19 January 2011__ “Deconstruction Comics”__ANNA MAGGI

19 January 2011

Lecture given by Roger Sabian: “Deconstruction Comics”

Roger asked us to analyze a comic and try to understand what makes comics special. The comic that we have been given was Batman.
We came out with a lot of different observations: we didn’t like the fact that the comic was computerized or the design of the balloon. Furthermore it wasn’t easily legible as each page contained too many information as well as bad advertising. Sabian told us that the advertisements were all directed to young boys because they obviously were the main audience. It is still a matter of fact that the most profitable source for comics remains advertisements.
He spoke a lot about the economical implication of comics, explaining that the fact that comics are still printed and not just digital is because there are still many people that collect them. Sabian also spoke about the lobby. There are seven main lobbies among which the biggest one is “Time Worner”.
Lobbies, in fact, do have control on the creative industry, from movies to comics. A successful character of a comic is likely to be used for commercial purposes, to be become a toy perhaps. Lobbies can advertise a product through a variety of media, detaining the control of the market. Such control affects also the cartoonist’s creativity, for example by determining how the character should look like.

Roger explained to us that there are different types of comics. There is the simple comic, the basic one. Then there is the Comix, born in the sixties whose main subject where sex, politics and drugs.
The Graphic Novel is the comic expressed through books. Here cartoonist benefits of more creative freedom.
The Small Press are amatory comics, self produced, made out of photocopies.
The E-comics are the web comics. They have a different kind of both aesthetics and narration.
Then there are the Manga (Japanese) and the Anima (Chinese). Those are particular because they can be read in an opposite way: from the end of the book to the beginning and from the right to the left.