Form
by
I’ve little to no use for any writing about comics that doesn’t engage with the fact that it is, before and after all, a comic that’s being examined and not a short story, movie, or TV show. This is true of all media—I’m unrepentantly dedicated to the specifics of a given medium—but has a heightened relevance when it comes to comics, where formal properties are so evidently on display. To be clear, the “form” of a comic is composed of elements of individual style (visual and literary) and the materiality of the comics object (whether physical or digital). To consider the form of a novel is to emphasize language, structure, and authorial style, but the materiality of most non–comic books is largely im_material, at least insofar as it conveys an author’s intentions. Books and e-readers have their own physicality, but the conditions of that physicality are typically not under the writer’s jurisdiction. Book size, whether the covers are hard or soft, the quality of the paper, font design, and size—such choices are instead the purview of the publisher; in the case of works in the public domain, numerous variations of the “same” book proliferate, without significantly altering the impact of,...
This essay may be found on page 103 of the printed volume.