comics words

Best of all, without the critical language of fine art to surround it, comics are also, I believe, perceived more clearly than any other art form, i.e., you don't blame yourself for not "getting" a comic strip - you usually blame the cartoonist. Conversely, if you don't "understand" a modern painting, you’re much more likely to blame yourself and your ignorance of the history of art rather than the artist. Unlike prose writing, the strange process of writing with pictures encourages associations and recollections to accumulate literally in front of the eye; people, places, and event appear out of nowhere. Doors open into rooms remembered from childhood, faces form into dead relatives. And distant loves appear, almost magically, on the page – all deceptively manageable, visceral, the combinations sometimes even revelatory. This odd. Almost dreamlike characteristic may be rather unique to the medium; Rodolphe Töpffer, the comics strip “inventor”, even realized it in 1845. Where real writing and reading induces a sort of temporary blindness, comics keep the eyes half-open, exchanging the ambiguity of words for the simulated certainty of pictures.

Excerpt from Chris Ware’s introduction to Mc Sweeney's Quarterly Concern N. 13. Ware was the guest editor of this exceptional issue fully focused on Comic Art.

Other links: Mc Sweeney’s Store; Chris Ware’s Fantagraphics page