readers with minimum signals to mentally construct a continuous, unified reality from a medium which depends on reading and understanding “empty spaces.”4
1 Mila Bongco, Reading Comics: language, culture and the concept of the
superhero in comic books. (London: Garland Publishing), 2000.
2 Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: the invisible art. (Princeton, Wisconsin:
Kitchen Sink Press), 1993.
3 See Richard Kearney, The Poetics of Imaging: modern to postmodern. (London:
Fordham University Press), 1998.
This view of the gutter in terms of an imaginative disposition or poetics, however, is far from universal. While McCloud and Bongco celebrate the capacity of readers to expand the duration of comics through an expansion of the gaps between panels and, thereby, through active engagement with the process of imaginative closure, other critics offer a socially and economically situated view of the comic book form. In ‘Defining Comics as a Medium,’Randy Duncan and Matthew Smith, for example, focus on the comic book as a tool of communication that works
predominantly with compositional elements that are contained within each frame. They state that, ‘a comic book is a volume in which all aspects of the narrative are represented by pictorial and linguistic images encapsulated in a sequence of panels and pages [emphasis added].’5 They are primarily interested in the framed content
of illustrational panels, arguing that the role of the gutter in comic story telling is subordinate to the role of a whole page of panels. They conclude that readers do not add information between the panels but, rather, add panels cumulatively to build a story. They propose that, ‘the comic book reader performs closure within each panel, between panels and among panels.’6
Although there is some consideration of the formal characteristics of comic books, for Duncan and Smith the comic object is primarily historical and social in its constitution. They see it as a product of a wider set of conditions; that is to say, it is subject to the immediate technological and economic contexts that impose a series of constraints on its formal constitution. If there is any potential for poetic transposition within this model, the capacity for imaginative engagement rests solely with the comic book artist. The latter is attributed with the ability to overcome socio-economic constraints through productive acts of imagination, acts that reveal themselves through displays of formal innovation.
Duncan and Smith’s account is useful in the way that it returns the comic book to an industrial context, overlaying the intimate reading-relation of Bongco’s poetics within an overarching network of socio-industrial relations. Within this context, one is reminded that the comic book is subjected to industrial forces as well as aesthetic discourses; that is to say, as commodities that have been informed by a distinct set of economic imperatives (such as the will to profit and efficiency). One begins to view the gutter as determined by the motivations of mechanical
efficiency, for example, whereby panels are divided up into discrete and (initially) equivalent units of space and time to optimize the use of space in an industrial setting. Duncan and Smith describe how the proportion and distribution of panels and gutters on a page, in the earliest (mass produced) comic strips, were designed in such as way as to fit into the pre-existing column layout of a newspaper. They
5 Randy Duncan and Matthew Smith, The Power of Comic Books: history, form
and culture. (London: Continuum Books), 2009.
argue that, ‘because most news strips had a standard vertical dimension, it was easy to arrange them in rows across the page.’7. The early comic book is studied in
terms of a wider culture of marketing whereby it assists in the selling of
newspapers and the promotion of gasoline brands in America (see Figure 1: Debut of Peanuts comic strip in seven newspapers, October 2, 1950.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/69/First_Peanuts_comic.png) 2. The Gutter as a Material Sign
In this way, one can begin to see how the gutter might function less as an empty space and more as an active sign within the comic book or graphic novel. According to Duncan and Smith’s account, one can begin to view the gutter as an index of industrial time: the time of optimized production and spatial-technological efficiency. In this reading, the gutter equates to an existing system of profit, such as the monetized column grid of the newspaper magnates (specifically of the late 1940s and 1950s). The unitized interval of the modular panel alludes to the historical time of mechanized capitalism. (See Figure 2. St Paul Pioneer Press
May 5, 1942 showing column grid in which the Peanuts comic strip makes its debut in 1950:
http://www.70years.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/sc0090c405.jpg) This conclusion is followed by another, Duncan and Smith infer that those who challenge or unsettle this industrial context with formal innovation can be seen as provocateurs against the capitalist system. Certainly, Duncan and Smith celebrate the contribution of those illustrators and writers who aspire to this condition of artistic autonomy and reject unitized modes of production. Harvey Pekar and Robert Crumb, for example, are applauded for producing work that exceeds the constraints of the comic as commodity form, generating works of ‘genuine artistic expression.’8 This perception of artistic endeavour is further supported by
anecdotal evidence, for Pekar had insufficient funds to pay Crumb for his drawings and secured his services through an exchange of jazz records. American Splendour
is thereby conceived as operating within its own economic system; it secures its autonomy by invoking a bartering scheme. Within Duncan and Smith’s critique, anyone who overcomes the space-time constraints of industrial efficiency has the potential to be views as an artist.9
7 ibid., 140 8 ibid., pp. 90-100
9 Developing this idea of the gutter as sign, one can see that the non-unitized
Having said this, Duncan and Smith are dismissive of the role performed by the gutter within the process of communication. They state that, ‘borders and gutters are not necessary or defining elements of the panel. The unit of comic book communication known as a panel occupies a finite space on the page and
encapsulates a finite, if sometimes indeterminate, span of time.’10 They argue that
the panels contain sufficient information, in the form of compositional elements and signs, to guide the viewer through the temporal terrain of the comic object. They believe that encapsulation of a story by the reader involves semiotic
processes alone; that is to say, syntagmatic choices (the combination of panels and panel elements) and paradigmatic choices (thinking about what is not in the panel, but might have been) are actively employed to secure temporal and narrative closure within the comic book format.11 Sense making, they argue, does not occur
in the space between the panels, it occurs in the relation that exists between text, reader and culture at the level of material signs.
Having read Duncan and Smith’s analysis, one is left with the impression that the gutter is merely incidental to the comic book form. It exists in the spaces in between the panels and simply helps break up the page into ‘key moments’ or units of composition. While other elements on the page are attributed with signifying functions, the gutter draws a blank: it is conceived neither as panel nor page. It falls between the signifying components of the comic book. In spite of this, it is possible (and helpful) to see the gutter as a signifying element. When viewed as an indexical sign, it makes associations between the time of reading and the time of industrial production. For some, it could also function as a material index of the autonomy of ‘The Artist.’ Despite the apparent absence of content, the gutter signifies in spite of itself. Paradigmatically speaking, for example, it serves as evidence of what the panel is not, what the illustration is not and what the word is not. In this sense, the gutter itself can be read in terms of a substitution: what is not there and what could have been there. Indeed, it would seem that most of the critics are using it in this way, as a point of meaningful distinction within the comic book that perpetuates a series of recurring dualisms: empty/full, inside/outside and present/absent. All this suggests that the gutter can operate as a material sign; it is both index and point of difference.
According to existing criticism, there is also a possibility that the space manifested by the gutter can be read synecdotally; it can be read as a small portion of a much larger absence or empty space. The gutter can be read in terms of what it is (a space) as well as what it is not (a panel, a page or compositional elements). McCloud and Bongco, for instance, view the intervals or gaps that comprise the gutter in relation to the void (or the emptiness that waits to be closed in) in which each frame is marked out against the blank canvas of infinitude. For Thierry
Groensteen, however, it can serve as a signifier of the immediate space of the comic book itself. Indeed, the comic is seen as characterized by a discrete ‘spatio-topical system,’ one that can be duly represented by its own skeletal framework on the page.12 Before comics communicate through a combination of compositional
elements (or content), Groensteen believes they operate on the spatial level of a multiframed page, arguing that: ‘One can see that, in a large measure, it is the frame that makes the panel.’13 (See Figure 3. An example of the multiframe
structure of the comic book page. In Tip Topper 18 August/September, 1952. http://www.comicartville.com/peanutsttopper18pg1th.gif).
For Groensteen, the panel represents the smallest unit of intelligibility within the comic format. When he divides the spatial topology of the comic into a series of pertinent units, the frame and panel emerge as key signifiers while the gutter is denied the status of a sign. It is seen as lacking a physical essence or material presence. The space of the gutter is reduced to nothingness, with Groensteen proposing that: ‘the panel is presented as a portion of space isolated by blank spaces and enclosed by a frame that ensures its integrity [emphasis added].’14 Yet
these blank spaces have the capacity to change shape, form and tempo. One could argue that if the comic book is revealed partially through the uniformity of its spatio-topology (Groensteen), then a graphic novel can reveal itself - as an object of independent authorship (Duncan and Smith) - through its non-conformity to the established spatial topos of the comic book industry (see Figure 4. An example of the gutter as material sign or how breaking with the modularity of the comic strip means the gutter can serve as an index of artistic autonomy. Here the irregular gutter is among those elements that signify ‘graphic novel.’ Extract from graphic novel by Tom Gauld, Goliath. London: Drawn and Quarterly.
http://www.creativereview.co.uk/images/uploads/2011/10/goliath.interior_0.jpg). When Groensteen speaks of the emergence of an ‘obtuse meaning’ within the comic book format, one can begin to imagine that it could be the result - in part - of innovations in the spatial realms of the gutter. While Groensteen prefers to attribute the obtuse meaning to ‘a poetic seizure that clings to the signifying accidents of the panel,’15 this paper suggests that it might also cling to the attributes
of the gutter.
3. The Gutter according to Paul Ricoeur
If one is to retrieve a role for the gutter, therefore, it is useful to turn to the philosophical work of Paul Ricoeur. His work questions the idea of the supremacy
12 Thierry Groensteen, The System of Comics. (Trans.) Bart Beaty and Nick
Nyuyen. (Jackson MS:University of Mississippi Press). 2007 (1999): 25
of the most immediate physical signs, and challenges the act of attaching meaning to individual narrative elements (and not others). For one thing, Ricoeur does not automatically distinguish one physical essence from another nor assume a distinction between a fictional narrative and an historical world. Rather, Ricoeur believes that the two horizons collide on a temporal domain within the act of reading. All works of fiction, he suggests, ‘lie waiting to be taken up by reading, which in turn, is capable of providing a space for a confrontation between the world of the text and the world of the reader.’16
Like Duncan and Smith, therefore, Ricoeur perceives a relation to exist between the world inside the text/comic and outside the text/comic. However, he believes that the process of reading or writing a story involves an act of configuration, whereby these separate worlds are not simply held in a deterministic relation but lived through and integrated at the level of the reader’s/story’s utterance. He describes how ‘the world of the text’ is brought to life through the act of engaging with the story-telling event and how this impacts upon the reader’s temporal way of inhabiting the wider world. All works of fiction project a world outside themselves, using the techniques of narrative and emplotment. While story-telling elements are invariably plotted in terms of episodic or sequential relations, it takes a reader to develop the aspect of temporal configuration (to introduce the horizon of time). It is the reader who makes the story whole again, bringing the plotted elements into ‘a living dialectic.’17
What is useful here is Ricoeur’s emphasis on the reader who simultaneously takes the story outside of itself and yet holds it within himself. The reader is neither caught within the panels nor lost in the spaces in-between; he operates at a discrete distance (is equidistant) from them all. Ricoeur clearly refers to the ‘specific marks that distinguish it [fictional narrative] from the “statement” of the things
narrated.’18 The thing narrated occupies a discrete time and space, existing in
discordance from the time-space reader until the act of reading takes place. Consequently, aforementioned acts of closure, sense-making and imagination can be seen as taking place within, between, across and in-between the panels. Crucially, the configurational aspect is undertaken in the guise of the reader and in the context of all story-telling elements that exist in the space-time of the fictional work: panels, frames, plot elements and gutters.
In this way, Ricoeur offers an interpretation that overcomes the dualities and oppositions of existing comic book criticism. While the world of fiction is subject to divisions, Ricoeur distinguishes largely between concordant and discordant elements, which are then integrated within the act of reading. He states that, ‘I may
16 Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative: volume two. (Trans.) K. McLaughlin and D.
Pellauer. (Chicago: Chicago University Press), 1990: 5
now add that it is in the act of retelling rather than in that of telling that this structural function of closure can be discerned.’19 This means that the gutter can be
seen as an equivalent narrative component that can work alongside the panel and frame in the guise of ‘specific marks’; material signs that simultaneously keep the reader at a distance from the fictional world and - through the process of reading - invite him in.
5. Conclusion
This paper has demonstrated how the philosophical thinking of Paul Ricoeur offers ways to challenge the dominance of a semiotic approach to story-telling processes in comic book criticism, which tend to offer a-chronic interpretations of comic books in terms of their spatial organization and compositional arrangements. For example, the gutter is no longer automatically perceived as a spatial gap, interval or interruption in the cumulative (spatial) sequence of events. It is seen to share the
19 ibid., 67
Bibliography
Bongco, Mila. Reading Comics: language, culture and the concept of the superhero in comic books. London: Garland Publishing, 2000.
Randy Duncan and Matthew Smith, The Power of Comic Books: history, form and culture. London: Continuum Books, 2009.
Groensteen, Thierry. The System of Comics. trans. Bart Beaty and Nick Nyuyen. Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press. 2007 (1999).
Kearney, Richard. The Poetics of Imagining: modern to post-modern. London: Fordham University Press, 1998.
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: the invisible art. Princeton, Wisconsin: Kitchen Sink Press, 1993.
Ricoeur, Paul. Time and Narrative: volume two. trans. K. McLaughlin and D. Pellauer. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1990
temporal horizon of the comic book world, posing itself alongside the other compositional elements. It is something - a physical essence of the comic book world - rather than nothing. The gutter is an integral aspect of the fictional world of the comic, one that is both in and out of time with the trajectory of the panels and their components.
Furthermore, whilst there could be a poetics at work here, the gutter is not always already placed at the interstices between here and there (in the elsewhere of productive or reproductive imagination). Instead, it operates as a material presence or ‘specific mark’ of the comic book’s spatial-temporal horizon, which is then enacted as a narrative transition in the process of reading. One finds strong evidence of a narrative function in the gutter and a formal device that is increasingly subject to experimentation and cultural change.
