PHILOSOPHY OF/IN COMICS

Philosophical studies of comics have been generally written under the scope of two separable directions. An aesthetic interest in comics would specifically deal with the philosophy of comics: definitional, ontological and formal (cf. Meskin 1). On the other hand, there is also a pure pursuit of philosophical themes in comics. In his introduction to the book Comics as Philosophy, Jeff McLaughlin writes:

From the very outset, then, the form of comics – its language and how we understand it – is rife with philosophial quandaries. Once we start analyzing the contents of comics, we can face its theoretical concerns through its various storylines, narrative arcs, drawing styles, and commentary (xi)

 An example of philosophical aesthetics is Robert C. Harvey’s essay Describing and Discarding ‘Comics’ as an Impotent Act of Philosophical Rigor.  It is based on a comparision of critics who have attempted to define comics: what is comics? What comics distincitve? The primary principle which Harvey himself gives is the “visual-verbal blend” (cf. 22).

Aaron Meskin’s article The Philosophy of Comics is a good example of foray into “questions raised by the medium and the art form of comics” (1). Meskin addresses the ontological concern by saying that comics are typically, but not essentially, multiples. The mechanical reproduction of the art form is significant in so far as it distinguishes a comic book from the Bayeux Tapestry, an ancestor of comics not called comics (7).

Among many others, an illuminating example of philosophical themes in comics is provided by Jeremy Barris’s Plato, Spider-Man, and the Meaning of Life. He studies four interconnected themes in Plato’s dialogues and Spider-Man: the foregrounding of sexual aspects of life, the inadequate, shadowy dimensions of our lives, the self-trivializing humour, and the use of sensory images. (cf. 64). Last but not least, artist Ryan Dunlavey and writer Fred Van Lente authored a series called Action Philosophers! in which they (re)tell the lives of the greatest thinkers: from the Pre-Socratics, St. Thomas Aquinas to Karl Marx. 

WRITTEN BY EDUARD GHITA

EDITED BY ANTONIA GIRMACEA