7/28/2019 Comics From the 19th to the 21st Century an Interview With Jared Gardner (Part One)

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February 7, 2012

Comics from the 19th to the 21st Century: an Interview with Jared Gardner

(Part One)

ByHenry Jenkins

Jared Gardner’s Projections: Comics and the History of 21st Century Storytelling was the first book I read in 2012 and it was the ideal choice. Gardner makes an incrediblyvaluable contribution to the growing body of scholarship within comic studies, tracing the history of American comics, from the early comic strips at the dawn of the 20thcentury, through new digital manifestations of sequential art, at the dawn of the 21st century. Projections combines critical analysis of key comics texts with closeengagements with the history of their production and reception, making significant new discoveries around figures and events we thought we already knew, and expanding inimportant ways the canon of which comics justify our research. There are two elements here which are close to my own heart:

First, the degree to which Gardner consistently understands comics as a medium (not a genre) and one which has to be understood comparatively in relation to the othermodes of communication at the same time, so comics are discussed in relation to photography, cinema, television, newspapers, books, games, and other digital media, and weremain attentive to patterns of cross-influence across their history.

Second, Gardner makes some significant discoveries about the role of comic fans at key junctures in the evolution of the medium which help flesh out forgotten chapters inthe history of participatory culture. His chapter on comics in the context of collector culture touches on some of the same authors and themes I want to explore in my ownbook project on comics and material culture, so I was delighted to have someone with whom I could bounce some of my ideas about retroconsumption against.

In the following interview, we discuss the relations of comics to other media and the role of fans and collectors in comics history, among a range of other topics. This was aninterview I had to do. I kept jotting down questions as I read the book, eager to engage with the author, who surprisingly I did not know, and learn more about the thinkingwhich guided this project. I hope you will enjoy his thinking as much as I have.

The book’s subtitle, “the history of 21st Century storytelling,” frames your account of the evolutions of comics as a medium in relation to the present moment,

which you characterize in the book’s conclusion as one of convergence and transformation. In what sense do you see comics as “21st century storytelling”? Is it

possible that comics were also embodiments of 19th and 20th century storytelling at other moments of their evolution?

Absolutely! The title is in part an an appeal to scholars interested in narrative and media to take comics seriously as providing a century long history of engaging with transmedial and multimodal storytelling. Narrative theory has become increasingly interested in comics, particularly for the ways in which itcomplicates its traditionally text-based models and theories; but for media theorists comics often look decidedly “old media”–associated with forms (illustratedmagazines, comic books, newspapers) that seem firmly rooted in the 19th and 20th centuries.

It is in fact precisely the adaptability of sequential comics since its full development in the late nineteenth century that has contributed to some degree to thisassociation. Sequential comics first developed in the pages of illustrated magazines in the U.S. & Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century. By theend of the century, the illustrated magazine was largely cannibalized by the Sunday newspaper supplement as pioneered by publishers like Pulitzer and Hearst,and as cartoonists moved over to this new venue their work was shaped by the new affordances of the weekly newspaper supplement: color, seriality, a largerand more cacophonous frame within which to tell their stories. As adventure comics in particular began to move into a new format in the 1930s–what wouldcome to be called the comic book–the form again adapted, changing the ways in which it engaged with readers, told its stories, and explored the relationshipbetween text & image, panel and page. So, as you say, comics have always found ways to adapt new media environments and to explore the possibilities of whatwe might somewhat anachronistically call an interactive, multimodal approach to storytelling from the 19th century on. One of the interesting questions withwhich I conclude is why, given this history, comics has been so very slow to adapt itself to digital environments in the 21st century.

Your conclusion really describes a crisis in the state of the medium, as comics may evolve away from printed form and become part of the digital landscape. What

factors do you see speeding or slowing the dissolution of comics as a print based medium?

I do think comics as a medium are at a crossroads, but I am optimistic that comics will survive the translation into digital forms of production, distribution, andconsumption–although what emerges on the other end will likely look as different from the comic book or graphic novel as the comics in the 19th-centuryillustrated magazine do when compared to those found in the Sunday newspaper supplement. So I guess I would not describe it as a crisis, but I do think that itis time for the best creators working in the form to step up and take more creative risks–and for some brave publishers to give them a safety net.

My biggest concern–and I have written about this probably too much in other venues–is that people involved in comics are understandably overwhelmed by thedramatic contractions of the traditional print mediums in which they have long worked and end up retreating into a kind of elitist stance, making expensive “artbooks” for an increasingly smaller, older and wealthier audience. That truly would be a crisis for comics, which is why I get anxious when I see, for instance,alternative cartoonists abandoning the traditional “floppy” comic book not for new digital platforms and possibilities, but for $20 hardcover comic books thathave no hopes of bringing new readers and communities to comics.

But, I also understand the reluctance of comics creators–especially those who are established–to turn to new media platforms with their work. There are so fewworking models out there that demonstrate that comics creators, historically among the most exploited and underpaid of our modern storytellers, can hope toreceive remuneration for their work on the internet. The big mainstream companies–especially DC and Marvel–are exploring digital distribution models bothfor the iPad and for personal computers, but for the most part these are simply bland digitizations of traditional comic books. And there is every reason tosuspect that these digital comics will continue to diminish the viability of traditional comics stores and the communities they have enabled for the past fortyyears.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe in the long run that the traditional comics store can or will survive the next twenty years, again with the exception of somewell-placed boutiques. But as we see the loss of serial comics books and comic book shops, we see the loss as well of the spaces and the places forcollaborative interpretation and shared ownership that is very much at the heart of comics. Certainly, this should be something the internet can find a way toreplace, but I am not convinced that Disney (Marvel) or Time Warner (DC) have much interest in nourishing collaborative readers with a sense of shared

ownership in their serial narratives. Which is why I don’t believe, no matter how much revenue the big companies are ultimately able to move through digitaldistribution networks (and so far the jury is out whether they can make much at all), that the model represented by platforms such as Comixology on the iPad orMarvel’s Digital Comics for the PC is one in which comics will thrive and grow as a form.

What we need are more creators ready to bring their best work to the internet in order to explore the possibilities of the digital environment: comics that break free from the limitations of the printed page–rolling out into an infinite ribbon or inviting new modes of navigation that open up the page to exploration in newdimensions and directions. But we also need new publishers ready to come in and create a place and a business model where this kind of experimentation can berewarded and find new readers and new investments. Disney and Time Warner already largely see the comic book part of their business empires as loss leaders

mics from the 19th to the 21st Century: an Interview with Jared Gardn... http://henryjenkins.org/2012/02/comics_from_the_19th_to_the_21.html

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7/28/2019 Comics From the 19th to the 21st Century an Interview With Jared Gardner (Part One)

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/comics-from-the-19th-to-the-21st-century-an-interview-with-jared-gardner-part 2/4

7/28/2019 Comics From the 19th to the 21st Century an Interview With Jared Gardner (Part One)

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/comics-from-the-19th-to-the-21st-century-an-interview-with-jared-gardner-part 3/4

Jared Gardner is professor of English and film at the Ohio State University, where he also coordinates the popular culture studies program. In addition to Projections, he isthe author of  Master Plots: Race and the Founding of an American Literature (1998) and The Rise and Fall of Early American Magazine Culture (2012). He blogs (fartoo irregularly) for The Comics Journal and Huffington Post .

Filed Under: book shelf , Comics Culture, fan culture, interviews

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7/28/2019 Comics From the 19th to the 21st Century an Interview With Jared Gardner (Part One)

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mics from the 19th to the 21st Century: an Interview with Jared Gardn... http://henryjenkins.org/2012/02/comics_from_the_19th_to_the_21.html

4 13/07/2013 14:53