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About the AuthorTaylor Quimby graduated from Keene State College in 2010 with an individualized major in Aesthetic Studies. He currently works as a board operator and afternoon host for New Hampshire Public Radio. An avid reader of both comics and philosophy, Taylor also enjoys spending his time playing the ukulele, video games, and writing plays. Taylor lives in Hooksett, New Hampshire, with his family. Contents |
4. Other Representations of Literacy in Comics: Intertextuality and “Ambient Literacy”Literacy events are not the only windows into how the readers and writers of comics value literacy. Initially we addressed intertextuality in regards to panels, but it is also a means of understanding how texts use other texts as points of reference. Some comic books are filled with so many outside references, they become a kind of creative homage. Populated with Victorian-era pulp characters like the Invisible Man, Captain Nemo, and (Hulk’s ancestor) Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is such a comic. In his book Reading Comics, Douglas Wolk writes,
Moore’s celebration of Victorian pulp literature is an implicit endorsement. Speaking from experience, the comic is so jam-packed with literary winks and nods, readers are likely to Google characters with whom they’re not familiar. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, in addition to being a stellar comic book, is practically a recommended reading list. Bill Willingham’s hit comic book series Fables is similarly composed of characters popularized elsewhere, in this case from dozens of fables and fairy-tales spanning American, European, and even Arabic folk-lore. Willingham’s modified versions of Snow White, Bluebeard, and Pinocchio are for all practical purposes immortal – a not-so-subtle statement about the timelessness of story. Intertextual references like these are used not simply to clarify a point or create an engaging storyline, but also to show appreciation for other authors, genres, and mediums of literacy. There is one more important vehicle for understanding representations of literacy in popular culture. As static images that can be viewed for any desired length of time, even small details on a page or panel can have amplified significance. In comics, print can reveal literacy values regardless of whether or not characters are engaging in its production or comprehension. I call print of this kind, which appears in the background disconnected from the action of a comic, “ambient literacy.” To better understand how “ambient literacy” can reveal hidden literacy practices and values, let’s take a look at sequence from the fifth issue of Ex Machina (Fig. 4). In this issue, several snowplow drivers have been murdered during a rare New York City blizzard, effectively shutting down the city for days. Up until this point, the reader has been misled into believing that the culprit was Mayor Hundred’s surrogate father, Kremlin, but it has been revealed that the actual killer is a high school student. A SWAT team has entered his building, and is preparing to arrest him.
[Fig. 4: An Excerpt from The First Hundred Days, a collection of issues from Ex Machina, by Brian K. Vaughan] Notice the bookshelf behind the boy. Although they are not integral to understanding the story up to this point, the titles are clearly legible. Though some are slightly cut-off, we can easily fill in the blanks: Firearms, Chemistry 101, Explosives, and The Anarchist Cookbook. Although the boy is not actively engaging with the books in the frame, it is clear from preceding events that he has read and utilized the information within them in order to commit acts of domestic terrorism. The proximity of these books with one another would be a cause for alarm for most parents, but the boy has made no effort to conceal them. Now look at the panel at the top of the excerpt. A man, whom we can assume is the boy’s father or guardian, is half-asleep, drooling in an armchair. Not only are open beers visible in the panel, the speech bubble is drawn using wavy lines and small circles that lead the reader to conclude that the man might be drunk. The fact that he has not fully woken up, despite the presence of shouting SWAT forces in the apartment, strengthens this conclusion. The man’s half-asleep remark, “…FUCK YOU WANT NOW, KID…?” gives us a rough idea of his parenting tactics (Vaughan Issue 5). In this example of an “ambient literacy” event, literacy is represented as a tool that, if left unsupervised, can be appropriated for dangerous and destructive purposes, and points to the possibility that certain texts are, in themselves, dangerous. It also places some blame implicitly on the father, suggesting perhaps that the literacy practices of children and teenagers must be guided by those most capable of doing so: the parents. Despite its innocuous presence in the panel, the boy’s bookshelf says a great deal about the literacy values represented in Ex Machina, and points to the importance of “ambient literacy” in general. “Ambient literacy” is a vehicle of perception. The way an authors and/or illustrators create literate worlds is directly connected to their literacy values. Take for example Warren Ellis’s quintessential series TRANSMETROPOLITAN. The setting seconds as a character: a hedonistic spider web of print and images referred to simply as "The City." People on the streets are walking billboards, broadcasting news on their skin. Posters for musical events and political candidates are plastered everywhere and colorful literate and semi-literate graffiti fills in the cracks. The main character is Spider Jerusalem, a gonzo journalist reminiscent of the late Hunter S. Thompson. He is often surrounded by multiple “feedsites,” floating holographic websites featuring combinations of textual and visual information. This comic depicts a future in which multimodal literacy has invaded every nook and cranny of society for any number of purposes: for advertisement, for the spreading of public information, for individual expression, etc. (see Fig. 5). Ellis uses “Ambient literacy” to give his world depth without having to modify the main narrative to include unnecessary information; it is not necessarily for the characters, it exists for the benefit of the reader.
[ Fig. 5: an excerpt from The New Scum, a collection of issues from TRANSMETROPOLITAN, by Warren Ellis]
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