#comicsstudies

I’ve started introducing students to the concept of discussing narrative structure in horror/suspense stories by using Cabin in the Woods and His Face All Red. My students are always really conversant and engaged with these works.

THEN I read them Tell-Tale Heart and introduce them to more classic textual works and they STAY chatty because they’re already comfortable talking about the genre and aren’t intimidated by “classic” literature.

There are many reasons popular comic strips rarely end succinctly. First, newspapers, publishing syndicates, and cartoonists generally like making money, so cancelling a popular strip rarely makes financial sense. Second, cartoonists often don’t own the rights to their own creations. 2/12

In the original version of Watterson’s contract with his publishing syndicate, the syndicate would have had the right to continue the strip under the same name with a different artist. Watterson fought several difficult legal battles to rewrite his contract to maintain creative control. 3/12

The uniqueness of Watterson’s situation underscores the emotional impact of his decision to definitively retire “Calvin and Hobbes.” Simply put: readers of popular newspaper comics were not used to popular strips coming to an end. As a result, many felt confused, unfulfilled, even “cheated.” 4/12

Watterson’s reclusive persona contributed to the frustration of some fans. For decades, Watterson has generally declined media interviews and does not answer or receive fan mail. This has led to various attempts to “find” Watterson or convince him to be interviewed. 5/12

Initially, Watterson’s only direct statement on ending the strip was a brief letter published a month before its conclusion. This was the extent of his explanation: “My interests have shifted… and I believe I’ve done what I can do within the constraints of daily deadlines and small panels.” 6/12

As Michael Hingston observes, Watterson’s simple farewell letter wasn’t always received warmly: “To its fans, Calvin and Hobbes was like a masterpiece. Yet Watterson’s public statements suggested he saw it as nothing more than an interesting experiment, one that was easily discarded.” 7/12

Over the years, various individual artists and artist/fan collectives have attempted to continue or speculate on the future of Calvin and Hobbes. One popular version of the future involves Calvin growing up and marrying Susie and passing Hobbes on to their daughter. 8/10

Some of these attempts at continuation are more optimistic than others. For instance, Martine Leavitt’s award-winning 2015 YA novel “Calvin” features a 17-year-old title protagonist haunted (and perhaps protected) by a menacing version of his childhood toy, evoking experiences of schizophrenia. 9/10

Contrasting these often-melancholy continuations and the emotional bereavement of some fans, Watterson’s final “Calvin and Hobbes” strip is demonstrably joyful. In one reading, the title characters’ excitement to explore the fresh snow evokes Watterson’s eagerness to explore other pursuits. 10/12

But the final strip isn’t an exercise in ego. It also celebrates the timelessness & boundless creativity of its title characters, who are bigger than the confines of their strip. Calvin and Hobbes the comic strip may have ended. But Calvin and Hobbes the characters are eager to keep exploring. 11/12

Childhood, like any stage of life, both is and isn’t finite. Time passes, but the past is kept alive by our memories and its indelible influence upon whoever we are and might become. So too with Calvin and Hobbes, whose adventures ended but never end, because there’s always more to explore. 12/12

Sometimes, Watterson directly addresses perceptions of comics. Here, Calvin lectures Hobbes about the difference between high art and low art, placing comics in the “low” category. Note how Watterson references pop art appropriations of comics, which many comics fans & creators have criticized. 2/12

But Watterson is also dismissive of some attempts to transform comics into art. This strip evokes fannish defensiveness about the maturity of superhero comics. In commentary on this strip, Watterson says, “you can call it a ‘graphic novel,’ but comic books are still incredibly stupid.” 3/12

Watterson also enjoys using Calvin’s creative ambitions to comment on discourses of art criticism and analysis, exposing and poking fun at both the substance of high art and how it’s sometimes discussed. Calvin’s snow sculptures are frequently employed for this purpose. 4/12

Here, it’s not difficult to infer that Watterson isn’t just commenting on the high art world; he’s also commenting on the demands of being a critically acclaimed syndicated newspaper cartoonist, who’s expected to both inoffensively capture public sentiments and maintain artistic integrity. 5/12

There is often a self-deprecating tone to these comics about art and comics, with Calvin being forced to admit the hollowness of his own pretention. It could be argued that this self-deprecation undercuts the commentary, since the critique is concluded with a dismissive “nevermind.” 6/12

But this undercutting is undercut by Calvin’s genuine (albeit frequently macabre & cynical) creativity. Calvin is legitimately transforming his generic suburban neighborhood into something more magically surreal, just as the comic is transforming the stereotypically bland newspaper comics page. 7/12

But perhaps Watterston’s favourite target is the intersection of art & capitalism. In a world where art–including comic book art–is often bought as an investment to be locked away from public view (or, in the case of comics, slabbed so it can never be read), value is inseparable from marketing. 8/12

Here, Calvin’s saurian rampage, which is “captured on anti-theft cameras,” repeatedly references commodification. Dino-Calvin destroys “priceless paintings” and “wealthy benefactors.” Also, Calvin’s parents contemplate a “Krazy Kat” landscape, evoking the elevation of comics–and its drawbacks. 9/12

Other gestures of artistic self-reflexivity are primarily invested in stylistic playfulness. In this strip, Watterson transforms the strip into a “neo-cubist” style to creatively showcase Calvin’s rejection of mature, empathetic subjectivity in favor of childish simplicity and certainty. 10/12

Calvin and Hobbes also offers commentary on the emotional & material demands of creation. Watterson’s personal history is at play here. He fought a hard battle with his syndicate to take 2 sabbaticals from the strip; at the time, this (objectively reasonable) demand was considered unheard of. 11/12

Calvin and Hobbes wasn’t the first comic to debate its own status as a work of art, and it won’t be the last. But it offers an impressively rich catalog of artistic commentary and debate that is deftly accessible, insightful, and empathetic, embracing cynicism without abandoning optimism. 12/12

From a storytelling perspective, the top panels are extraneous. There’s a practical reason for this. At this time, Watterson (and every other newspaper cartoonist) was required to make strips printable as either 2 or 3 rows, depending on how much space individual papers chose to grant them. 2/12

But the top panels are still meaningful. Plot-wise, they establish that Hobbes enables Calvin; it’s technically Hobbes pushing Calvin down the hill. Visually, the empty backgrounds evokes timelessness while the long panel conveys a sense of space & distance as the wagon picks up speed. 3/12

The third panel establishes the thesis of the debate/monologue. Calvin looking back at Hobbes as the wagon tilts at an alarming angle, wheels bent by speed, humorously reflects Calvin’s egotism. For Calvin, making sure Hobbes hears him is more important than watching the road. 4/12

Throughout, Calvin’s egotistic carelessness is contrasted with Hobbes’ more grounded skepticism. This is represented narratively through Hobbes’ relative silence and mildly sarcastic comments, and visually through his observation of physical perils of which Calvin is defiantly ignorant. 5/12

On the subject of groundedness: note how neither the characters nor their wagon actually touch the earth until the final crash. Calvin rides high on hot air until the logic of gravity pops his bubble. But of course, Calvin doesn’t learn anything; he may be humbled in body but not in spirit. 6/12

The variation and juxtaposition of angles, colours, and framing helps convey the rapid, chaotic motion of the wagon and maintain visual interest through Calvin’s lengthy monologue. It also underscores the content of the monologue, in which Calvin discusses chain reactions and arbitrary choices. 7/12

Watterson’s use of contrasting styles is also notable. Calvin, Hobbes, and the wagon are more expressionistically exaggerated than the comparatively realistic landscape. This contrast both adds depth to Calvin’s monologue and undercuts it; his context is serious but he’s ultimately a cartoon. 8/12

Here, a shift in perspective that places us alongside the characters in the wagon helps build dynamic tension; like the characters, we’re careening over the edge into the unknown. It also continues to ironize Calvin’s egotism; despite the evident danger, Calvin continues to bloviate. 9/12

This panel distills an important aspect of our investment in Calvin’s fantasies & flaws. While we know Calvin is full of it, part of us also roots for him to succeed and admires his reckless courage, expressed here through Calvin’s brief, dramatically heroic moment of flight. 10/12

The two penultimate panels are “prolongation” panels, a technique frequently employed in comic strips to set up a punchline that will land harder through the juxtaposition of one state of affairs and another. We can see Charles Shultz employ a similar technique in this classic “Peanuts” strip. 11/12

The punchline includes self-reflexivity via Hobbes’ wish that “we could talk about these things without the visual aids.” Without the visuals, nothing Calvin says is profound. With the visuals, his words are still silly but capable of inspiring deeper meanings & sincere emotional reactions. 12/12

Perhaps the most memorable–and certainly the most influential–critique of violence in superhero comics comes from Fredric Wertham’s 1954 bestseller “Seduction of the Innocent,” which heavily influenced the subsequent creation of the censoring body known as the Comics Code Authority. 2/13

In Seduction, Wertham wrote: “The Superman type of comic books tends to force and super-force… Superman... needs an endless stream of ever new submen, criminals and ‘foreign- looking’ people not only to justify his existence but even to make it possible…” 3/13

“It is this feature that engenders... 1 of 2 attitudes: [children] either fantasy themselves as supermen, with the attendant prejudices against the submen, or it makes them submissive and receptive to the blandishments of strong men who will solve all their social problems for them–by force.” 4/13

A central flaw of Wertham’s critique was his assumption that children (not to mention the teens & adults who also read comics) are not discerning –that the fantasy media someone consumes directly informs how they behave in real life. Today, video games are often similarly accused. 5/13

Still, Wertham’s concern about the hyper-masculine and racist elements of superhero violence are not completely unjustified. Superhero comics have a long history of racial caricature and contemporary feminists have similarly critiqued superheroes as promoting toxic masculine fantasies. 6/13

Within both conservative and liberal critiques of superheroic violence, whether the violence is “problematic” often depends, in part, on whether there’s any consideration of the morality of violence: does the story embrace violent fantasies or does it question them? 7/13

Gotham Central doesn’t reject violence. This is, in fact, an incredibly violent series. Superviolence that’s often cartoonish elsewhere is rendered with sometimes-brutal realism. Blood spatters, bodies break, people die. But this brutality has a purpose. 8/13

This is dramatically evident in Gotham Central #1, when the GCPD confront the consequences of Mr. Freeze’s superpowered violence. In many Batman stories, Mr. Freeze’s victims are safely unthawed. But here, frozen bodies shatter into pieces in front of stunned human beings. 9/13

The physical costs of superpowered violence are emphasized by artist Michael Lark’s framing of the encounter with Freeze & its aftermath. Lark uses “inset panels”–i.e., panels that spotlight a small aspect of a larger scene–to underscore the horrific effect of violence on specific bodyparts. 10/13

Lark also emphasizes the emotional costs of superpowered violence. Here, he uses spacing, framing, and pacing to emphasize Renee Montoya’s painful shock. The repetition of Renee’s expression the how she drifts out of the frame in the final panel specifically evokes traumatic disassociation. 11/13

Granted, this violence is orchestrated by a supervillain rather than a superhero. But several characters in the story blame superheroes like Batman for escalating the intensity of Gotham’s violent crime, arguing the existence of superheroes prompts the creation of supervillains. 12/13

Ultimately, Gotham Central reflects Jim Coby & Joanna Davis-McElligatt’s argument that, “By externalizing the internal, cartoons can stage a critical dialectic between the function of power, between those harmed and those causing harm, and between the reader and the creator’s universe.” 13/13

Most traditional superhero stories have an initial conflict involving a threat to the socio-cultural status quo (bank robbery, threat to take over the world, etc.). In Spider-Man Annual #6, 6 villains band together to get revenge, kidnapping both Aunt May and love interest Betty Brant. 2/10

To build tension, this initial conflict is often followed by an initial setback, such as the hero losing the first fight. In Spider-Man Annual #6, Spidey seems to lose his powers, making it seem unlikely he’ll ever be able to rescue Betty from the clutches of his 6 deadliest foes. 3/10

Interpersonal conflicts or “b-plots” often contribute additional tension. In Spider-Man Annual #6, it’s partly Spidey’s fault May & Betty have been kidnapped; when a despondent Peter Parker skips school, May goes looking for him, which is why she and Betty end up encountering the Sinister Six.4/10

Most traditional stories climax with a specular, violent conflict in which the superhero emerges victorious. Spider-Man Annual #6 performs 6 victories as Spider miraculously regains his powers to defeat each of the Sinister Six in a series of memorable splash pages drawn by Steve Ditko. 5/10

The first story arc of Gotham Central fulfills some of the expectations of a traditional superhero story. There is an initial conflict in the form of a kidnapping and a violent encounter with the supervillain Mr. Freeze. 6/10

There is also an initial setback, but compared to the brief setback in Spider-Man Annual #6, this setback has brutal, irreversible consequences. At least one police officer is brutally killed by Mr. Freeze; when backup arrives, his frozen body is scattered in pieces around the room. 7/10

Interpersonal dynamics again heighten tension; Detective Driver is particularly eager to take down Freeze after the murder of his partner. But in Gotham Central, this is a central focus; most of the story involves watching the GCPD & their loved ones respond to the aftermath of brutal violence.8/10

But the biggest difference between Spider-Man Annual #6 and Gotham Central is how each story stages its climax. Where the former celebrates Spidey’s heroic victory in 6 big splash pages, Gotham Central shunts Batman’s battle with Freeze off-panel, so that we never actually get to see it. 9/10

Gotham Central’s first arc ends in anticlimax: Freeze is stopped but the kidnap victim dies. Driver swears at Batman & drives off despondent. It’s a perfect setup for a different kind of superhero story, centering consequences of the violent spectacles the genre typically takes for granted. 10/10

The “ages of comics” model originated in 1960s fan culture. After a fanzine article by Richard A. Lupoff designated the WWII era the Golden Age of comics, other ages followed, including the Silver Age, the Bronze Age, and what’s sometimes called the Iron Age or Modern Age. 2/13

The Golden Age of comics begins with the debut of Superman in 1938 and continues to the launch of the Comics Code Authority in the mid-50s. It's commonly characterized as a period of experimentation & concretization, as memorable tropes debuted and became established features of comics genres. 3/13

The Silver Age of comics begins with the re-birth of the Flash in 1956 and continues to the early 70s. This era, which includes the birth of Marvel Comics, is characterized by renewal & revision. New & rejuvenated superheroes became increasingly dominant after a postwar decline in popularity. 4/13

The Bronze Age of comics begins in the early 1970s, marked by either the 1971 revision of the Comics Code or the 1973 Spider-Man story “The Night Gwen Stacy Died.” Both touchstones are thought to signal the “maturation” of mainstream comics, which became more diverse and self-conscious. 5/13

The Iron or Modern Age of comics dominates the 1980s and is generally thought to continue into the 90s. Also sometimes called the Dark Age, it’s characterized as a period of critique and increased artistic freedom, wherein many characters were remade in grimmer, grittier forms. 6/13

The Ages of Comics evoke Christian Metz’s “classic-parody-contestation-critique” model, where genres move from “formation & discovery, through a phase of self-conscious awareness… to a time when generic patterns have become so well-known that people become tired of their predictability.” 7/13

Gotham Central has a lot in common with the self-critical and occasionally nihilistic elements of the Modern or Dark Age of comics. Like “Watchmen” and “The Dark Knight Returns” before it, Gotham Central reframes a superheroic world to question whether superheroes are even heroes. 8/13

But Gotham Central doesn’t necessarily typify its era. Since at least the mid-1990s, many different versions of the Batman universe have proliferated at any given time, with official publications ranging from kid friendly fare to adult-only content to retro nostalgia and contemporary “realism.”9/13

Henry Jenkins argues that the 21st century is an Age of Multiplicity, “where principles of multiplicity are felt at least as powerfully as those of continuity. Under this new system, readers may consume multiple versions of the same franchise, each with different conceptions of the character.”10/13

In the Age of Multiplicity, Golden Age Batmans can coexist alongside Silver, Bronze, and Modern Age Batmans, all of which can be equally valid, depending on your POV. As much as Gotham Central owes a debt to the deconstructions of the Modern Age, it also reflects this Age of Multiplicity. 11/13

In the Golden Age, superheroes are sure of their purpose. In the Silver Age, superheroes struggle with personal problems, reflecting growing self-consciousness. In the Bronze Age, heroes struggle with personal *and* social problems. In the Modern Age, comics asked, what is a superhero, anyway?12/13

The Age of Multiplicity answers this question by declaring a superhero can be just about anything. And so can a superhero story. In Gotham Central, this means telling a superhero story that decentres superheroes but is, ultimately, about superheroes–and their increasingly diverse meanings. 13/13

The series stars the members of the Gotham City Police Department, who sometimes perform heroic feats. But the members of the GCPD are not superheroes. More often than not, these merely human figures contend with their own impotence amid a world of superpowered heroes & villains. 2/7

The GCPD is also rife with internal divisions, corruption, and prejudice, which are on full display in one of the series’ most well-remembered stories, the arc “Half a Life” from issues #6-10, in which lesbian Detective Renee Montoya is outed by her colleagues (with a little help from Two-Face).3/7

During its initial 40-issue run, Gotham Central didn’t sell particularly well. But it was critically praised, helping secure writing awards for Brubaker & Rucka. The “Half a Life” arc also received a 2004 Eisner Award for Best Serialized Story and a Harvey Award for Best Single Issue. 4/7

Gotham Central has also been remarkably influential. While there hasn’t been a direct televisual adaptation of the series, the Fox TV series “Gotham” (2014-19) and MAX’s “The Penguin” (2024), which are similarly crime fictions set in Batman’s world sans Batman, undoubtedly owe it a debt. 5/7

And in the wake of "Half a Life," Renee Montoya became one of mainstream superhero comics’ most prominent LGBTQ+ characters. In comics, she became The Question and would appear in numerous adaptations, including the TV series “Gotham” and “Batwoman” (2019-22) and the film “Birds of Prey” (2020). 6/7

For comics scholars, Gotham Central offers rewarding opportunities to discuss dynamics of revisionism, the ethics of violence in superhero stories, issues of representation, and the art of perspective in comics. In the weeks ahead, we’ll discuss all of that and more. Stay tuned! 7/7