Today I checked out the Pasko ng Komiks Komiksibit in U.P. which is part of an event co-organized by our group. Along with prints of artwork by icons of Filipino comic art like Nestor Redondo, the exhibit also features a lot of great talent from up and coming local artists.
However I did notice several pieces which particularly struck me because they were so different from everything else in the exhibit, whether classic or contemporary. These pieces were a set of photographs, which, taken together, looked closer to a fashion spread than a comic. I was wondering if it was a CLAMP homage of sorts. It turned out to be something else altogether–images from the gallery of a virtual band named Mistula. The images were very pretty, make no mistake about it. However, I can’t help but think about the photographs’ collective significance as a comic. That is: Is it really a comic or a photo story? In an effort to understand, I checked their website and found more photo stories rather than what I would consider to be traditional comics.
This essay does not dismiss the exhibit of Mistula on Pasko ng Komiks. Professor Vim Nadera has his reasons why these images were placed there. What I want to focus on is an exploration of the possibilities of comics, the boundaries that many follow and the creative freedom that people may sometimes abuse. On one hand, we have comics such as Gerry Alanguilan’s Elmer. On the other end, you have photographs that come with what might be considered dialog, and, for lack of examples, we have this from Mistula.
It is interesting how digital media has transformed the comic art form in different ways. In fact I do find this process interesting, using different media to make an unconventional comic.
Maybe this shot by Mistula would definitely qualify as a comic spread as defined by more traditionalist perspectives. Digitally drawn and colored illustrations have become ubiquitous in the field of graphic arts and design. Comics is in the process of evolution, both as an art and a literary form. I am not quite sure if the combination of graphic design, composition, digital photography, and mascots would constitute a comic, however, or that people who practice this sort of art–and I do believe it is art–would qualify as comic artists, at least not in the way that I think Carlo Vergara and Andrew Drilon are comic artists.
Maybe it’s because I’m a purist. Maybe it’s because having read and listened to many sob stories of my favorite mangaka and artist friends, I always felt that a comic will always be governed by a cohesive and solid narrative, bound by the geography of panels, colors, ink, illustration, and the corresponding limits the confluence of these elements necessarily impose. Tezuka could have just photographed a boy wearing a cone on his head and placed a caption in his photo saying “Hi! I’m Atom”. But Tezuka did it differently. He drew his story of a robot boy with human feelings within the universe of a storyboard.
I think I may be placing undue importance on the intersection between story and illustration and how they fit together in a panel. Without a story, without something resembling an illustration, a comic is not a comic but simply a photo story, or what in Japan would be considered as a light novel. I mean, there must be a valid reason why a light novel in Japan would never receive a Tezuka award despite being gorgeously illustrated. Light novels also contain images that support the narrative, right? What makes the likes of Griffin and Sabine not a comic but an art book? So here’s me trying to understand — what makes Mistula’s work a comic when it’s closer to a photo story? Are graphic design and fashion photography now to be considered as valid forms of comic art? Would you consider a family album that contains artistically executed shots taken in sequence and then placed with captions in flickr as a valid comic?
Scott McCloud defined comic as a “Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in a deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or produce an aesthetic response in the viewer. ((Understanding Comics. New York: Kitchen Sink Press. 1993. Page 9.)) “. With the wealth of sequential images online that produces responses from viewers (just check flickr!), anything could already be the comic that McCloud has defined. I mean, if Mistula did it, why shouldn’t other art forms based on similar premises be considered as comics?
I have a feeling that Pasko ng Komiks and our exhibit have inadvertently run headlong into an old debate regarding the definition of comics. These are my two cents about it, but I’d like to hear your thoughts on what you think. Do you think storybooks or photo stories should be part of a general definition of comics?
This post was done for the regular Comics/Graphic Novel feature of Read or Die. You can also check out that page for some of my blogs for them. This entry presents only my opinion not of the group.
“Professor Vim Nadera has his reasons for why these images were placed there,” notes the author of this essay. What ARE these reasons? Rather than reacting in a general manner to a perceived difference of opinion over an interpretation of what constitutes “comics,” perhaps a stronger approach might be to address specifically Professor Nadera’s parameters for including or prominently featuring certain works or artists. That being said, after looking over Mistula’s “creative output” at their web site, and being hindered by my limited knowledge of the Pasko ng Komiks Komiksibit, which I have been unable to view in person, I find myself largely in agreement with the author of this piece regarding the inappropriate or erroneous inclusion of Mistula’s work, particularly if that work, as I am led to believe, appears as a particularly high-profile example of comics as a medium of expression in popular culture.
After considerable background research (over fifteen minutes, perhaps approaching twenty) on Professor Vim Nadera, I can’t help but notice a certain irony in the juxtaposition between Nadera’s desire to preserve the integrity of the Filipino language as a valid means of expression, and his acceptance of photo-stories that extend the limits of the definition of “comics” beyond what are generally construed, even by more liberal fans (or scholars) of the medium, as comics. Nadera, from what I’ve read, values the “authentic” roots of the “native” language; yet, by selecting Mistula’s photos not only to appear in the exhibit, but to represent a particularly fine example of the comic form, seems to me to suggest either a serious lack of background knowledge of the medium, or a purposefully dismissive attitude toward the generally accepted definitions (see McCloud cite above) of “comics.”
Both language and art forms evolve over time. Is a “hard line,” traditional, “isolationist” approach to language in keeping with a laissez-faire approach to art… even if that “art” is “common” or “commercial” in nature, as comics are often still considered?
If Mistula’s Japanese doll photo stories are – based on, in the example provided above, Japanese origami in an American rock-n-roll setting – acceptable as modern Filipino comic art, then I hope Professor Nadera will accept my Hawaiian/American/Taglish submission for his next “authentic” Filipino-language poetry reading.
Oh, and… that poetry reading: let’s do it at McD’s, shall we?
[And not to trivialize the discussion, but rather, to highlight the trivialty of Mistula’s “art,” an internet search at popular on-line photo-sharing sites like Flickr.com reveals “amateur” BJD (ball-joined doll) photo stories surpassing the quality of those by Mistula both in content and execution.]