Intermediality, Transmediality, and Graphic Narrative

Abstract

Over the past decades, various types of graphic narrative, such as comic strips, comic books, and graphic novels, have enjoyed an enthusiastic popular reception.2 While the exploits of superheroes like Superman and Batman have long fascinated readers, licensing and merchandising have made comic books and graphic novels more widely known to the general public than ever. Their popularity may result from the fact that they are prone to what Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin (2000) call 'remediation,' to transmedial storytelling and diversification: many of the novels, movies, animated cartoons, and video games launched today are based on graphic narratives. While graphic narratives are transmedial phenomena due to their remediation potential, they are also intermedial narratives based on words and images that collaborate to relate stories. Whereas writer-artists like Art Spiegelman and Chris Ware are responsible for both the words and pictures of their works, the bulk of graphic narratives are produced by creative teams consisting of writers, scripters, and plotters to outline the complete story, and pencilers, inkers, and colorists to render the story in visual form. Examples are Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, and Frank Miller, who collaborate with well-known graphic artists such as D ave McKean, Dave Gibbons, and Bryan Talbot. Comic strips, comic books, and graphic novels can be read as stories due to the sequential nature of their panels3: closure, i.e., the readers' ability and constant activity to bridge the gutters that divide the single static pictures, helps to create narrativity. Since graphic narratives combine word and image to tell stories, they are ideal test cases for a discussion of Lukas Etter has contributed the examples from primary sources; Gabride Ripp! is responsible for all other parts of this article. 2 The term 'graphic narrative' was introduced by Hillary Chute and Marianne DeKoven in 2006. There are additional formats outside the English-speaking world, such as Japanese manga and French-Belgian albums, which would equally qualify as 'graphic narratives.' For further analysis, see the chapters by Jaqudine Berndt, Pascal Lefevre, and Jan Baetens and Steven Surdiacourt in this volume. 3 See Eisner 1985; I-&Cloud 1993.

Archives, (Inter)Mediality, and the Graphic Novel:Ghost Riveras an Indigenous Revision of Records

“…As "narratives based on words and images," comics are inherently intermedial, as numerous scholars have discussed at length. 68 Stein, for example, states that comics "integrate images and words into one storytelling apparatus; they thrive on exchanges with other media (film, radio, television, literature, painting); and they practice intermedial referencing, evoking […] literary styles, imitating […] cinematic techniques, or suggesting sound." 69 Put simply, Ghost River is a plurimedial 70 narrative, using techniques from different medial forms not only to enhance its aesthetic qualities but also to address and respond more effectively to the content and issues central to its project: Native survivance, rhetorical sovereignty, and medial and archival authority.…”

Remediation and hypermediacy: Ezekiel’s World as a case in point

“…Brown and black become the dominant colours and the dialogue between the members of the underground is written in Yiddish in red letters that stand out against their dark background (see Figure 4). Using words as an integral part of the picture, which is typical of comics and graphic narratives (McCloud, 1994: 154; Rippl and Etter, 2015: 205), has a unique function in this case: the insertion of Yiddish script serves as a memorial because this is the language spoken in the ghetto, which was replaced by Hebrew in Israeli poetry, including Kovner’s. To use Eisenstein’s (2006: 65) words in I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors , ‘the past and a language are fastened together.’…”

“…The term ‘remediation’ refers to adaptations which involve a transformation into another medium. This kind of transformation, widely discussed in both Translation Studies and Media Studies, has also been referred to as ‘inter-semiotic translation’ (Jakobson, 1987) and ‘medial transposition’ (Rippl and Etter, 2015). While some adaptations strive to be ‘transparent’, that is, to eliminate the marks of the previous medium, or any medium, and pretend to have a direct access to reality, others highlight the interplay between different media, resulting in ‘hypermediacy’.…”

Distinguishing Mediality: The Problem of Identifying Forms and Features of Digital Comics

“…While such debates might be easily dismissed as turf wars between older and newer generations, 2 different assessments of comic books' "mediality" in relation to analog or digital delivering technologies nevertheless point to a theoretical conundrum very specific to comics and comics theory; their notorious hybrid state between a "genre" on the one hand and a "medium" on the other (cf. Rippl & Etter 2013;Mitchell 2014). While this disputed doublenature has become a kind of cliché itself, the question keeps coming back as to where generic conventions and medial "specifics" diverge.…”