Illustrated Genius

 

By: Jonathan Seidel

Adorno’s anti-comic but good comic and manga picture books (Adorno 150)

Newspaper comics are on the decline. The lack of depth and diversity to jokes has coddled its delivery. A polarising society unable to handle jokes places comedians in taboo markets. For a while all the major comics followed the CCA for guidelines on acceptable comic books. The CCA hampered any grey area and any taboos. Everything needed to be pure and positivistic. A strong conservatism sought to protect the days of old as the sexual revolution loomed large. The code wasn’t always adhered to but it was utilised to prevent any abhorrent nature. Yet the was a way around it. The big industries stopped sending their comics for approval. So they didn’t get the sticker but they still sold. Despite the efforts pushed by legislatures in the fifties for this high level conservation, it was eventually disbanded. Since the abandonment many new comics have ventured into those unforeseen areas. Dabbling is sex and race. Cultural aspects that were taboo in the previous years. 

Comics are growing but even more so is manga. The value of manga in the west alone is greater than the comic book industry. Manga has a diverse genre and escapes much of the cultural taboos. Writers are brave and brazen. Experimenting with novel ideas to imprint on paper. They come in long novella occupying an entire journey. A single series illustrated in a novel. This experimentation tends to void western binaries and instead sympathises with the devil, inserts unsettling sexuality and favours gory credentials. It isn’t afraid to attack taboos and play with them. For some time certain manga generated anime adapted in English censored key aspects to protect children. Manga are more traitorous to the rebellious child. There is a growing acceptance of the genre in the west. Instead of it being a geeky weird thing. Others are finding the meaning behind the complex characterisation. While this is far from perfect there is a desire to flush out the plot line in a nuanced way instead of a routine mannerism (manga genres presumably repeat themselves as well). The surplus of strips allows more freedom and opportunity to find something everyone likes. 

What is interesting is the interest itself. There is something about the picturesque persona that is intriguing. Despite the childish teasing that accompanies an illustrated book, there is something to be said of graphic novels. It is basically television in a book form. Instead of the visual continuity on screen, the reader juxtaposes the adjacent pictures on the page to fill in the illustration. A little more manual labour but pretty similar. The picturesque may not be a motion picture but it is depicting the situation on paper. There is a certain level of immaturity that takes away the power of graphic novels. Newspaper comics are childish and ironic. There is a lack of text but it is made up in the visual. Television has replaced the need for graphic novels since the visual on the screen. While they have a dual system when a Harry Potter book gives you the text and the movie gives you the illustration. There is reason to keep them apart. They mess with one another. Having a little text under the figure of the character’s movement seemingly undermines the storytelling. Stealing imagination of the novella it shoves the image in the reader’s face. 

Graphic novels attempt to bring a visual aid to the literary faculty. A picture is able to properly depict a situation with all its context instead of a text that inquires estimates. The use of specific terminology plus precise punctuation partially conveys the image. The entire paragraph must be interpreted to understand the scene. Similarly, today a text message may seem off-putting without proper contextualisation. Letters are signs for symbols that convey a picture. The logographic model of hanzi in the same way better conveys the proper image because it it a symbol for the sign. Words are two steps behind while the illustration itself is the perfect presentation. There is nothing to imagine. The text paints a picture in one’s head but whether that is the intent of the author is rather crude. A great example is the book Wonder. The author tells you that Auggie’s face is worse than you imagine so you imagine it worse than first deduced. Yet the reader and the author’s conclusions illustrated on paper are different. The movie adaptation is the director telling the viewer this is how he looks (though I personally believe this was a boneheaded move as the unknown of his face gave more credence to his character). 

Every novel is a writer communicating his ideas to the reader. Yet in actuality it is the reader conjuring what he thinks the writer intended. The same words and structures are used but put all the pieces together and the final result would still be different. The imagination is expansive as well as the memorial category that interjects its perspective on the configuration of the character’s looks or character’s house. There is a certain genus to this. Especially in fantasy novella where the world building is even nastier. Tolkien created languages on top of mythic characters. To be fair some of the Tolkien retrospective creation is a byproduct of the film adaptations. Legolas is the model of elves even if Tolkien never describes him that way. Hermione will be Emma Watson. Her face will be projected in the imagination. Film has disrupted any reread but at the onset the character is Harry in one’s own imagination and then it becomes Radcliffe and now it’s Radcliffe. Film adaptations steal the imagination of the reader by inserting a canonical model as if this was the author’s intent. Given Rowling never met Radcliffe nor sought to cast him in a film meant that she also had someone else in mind. The novel is the meeting point for author and reader to surmise their fictional beliefs in silence.

Reading is a medium to understanding the writer’s intent. The story isn’t about the appearance of the subjects. It is about imaginative product. To formulate a story in the mind and enjoy the fictional universe swirling around the brain. The words are transmitted into the brain scrambled to make sense and illustrated in the brain. There is a sense of anonymity. The story describes but to what it is describing exactly is subjective. Some may ban a book because they believe to be problematic or they may permit it because while there is gore, the gore cannot be seen. Books banned like 1984 and A Clockwork Orange were banned on ideological grounds not due the imagery. On the other hand due to the CCA some comics were banned because of their depiction of villains and violence. Maus is a good example of a graphic novel that was banned on both imagery grounds from an ideological standpoint of depicting germans as cats and poles as pigs. While Life of Pi (though banned on religious grounds) painted people as animals and was allowed. If it is the imagination it can’t hurt anyone (for the most part). A book read in high school called Little Bee had an explicit sex scene but since it was written instead of illustrated it was allowed (though curse words could be used to censor in the opposite direction given the lack of text in graphic novels). 

Both have standards and lines not to be crossed. Yet in a perfect world, the writer and reader share a voluntary relationship. Here are some words not create something. It is similar to a colouring book that provides the picture but the drawer chooses which colours. How it looks is different than what intended. An art teacher who provides the paint and brushes while the student creates the masterpiece with her imagination. The foundation is set, all the signs are interconnected, the reader need only to turn on the program. Graphic novels are different. The graphic novel is a foreign film with subtitles. The sounds are irrelevant so the show can be watched silently with the subtitles making up for the lacking audio. Similar to the relationship between a director and viewer is the author and reader for graphic novels. There is no room for imagination. The author supplies the entire corpus. The author invites the reader to engage the text while the director invites the viewer to observe the screen. The former requires proactivity and the latter passivity. Images are easily intuited while words need to be channeled to internalise. Graphic novels are adornments to readers to enjoy the ride. Unlike childhood books that have illustrations that reflect the text, in graphic novels text accompanies the illustration. The image is primary with some contextualised textuality. 

Illustrations get straight to the paint. It is much easier to learn from a YouTube video than from a reading wiki how page. Mimicking the video is enhancing and easily manipulated while the words need to be translated into action. Take the screw driver and find the compatible screw and then place in the upper left corner. Maybe reading over twice to ensure understood and then grabbing one thing at time reciting over the directions (though watching someone can also be difficult if the movements are not clear). Another good example is Waze. When Waze says turn left in five hundred meters for many its an estimate, is that this block or the next block but on the virtual map one sees oh it’s the second block. Different learning styles are preferred for different scenarios. Music may be auditory but showing someone where to place their fingers on the guitar may be far simpler than telling them how to do it. Some people may intuit four hundred feet to be the second block others do not. The same can be said of reading and visualisation. The supremacy of reading over visualisation is a presumed preference, an obvious fact. Reading is the better model because it has more text than pictures. Pictures are inferior unless they are in a motion picture on a screen. Graphic novels simplify the narration on the screen by providing a text and image to read from. 

Many people believe themselves to be visual learners but degrade visual storytelling. Given their enjoyment of television it is hard to believe that this is genuine. The issue at hand is their lack of exposure to graphic novels. Reading a novel without images to watching a program without text. The graphic novel combines the two in a strange symbiotic relationship. It is irregular thus a foreign error. A book is supposed to be filled with text. Books that have pictures are child’s play. Maturity means less pictures and more text. Yet why is this the case? Apparent maturity requires lucid imagination, a quality more accessible to children. The child needs the picture either because it makes the book worthwhile or it aids the child in understanding the text. Children’s books is a modern phenomenon heralded by enlightenment ideals as most books directed for children were for educational purposes not pleasure. A few books were published in the seventieth century most notably Comenius’ Orbis as the first picture book. Aesop’s Fables were gradually translated for children. From an educational perspective pictures are important but not for adults. It is expensive and writers are writers not drawers. Thus you have a Harry Potter novel and a Harry Potter movie. There is a certain level of habituation to the market as well as maturity for the reader to grasp the author’s intent. 

Some novels add some illustrations. Yet their prominence is usually in black and white in the corner of a page. Illustrated fiction of the eighteenth century seems to be the precursor for comics. Robinson Crusoe had illustrations that even Dickens liked more than the text. Dickens published The Pickwick Papers with illustrations. The photomechanical techniques were cheap so they were regularly used in serial novella published in monthly issues. Thomas Hardy and George Eliot even published their worked in illustrated magazines. Ulysses and Old Man and the Sea were both originally published illustrated but but subsequent publishers removed them. The decline followed increased illustration cost and film adaptations but also the growing reliance on pictures over the text. For this reason James rejected their use in his fiction and Hardy gradually removed them from his books. If text composition was second to illustration then the prose would gradually decay. Much of the CGI preoccupation has dulled the beautiful prose. Preferring the spectacle of visual effects over the narration of the story. Graphic novels may be the heir to the illustrated fiction though graphic novels use the visual to tell the story not to extend the prose. Graphic novels invert illustration fiction. The visual is the primary source of artistic expression and storytelling while for illustrated fiction, the prose was batman and image was robin. 

There seems to be a hint of illustration in some fantasy novella. Despite the expense the author may feel it necessary given the irregularity of his imagination. Much fiction though imaginative is based in the real world. The author creates a fake character with a a fake mission but the character follows the rules of the world. The author and reader are connected by a shared reality. The author doesn’t need images because the reader understands the situation. The prose describes the character and his station and then the reader playing by the conducive rules imagines the intended framework. A fantasy novel is an entirely foreign creation. The rules do not apply since the creatures and world created are different than the reader’s understanding. The author must take great pains to elaborate his description. Using mythical creatures helps intuit their appearance given the oral knowledge of elves and dwarfs but that doesn’t mean the reader understands. Science fiction falls into a similar category. The prose must be precise. It is in this vein that film adaptations are underwhelming since the imaginative conclusion of the reader differs from the director’s deduction. That being said, there is a unique prose hypnosis that engulfs the reader into an imaginative world. The whole point of the fantasy and science fiction is to tap into the imaginative complex. Proactive reading only furthers the joy of mental visualisation. It is youthful ecstasy to ponder the fiction in its greatest difference.

While the consensus is that people ought to read prose there may be a shift on the rise. Just as cartoons have made it back into the mainstream for adults. BoJack and Final Space eschewing the classic animated comedy genre are generating a new class of acton and drama to be focused on for adults. There is a market for it. Adults need to get over their dogmas. Illustrations aren’t an issue and nor are graphic novels. Film has overtaken the role of the graphic novel but its compromising middle of image and text of graphic and prose may be more enlightening. The graphic novel requires reader engagement. Only the reader can turn the page and read through the prose. It is more passive than the novel and less mental energy but it is still a proactive assault on the brain. It is smooth sailing for those who enjoy the amusing illustration plot. There will always be a market for prose and especially the science fiction genre could remain a thorough neurosis adventure. Yet the graphic novel or manga provide an alternative outlet to combine both learning habits. A way of growing through proactive engagement. A potential way to wean off television and dangerous consequences.  

White Men in Coloured Coats

By: Jonathan Seidel

Stereotyping in films versus plays

Placing actors in roles to foreign ethnicities raises speculation. Beyond the contemporary appropriation backlash, an actor’s job is to assume the identity of the character. If one is playing Caesar he needs to act like caesar. The misconception is to identify as caesar instead of representing him. Visually in film there is need to emulate the identity. This ends up reaching stereotypical levels of trying too hard. Associating a certain frame with a character. 

The acclaimed Hamilton show did this part quite well. Lin Manuel Miranda is Puerto Rican a far cry from the historical figure. His successor Javier Munoz is also Puerto Rican. Despite the racial and ethnic differences they played the character to fruition. The play has shifted through characters over the past five years with no stopping. People love it. They love the music and orchestration failing to see issue with casting. Sometimes this is from ignorance. Morgan Freeman plays Red in Shawshank but reckon not many knew otherwise. There is an obvious political statement that many wish to avoid. In the case of Spiderman, casting black actors for MJ and Flash seemed less authentic given the wave of black characters reprising classically white characters. 

Is there a difference in theatre? On the big screen there is an attempt to reinvent the event. Cinema is behind the audience so can try to make the scene historical. Theatre is about the acting than the appearance. Matt Damon though was deemed racist for his comments, argued that he did not care for the identity of the individual and only for their talent. Looking beyond a character for their performance. Theatre is in your face and is magnified by its talent. It is the actor’s abilities on stage that mesmerise the event’s excellence. Theatre is less about preconceived presentation and more about result presentation. How the actors portray the character. Hamilton did this incredibly. Yet it may be its musical centricity that removed it from a realistic drama. It wasn’t a documentary but a comedic trope. If this was Romeo and Juliet audiences may feel differently. Still there is something about the live audience that hinders this problem at least in the cinematic age. 

Cinema is different. The photographed style attempts to captures accuracy. When people take photographs they they wish to see their reflection. Films are the same. They are supposed to be reflective. It is not solely authorial intent but the documentation of characters. There is an aspect of consideration to the obvious role. Just as people take dating advice from cinema so too they perceive reality through it. It is due to the photography affect. While documentaries are dedicated to factual gathering, fictional shows though imagined are reflective constructions. Whether be modern American or medieval Europe. Many people think the vikings were horrid plunderers because cinema articulates that story. The visual frame presented becomes truth. There is a greater trust to technological information than traditional messaging. 

There is justifiable regret when beloved characters are switched on a dime for political points. The polarised world is obsessed with racial jargon. It is the first thing noticed in the hyper-racialised society. Yet ironically, it is the historical formulations that are the most problematic. Beyond race, placing a character in a role that does not befit him only internalises stereotypical attitudes. For all the inclusivity, there is little care for the accuracy. Writing a Roman script or adding a main French actor and casting a white or black American is anachronistic. Cinema places such an emphasis on appearance that the attempt to be Roman only pushes the actor’s to act more Roman. To make vikings seem more brutal than they actually were. Constructing false propaganda as history. Embellishing content with a false prophet to narrate the lesson. 

While acknowledging the apparent compliance with Freeman's Red versus antagonism for Zendaya's MJ. Though there is a one-sided ratio. A white black panther would have more issue than a black batman. As the white superiority has a stronger historical record than the other way around and it would be perceived as diminishing black culture. From one side it's making room for black actors and black art. On the other hand if the alternative is done, black culture is repressed and expunged. Both are possible given the asymmetry. The historical landscape and power imbalance of race permits this reality. Yet the same cannot be said for other minorities. It is attempted but there is not as much blowback. Those other minorities while persecuted and abandoned in their past were not either by white America or as much as blacks, thus the justification does match. White people sought to suppress black people through slavery and Jim Crowe and now movies or now out of suppression can actually do something and flip characters.

Freeman's character highlights ironically either nobody read the book or nobody cared. It is also depends on how crucial race is to the character. The reason it wasn't such a big deal was probably because it was before all the hectic craziness. Secondly, it also may not be all too clear if Red was white. Even if so, as a side character, his role was more about messaging than appearance. The problem with superheroes is the are very well known and illustrations have covered magazines for half a century. It is an obvious attempt for political points. Still, there is strong merit to the point. Another case may be Riverdale. Veronica is played by a latino. The issue with the whole show was its storyline not its choice of casting by race. They may have ruined Archie Comics but that was not due to the latino aspect. For many that was fine in line. Given the casting is different than the comics, it is highly possible that the actress was the best for the cast without resorting to any political nature. That being said the show diverted from the comics yet still causing fans a heartache.

Though to some degree the race-swapping is not the biggest deal as long as it done in earnest to the original character. Movies are a depiction of reality. They a documentary unintentionally. People internalise relationship advice from movies. The realistic day in day out life of these characters is something to nitpick. The characters are representations. Thereby the historical constructions such as Vikings does a graver disservice than race swapping since at least the ploy can be noticed. Whether one agrees or disagrees the change is recognised. The historical formulations do not have that. Placing a character out of era is a deceptive lie. It is an attempt to gain political points a-historically. Solely focusing on the characters is necessary to fully immerse in that world. Either people will believe the lie of the apparent historical diversity or will abandon the show after seeing this farce. The viewer has expectations. Those are exploited when the director undermines them with small pieces of deception. The adaptation mirrors accuracy, using documents and monographs to arrange the story in an accessible way. Bringing the story to life. Such misfiring for some call out is a dire embellishment.

Historical adaptations are the most vulnerable since most people have not read history nor the seminal documents themselves. They rely on the film to portray the past. What is the point of learning when learning is corrupted by politics. Reading a textbook creates an illustration in the mind but fails to garner the same visual effect that film does. Film will embellish stories but in which way. Going off script here and there happens. Viewers know they are not getting the full truth but at least something is on point. There is some metric of enjoyment. The problem is that the film is taken with great acceptance. Vikings are gory murderers. When in reality they were farmers. A few attacked Christian villages. The extreme accusation is daunted with film expectations. The story needs to be receptive to people. They enjoy action and gore. It will a pleasant watch even if an untrue one. Yet the viewer should know, this is not a documentary and cinema is generally incorrect but the visualisation captures the viewer's emotions and stirs them to concede. The power of an image in motion funnels an untruth to be the truth. 

It is this messaging that causes a stir of horror in the true history of our ancestry. Caught up in political nonsense but even more so seeking a better story. The director decides which pieces to add and which to void. The perception of elder folk are internalised as seen on the big screen. Just as relationship advice must be true this even more so. Cinema is for viewership and interest so there are more bombs and more unnecessary relationships for a deeper plot line that is never mentioned in any of the original material. These slight derivations or even absolute constructions undermine the integrity of these people. The Cleopatra scandal does fall under race-swapping but it is more about her legacy than her race. She is painted as this black superwomen. Yet her history and her actions themselves are not represented in this way. HBO's Rome was able to swindle audiences with a deceptive character but the obvious race-swapping caught audiences' eyes ever before they hit the big screen. Given the heightened political landscape and race centricity, if only an iota is misplaced this can cause a disaster of belief. 

There is a bias given the race-swapping. While many may claim it is a one sided coin it was the Egyptians who were very angry, a people away from the American social upheaval. Nonetheless, it may be even more problematic that Fimmel played Ragnar  despite him being Australian. Then again his complexion does meet viking ancestry. Was this the correct choice may be not. It also may undermine the historical accuracy. Fimmel is not the problem insofar as he fits the paradigm and authentically relates to the people themselves. This a bigger issue than race swapping. The latter has too much concentration when historical events are embellished wholeheartedly for views. The viewer takes in the film with joy. Unlike the play on stage filled music and orchestration, the live action takes away from the realistic persona. Ironically, it is the opposite. The fiction is more likely to seem more authentic. Cinema plays a recording of the past while a play immerses in an experience.  

Stereotypes are inevitably assorted when the director presents an honest measure of society. By casting a white actor for a Roman role or American actor for a French actor. It is the inability to portray the individual correctly. Then the intended presentation is muddled and the stereotype ensues. There is no honest portrayal because the director is basing his knowledge as an outsider. He cannot identify and thus provides an inaccurate description. It is not about inclusivity or talent, it is about integrity. Does this make sense? Would a Roman do that? Do the French sound like that? In theatre the same problems emerge but the visual does not internalise the accurate proposal too deeply. It is a different model with a different goal. More concerned with talent than appearance.