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Method
Due to the need for formal rhetorical analyses of Superman that allow for both the enduring legacy of the character and choosing images through a clearer methodology, this study will implement cluster criticism as defined by Foss. In selecting a comic book to analyze, many of Kathaleen Reid’s concerns about applying cluster criticism to visual artifacts were addressed. For instance, the length of a comic book means the artifact provides sufficient data to draw connections between clusters and key terms; comics also rely on sequencing their stories and conveying a message to readers, thereby answering Reid’s concern about art and language not having a sense of past and present. Further, because Reid encourages implementing cluster criticism on a broader array of artifacts, this analysis of Action Comics #1 serves to answer Reid’s call for further study of the usefulness of cluster criticism to analyze a variety of visual artifacts.
Regarding methodology, Sonja K. Foss provides a clear process to conduct cluster criticism. Foss describes how to conduct a cluster analysis: “The first step in cluster criticism is to select the key terms. Your key terms should be nouns” (64). The next step in cluster analysis is “identifying each occurrence of each key term and charting the terms that cluster around each key term” (65). For visual cluster analysis, Foss recommends identifying “representational images or visual aspects of the key terms” (65). Thus, this project includes a chart organizing identified cluster images around identified key terms and those cluster images will be the cluster terms (see Figure 1). Although Foss recommends identifying key terms and cluster terms based on “frequency and intensity,” to limit the scope of this project, I have used only Superman/Clark Kent as the key term for the visual analysis to determine the rhetorical meaning Siegel and Schuster embedded in Superman (64-67). Thus, in this project Superman is the visual key term and representational images that surround him will be visual cluster terms.