096 Abstract Comics! Maybe?

Fantagraphics' recent release Abstract Comics, while nicely designed and filled with some fantastic artwork (kudos to editor Andrei Molotiu and the Fantagraphics team), brings up an interesting argument I've already seen touched on, and one that I wanted to explore a little deeper here: at what point do you stop calling something comics and start calling it... well, something else?

Abstract comics are what is described in the books introduction as:

"sequential art whose panels contain little to no representational imagery, or that tells no stories other than those resulting from the transformation and interaction of shapes across a comics page."

Some of these works are unmistakeably comics, such as this excerpt from R. Crumb:

and James Kochalka's contribution:

And just so you don't think I'm basing my definition of comics solely on what can be interpreted as the "traditional" panel style here's an excerpt from Bill Shut, which I would also argue is a comic:

But what about this page from Patrick McDonnell:

or this one from Billy Mavreas:

Are these comics? Yes, I know that choosing one page from a group can be considered a little dubious-- especially when this 208 page book is taken as a whole-- but I specifically chose these pages because to me they illustrated most what I consider "un-comics-like" about some of the works.

Scott McCloud defines comics in his now classic Understanding Comics as "juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence intended to convey information and/or provide an aesthetic response in the viewer." Now, even if we expand McCloud's definition to include one-panel comics or those with implied sequence would these examples fit that definition? (Note: while it's true many of McCloud's assumptions on this subject require a bit of expansion I personally feel his basic definition here is correct, and suits this analysis well.) I'd say that many of the sequences aren't very deliberate, nor even implied; almost none of them convey any information; and as far as an aesthetic response-- ok, there's that, but couldn't this be said about a great painting? There doesn't seem to be any defining characteristic that makes some of this work "comics". There isn't anything wrong with abstract style in the medium; one might argue, though, that abstraction is the exact reason a definition such as McCloud's needs to be put into place.

I don't believe in suppressing artistic expression; art, in general, should adhere to its own rules. Abstraction, however, seems to reject any sort of standardization whatsoever, and while this is acceptable from a purely artistic standpoint one must remember that comics are also a literary medium. As Douglas Wolk says in Reading Comics, we're-- well, we're reading comics:

"That's the process: holding them in our hands, turning their pages, getting stories from them as we burrow from one end to the other."

While Wolk admits to this being a slightly unfair comparison-comics are certainly less verbal than prose- he doesn't out-and-out dismiss it (nor should he; it's an important distinction.) So how abstract can the comics form really get?After all, when reading there needs to be a certain linear quality, something we can follow along with-- or else what are we interpreting?

This, of course, creates limitations. Many artists claim their work is art simply because they say it is; that art is subjective and its classification must be treated as such. Is this, then, an explanation that can be applied to comics, or is comics more like, say, cubism: a distinctly defined style within the limitless category of "art"? Is there an answer to the "is this comics" question, or is that not even the point?

Listen, who do I look like? Gary Panter? Frank Santoro? I'm not sure there is an answer, but it's an interesting debate. Check out this book and come to your own conclusions.

For a look at some of the other artwork involved, as well as a look into the process, check out the Abstract Comics Blog.