Abstract
This chapter lays down the groundwork for the book, considering comics and their relation to communicative action and narrative drawing. It discusses in some detail the idea of treating comics as a language and surveys some approaches to this strategy. It frames some key questions for the book: How can images do what words do? How do comics communicate processes? How do they incorporate the abstract? How do they cohere as a unified text? The chapter makes a case for treating comics as ‘utterance’ and outlines the Hallidayan basis of the conception of language to be used in the book. It ends with a guide to the book’s structure.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Baetens, Jan, and Hugo Frey. 2014. The Graphic Novel: An Introduction. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Ball, David, and Martha B. Kuhlman, eds. 2010. The Comics of Chris Ware: Drawing Is a Way of Thinking. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Barthes, Roland. 1993. Image Music Text. New edition. London: Fontana Press.
Beaty, Bart. 2012. Comics Versus Art. Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press.
Booth, Wayne C. 1983. The Rhetoric of Fiction. Revised edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Bramlett, Frank, ed. 2012. Linguistics and the Study of Comics. London: AIAA.
Brienza, Casey, and Paddy Johnston, eds. 2016. Cultures of Comics Work. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Chavanne, Renaud. 2010. Composition de la bande dessinée. Montrouge: PLG.
Chute, Hillary L. 2010. Graphic Women: Life Narrative and Contemporary Comics. New York: Columbia University Press.
Cohn, Neil. 2007. ‘The Visual Linguist: Review: The Language of Comics by Mario Saraceni’. The Visual Linguist (blog). 11 June. http://www.thevisuallinguist.com/2007/06/review-language-of-comics-by-saraceni.html.
———. 2013a. The Visual Language of Comics: Introduction to the Structure and Cognition of Sequential Images. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
———. 2013b. ‘The Visual Linguist: Review: Comics and Language by Hannah Miodrag’. The Visual Linguist (blog). 15 October. http://www.thevisuallinguist.com/2013/10/review-comics-and-language-by-hannah.html.
———. 2014. ‘Building a Better “Comic Theory”: Shortcomings of Theoretical Research on Comics and How to Overcome Them’. Studies in Comics 5 (1): 57–75. https://doi.org/10.1386/stic.5.1.57_1.
———. 2016. The Visual Narrative Reader. London; New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
Davies, Paul Fisher, Daniel Marrone, Geo Sipp, and Ian Dawe. 2014. ‘Reviews’. Studies in Comics 5 (1): 205–21. https://doi.org/10.1386/stic.5.1.205_5.
Duncan, Randy, and Matthew J. Smith. 2009. The Power of Comics: History, Form and Culture. New York: Continuum.
Dunne, Nathan, and Roy Lichtenstein. 2012. Roy Lichtenstein. London; New York: Tate; Distributed in the United States and Canada by Abrams. http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=1649723_0.
Eisner, Will. 2008a. Comics and Sequential Art: Principles and Practices from the Legendary Cartoonist. New York: W. W. Norton.
———. 2008b. Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative. New York: W. W. Norton.
El Refaie, Elisabeth. 2012. Autobiographical Comics: Life Writing in Pictures. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Fairclough, Norman. 2010. Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. 2nd ed. London: Longman.
Foucault, Michel. 1984. The Foucault Reader. Edited by Paul Rabinow. New York: Pantheon Books.
Gavins, Joanna. 2007. Text World Theory: An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Gavins, Joanna, and Gerard Steen, eds. 2003. Cognitive Poetics in Practice. London; New York: Routledge.
Goodman, Nelson. 1976. Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Grennan, Simon. 2017. A Theory of Narrative Drawing. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Grice, Paul. 1975. ‘Logic and Conversation’. In Syntax and Semantics, edited by Peter Cole and Jerry Morgan, vol. 3, 41–58. New York: Academic Press.
Groensteen, Thierry. 2009. The System of Comics. Translated by Bart Beaty and Nick Nguyen. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
———. 2013. Comics and Narration. Translated by Ann Miller. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Halliday, M. A. K. 1978. Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning. Baltimore: University Park Press.
———. 2004. The Language of Early Childhood, Volume 4. Edited by Jonathan Webster. London; New York: Continuum.
———. 2005a. Computational and Quantitative Studies, Volume 6. Edited by Jonathan Webster. London; New York: Continuum. http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=436168.
———. 2005b. Studies in Chinese Language, Volume 8. Edited by Jonathan Webster. London; New York: Continuum.
———. 2005c. On Grammar, Volume 1. London: Continuum.
———. 2014. Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar. Abingdon: Routledge.
Halliday, M. A. K., and Christian Matthiessen. 2004. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. 3rd ed. London; New York: Routledge.
Halliday, M. A. K., and Ruqaiya Hasan. 1976. Cohesion in English. London: Longman.
Harvey, Robert C. 1996. The Art of the Comic Book: An Aesthetic History. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Hodge, Bob, and Gunther R. Kress. 1988. Social Semiotics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Kinsella, Sharon. 2000. Adult Manga: Culture and Power in Contemporary Japanese Society. Richmond, Surrey: Routledge.
Kress, Gunther, and Theo van Leeuwen. 2006. Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. 2nd ed. London; New York: Routledge.
Lente, Fred Van. 2012. Comic Book History of Comics. 1st ed. San Diego, CA: IDW Publishing.
Machin, David, and Andrea Mayr. 2012. How to Do Critical Discourse Analysis: A Multimodal Introduction. Los Angeles: Sage.
Madden, Matt. 2006. 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style. London: Jonathan Cape.
McCloud, Scott. 1993. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: Harper Perennial.
Mickwitz, Nina. 2014. Documentary Comics: Graphic Truth-Telling in a Skeptical Age. 1st ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Miller, Ann. 2007. Reading Bande Dessinee: Critical Approaches to French-Language Comic Strip. Bristol, UK; Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Miller, Ann, and Bart Beaty, eds. 2014. The French Comics Theory Reader. 1st ed. Leuven: Leuven University Press.
Miodrag, Hannah. 2013. Comics and Language: Reimagining Critical Discourse on the Form. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Moya Guijarro, Arsenio Jesús. 2014. A Multimodal Analysis of Picture Books for Children: A Systemic Functional Approach. Sheffield, UK; Bristol, CT: Equinox Publishing.
O’Toole, Michael. 2010. The Language of Displayed Art. 2nd ed. London; New York: Routledge.
Painter, Clare, J. R. Martin, and Len Unsworth. 2013. Reading Visual Narratives: Image Analysis of Children’s Picture Books. Sheffield, South Yorkshire; Oakville, CT: Equinox.
Sabin, Roger. 1993. Adult Comics: An Introduction. 1st ed. London; New York: Routledge.
———. 2001. Comics, Comix & Graphic Novels: A History of Comic Art. New edition. London; New York: Phaidon Press.
Saraceni, Mario. 2000. ‘Language Beyond Language: Comics as Verbo-Visual Texts’. PhD thesis, Nottingham: University of Nottingham.
———. 2003. The Language of Comics. London; New York: Routledge.
Smith, Matthew J., and Randy Duncan, eds. 2011. Critical Approaches to Comics: Theories and Methods. London; New York: Routledge.
Sontag, Susan. 2009. Against Interpretation and Other Essays. London: Penguin Classics.
Stockwell, Peter. 2002. Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction. London; New York: Routledge.
Thomas, Francis-Noël, and Mark Turner. 2011. Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose. 2nd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Varnum, Robin, and Christina T. Gibbons, eds. 2007. The Language of Comics: Word and Image. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Werth, Paul. 1999. Text Worlds: Representing Conceptual Space in Discourse. London: Longman.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Davies, P.F. (2019). Introduction. In: Comics as Communication. Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29722-0_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29722-0_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-29721-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-29722-0
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)