Review: Jeff McLaughlin (ed.), Graphic Novels as Philosophy (2017)

Fig. 1 - Jeff McLaughlin, Graphic Novels as Philosophy (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2017).

Jeff McLaughlin's Graphic Novels as Philosophy collects 10 essays that consider how well known graphic novels can be conceptualised through (and potentially expand) philosophy (Fig. 1). The collection covers, among others, considerations of social contract theory, carnival and the idea of queering epistemology. In addition, the reader is invited to consider how the format and structure of the graphic novel could enhance our ability to ‘do’ philosophical work. McLaughlin’s own introduction spends some time defining how the collection will understand the term graphic novel, and chooses a relatively simple definition of “blended words and pictures” (5). In this regard, the collection works similarly to McLaughlin’s previous collection, Comics as Philosophy (2005), although McLaughlin references the Wittgensteinien concept of “family resemblance” to consider why a graphic novel is not a comic, concluding that a neat explanation of the difference between the two is impossible. This approach helps to situate this more recent text as equally useful to scholars of the comic/cartoon, as well as those interested in animated and fantasy media more broadly.

At first glance, Comics as Philosophy had a much broader scope (taking in the superhero fantasy, adventure classics, horror and social realist comics). However, the decision to narrow the scope here to texts usually designated as graphic novels still allows the collection to cover a wide range of topics, including documentary journalism (Joe Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza [2009]), autobiography (Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home [2006])  and a short story collection (Will Eisner’s A Contract with God [1978]), alongside the long-form fictional narrative that many readers will more readily associate with the term “graphic novel”.

The breadth of scope in Graphic Novels as Philosophy noted above can also be seen in the international diversity of scholars and approaches, which gives the book several of its key strengths. That is to say that the chapters and authors are not confined to a canon of primarily American publications for either the key texts or the philosophical concepts under discussion. It may surprise readers in the English language to know that European scholars have been considering the relationship between comics and philosophy since the 1960s (see, for example, Umberto Eco’s Apocalittici e integrati [1964]), given how new the topic is to us. The small number of other full-length English studies (e.g. Aaron Meskin and Roy Cook’s 2012 study The Art of Comics: A Philosophical Approach) have tended to focus on the philosophical questions raised by comics as an art-form, and in doing so have heavily prioritised the superhero comic. This collection, on the other hand, is most effective when coming from the opposite direction - considering which philosophical concepts and tools can illuminate aspects of the graphic novel with the use of a (still well-known) more marginal work.

Fig. 2 - Graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan (1995), by Chris Ware.

Perhaps the most effective example of this is found in Manuel Cabrera Jr’s contribution, titled “Jimmy Corrigan and the Time of Crisis.” Cabrera Jr begins by noting the tendency of philosophers of art to be concerned with the status of an art form, and this has certainly been the case with comics/graphic novels. He situates the project of reclaiming comics as graphic novels within the tradition of art continually seeking to articulate what its nature is (see, for example, Robert A. Heinlein’s concept of “Speculative Fiction” or Noel Carroll’s the Philosophy of Mass Art [1998]). Attempts to define an art form often attempts to define what the value of that artform may be. Cabrera Jr’s most useful concept is that such attempts at definition are philosophical questions born of a crisis in self-identification. In this way, attempts to consider the graphic novel are “at least proto-philosophical” (43) and contiguous with the work of philosophers of art.

Cabrera Jr. deftly explains the concept of “Kairotic time” (Kairos is ancient Greek and carries the sense of “the right time”, as opposed to the chronological time denoted by Chronos) (51-2), as a route to thinking about the relationship of time and history in the graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan (1995) (Fig. 2). This is, he argues, a book that is concerned with the personal history and crises of the Corrigan men just as much as it is concerned with a sense of a crisis about comics (the same one that leads us to attempt to reclaim comics). According to Cabrera Jr, Jimmy Corrigan answers that crisis, by arguing that comics are “distinctively suited to conveying our relationship to time - to history, and the crises we face in relation to it” (44). Importantly, however, the book does not “win” this argument, but expresses a profoundly ambivalent position even as it answers.

Similarly helpful is Maria Botero’s explanation on the autonomy of children in Essex County Vol 1: Tales from the Farm (2007) by Jeff Lemire (Fig. 3). Botero considers the ways that graphic novels could help us with “hard problems” (essentially, those philosophical problems that cannot be solved through empirical observation), citing the problem of how an adult philosopher can understand what it is like to be a child. Botero argues that Lemire’s work goes beyond that of the philosopher Amy Mullin by providing a more complex, qualitative account of a child’s notion of self which she believes goes beyond a theoretical description. Botero’s chapter never quite manages to prove that the account found in Essex County Vol 1 is necessarily a more accurate or useful depiction of a child’s sense of self than the theoretical description; ultimately it too is the production of an adult. However, she does convincingly argue that the graphic novel has capacities that are specific to this art form (and could not be found in a film, for example). 

Fig. 3 - Jeff Lemire’s Essex County Vol 1: Tales from the Farm (2007).

The collection also contains several chapters that productively contribute to the field and study of fantasy/animation through a focus on the formal and aesthetic characteristics of the graphic novel, many of which are common to animated media. A notable example is Corry Shores’ use of the theories of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari on “becoming animal” to argue that Maus is a profound text about the Holocaust because of (rather than despite) the use of animal forms. Similarly, David J. Leichter’s contribution on Joe Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza, which foregrounds the manner in which Sacco’s visual choices enable his work to situate history in the present, disrupts prevailing historical narratives and highlights the continuous nature of Palestinian trauma in a manner not found in traditional journalism.

A strong theme that emerges through the collection is the concept that a graphic novel is in itself a philosophical approach: an attempt to bridge the knowledge and experience gap between the reader and the artist/writer(s) using the specific technique of combining words, action and images. In this sense, a comic or even an animated film could be undertaking the same form of approach. It is this interdisciplinary nature that will be most appealing to those interested in fantasy/animation, and such readers may well find the tools and concepts contained within useful in prompting consideration of philosophical approaches to both animation, but also in theorising the desire, escapes and psychology of fantasy cinema. Therefore, the work is a useful companion not only to Comics as Philosophy but also to other interdisciplinary work involving comics/animation and philosophical enquiry.

**Article published: July 3, 2020**

References

Meskin, Aaron and Roy Cook, (eds.). 2012. The Art of Comics: A Philosophical Approach. Chichester, Blackwell Publishing.

Eco, Umberto. 1964. Apocalittici e integrati: comunicazioni di massa e teorie della cultura di massa. Milan: Bompiani.

Carroll, Noel. 1998. A Philosophy of Mass Art. Oxford, Clarendon Press. 

Biography

Nicola Young is an independent scholar whose key research interests are the intersections between philosophy, religion and film. Nicola completed an MRes at the University of Portsmouth in 2019 (Distinction) with a thesis entitled The Micro-apocalypse in film: creating a new paradigm. She has published in Transnational Cinemas (2018, Vol. 9, No. 2) and on the University of Portsmouth public blog.