When comics are thought of, many instantly think of the weekly “Sunday comics” that appear in the newspaper. These comics (example above) are usually abstract, colorful figures making a joke about an aspect of life or politics. While this is a common example of comics, it is not the only. Comics are defined as a representation of the world by Scott McCloud's essay, "The Vocabulary of Comics.” This representation is “filled with icons that we call pictures” and words that help support the pictures and guide the audience in the frame-by-frame storyline. My comic, “She’s Okay”, from the archive “A Softer World” (directly below) is a very different interpretation of comics. My comic is modeled off of "romans dur" by George Simenon. According to the New York Review of Books, romans dur are defined as material " in which [they] display a sympathetic awareness of the emotional and spiritual pain underlying the routines of daily life."
Understanding the difference between my comic and what would be considered “everyday comics”, I will address how my comic correlates to the definition of romans dur that New York Review of Books presents by providing the audience with a look into this “emotional and spiritual pain.” This argument is constructed from technical elements such as saturation, vectors of attention, cropping, word choice and font choice that all contribute to the overall structure and aesthetic of the comic.
While analyzing this argument, it is also important that I keep in mind my audience. Primarily, my audience will be my fellow peers and my professor. This audience will be aware of the same concepts as I am and contain the same knowledge of analyzing material such as photographs and comics. While this is helpful to the audience in terms of understanding the terminology and examples I present, this also makes this audience my most critical. They will know very quickly if terminology is used wrong or if my argument does not add up.
As mentioned in CDA p.40, context of audience is just as important as whom the audience is. I can imagine that my audience will be on the college campus in places such as a study room, a dorm room, or even an office. My peers and professor will first be considering my argument in helping me revise my paper, and later on grading the completeness and thoroughness of my argument.
Other than my main audience, there is also a possibility of anyone else that can access my blog on the internet to read my analysis. This is the hardest thing to consider when writing an argument in that I cannot guess at their background or the context in that they may read my blog. Therefore, I should keep my analysis on a level that would be acceptable to a variety of people reading it.
Overall, I hope to provide an argument that shows that comics can be more than just the humorous cartoons in newspapers and comic books. I want to introduce my audience to, what may be the new, concept of romans dur and translate the definition that New York Review of Books provides for these types of comics into my analysis of “She’s Okay”. While I do this I hope to maintain a simple, detailed approach that my audience will understand. I do not want my audience to finish my analysis confused or left wanting more. I also want my audience to understand that there many other ways of argument other than just essays and photos, and furthermore want them to include comics in their description of materials of argument in the future.
Works Cited
Wysocki, Anne Frances and Dennis A. Lynch. Compose, Design, Advocate: A Rhetoric for Integrating Written, Visual, and Oral Communication. New York, NY: Pearson-Longman, 2007.
Denny, Norman and Brookner, Anita. "Red Lights". The New York Review of Books. 27 March 2010. Web. 26 March 2010.
McCloud, Scott. "The Vocabulary of Comics."
