From: Omar Willey (email suppressed)
Date: Mon Oct 01 2007 - 08:56:38 PDT
> I got an interesting question about whether there were any readings
> out
> there that might shed light on different ways in which film theory
> might
> pertain to making theories about comics. Anyone have any thoughts?
>
> I was thinking Robert Warshow's Immediate Experience, but that
> seems a bit
> more broad than my friend seems to have in mind.
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Chris
The obvious books here would be Will Eisner's _Graphic Storytelling_
and _Comics and Sequential Art_, but in truth your friend is probably
chasing a book that doesn't exist. Comix people are not known for
their theorizing, or more accurately, talking about their theorizing
in some academic fashion. And boy, don't I wish more filmmakers were
like that.
You will find some references to your friend's subject scattered
about various interviews with Art Spiegelman, Alan Moore, Bill
Griffith, Joost Swaarte, Jean Giraud and Chris Ware, but only some of
these were ever collected/anthologized in books like "The New Comics"
or movies like "Comic Book Confidential" and Harlan Ellison's
"Masters of Comic Book Art." But I think you'll find that most comix
artists look upon film theory with disdain or blithe ignorance.
Comix, mercifully, haven't been completely coopted by the academic
world yet, and are far from sufficient on their own as thesis
material at posh colleges; virtually everything academically
published about comix refers back to comics as a mass medium or as
some sociological/cultural document, rather than as aesthetic
experience.
When someone finally publishes "The Influence of Lyotard and Bataille
on the Work of Schuiten/Peeters," I believe I will vomit.
Omar Willey
Puget Sound Cinema Society
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