Oct
6
2009
So in our discussion last thursday, we were defining a cartoon as a story told thru multiple visual depictions, or something like that. I was workng on a project alter and found myself wondering about our definition, becuase couldnt it then include woodcarvings, some forms of masonry, and even maybe (just maybe) totem poles? If you think about it, some of these really are non textual, three dimensional, cartoons? some of them tell stories, and they really are artistic as well? I just wanted to throw this question out there and see if anyon had any thoughts
P.S. Real Men Whittle.
I don't know a lot about
I don't know a lot about totem poles, but I never thought of them as telling a story... It might have characters, but they don't really do anything. Right? I'm not sure. Then again, under the definition given in the reading a comic doesn't have to have a story, it just has to have sequential images that convey information, so in that case having characters might be enough to make it a comic.
Character Note Strip
I think I've seen comic strips that did nothing but introduce characters so that the reader would know about them for later...
I suppose if THOSE count, then totem poles...
"Higher" forms
There's generally not a lot of value attributed to comics, it's not considered "high culture". Going along the lines of the totem pole idea, what about scrimshaw, or a bas relief? We generally consider those "art", and they're just images carved into different mediums (ivory and clay). Technically aren't those comics too? They both relay an image or imply a story and in order to understand the image you might place it in the historical context of its production-- or think about the image in a sequential way to establish meaning. Technically, according to McCloud, isnt that a comic?
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