Cultural Studies

A cultural studies approach to comics explores the affect and the relationship the comics medium has on readers (the comics audience) and a specific culture on the whole.

Background

Cultural studies in comics ties into cultural studies of other media. However, it developed specifically as a form of “audience studies.” Because of this, early cultural studies into comics (in the 1980s) focused on readers of comics. This did not mean, though, that only current comics readers could be interviewed or focused on in research. Much of the early cultural studies approaches to comics focused heavily on memory—what experience did people remember having with comics as a child?

According to Mel Gibson (the writer/critic, not the actor), cultural studies approaches to comics find their roots in research concerning “lived experience,” “subcultures,” and “pop culture” (Gibson 270).  

Underlying Assumptions

A cultural studies approach to comics is, by necessity, an interdisciplinary practice. In taking a cultural studies approach, research often calls on work and studies conducted in the fields of media studies, communications, gender studies, race studies, education, and more.

Many who approach comics through the cultural studies lens, do not accept the idea of a comic as a “unified text.” For many, the progression of a specific series is crucial to understanding its cultural impact, as is charting how the reception a stand-alone graphic novel might shift over time.  

The focus on the progression of a particular series or of the changing reception/effect of a standalone graphic novel over time enables the cultural studies approach to deal with not only aspects of a current culture, but to study the shifts (often monumental in nature) that a culture has undergone overtime.

Types of Questions

How does the relationship of image and text and layout in comic transform the act of “reading” within the culture?

Does reading a comic require more active participation from the reader than a more “traditional” text requires?

How do specific comics serve as comments on ideas of social power?

How do specific comics directly affect trends in popular culture, or how do they affect other media, which in turn, affect trends in popular cultural?

What do those who reject comics (or actively speak out against comics) use as their basis for that rejection?

Objects of Study

A cultural studies approach to comics requires more than just the study of the text. The audience plays as large of a role in the study as the comic itself. While cultural studies approaches can be used for ongoing series, standalone graphic novels, and other forms of comics, many tend to focus on comics that have either a wide-scale audience, a devoted group of followers, or directly address issues of social power.

As important as the selection of the text, is the selection of the “audience.” A paradigmatic object of study for a cultural studies approach to comics would be the “professional vs. personal experience” approach. One would explore how the memories or current feelings about a specific text or texts differ from academic and “professional” accounts on the same work.

Methods of Analysis

Audience interview is crucial to many cultural studies approaches to comics. For instance, when exploring questions of the affects gender representation in comics might have had on a specific audience growing up, one would interview a range of readers to explore their childhood memories of those comics (a method employed by Gibson). The researcher could then contrast those with current scholarly analysis of the text or with the same reader’s take on the text after rereading it as an adult.  

Bibliography

1949 – “The Children Talk about the Comics” by Katherine Wolf
1954 – “What Children Think of Their Comics” by George H. Pumphrey
1957 – The Uses of Literacy by Richard Hoggart
1958 – Culture and Society by Raymond Williams
[1963 – Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies founded (by Hoggart)]
1987 – “Teenage Girls Reading Jackie” by Elizabeth Frazer
2003 – “You Can’t Read Them, They’re for Boys!” by Mel Gibson
2008 – “What You Read and Where You Read It, How You Get It, How You Keep It: Children, Comics, and Historical Cultural Practice” by Mel Gibson

References 

Churchill, Mary. “Fantastic Reading: Comic Books and Popular Culture.” University of Venus.                  http://uvenus.org/editorial-collective/mary-churchill/fantastic-reading-comic-books-and-popular-culture/

Gibson, Mel. “British Girls’ Comics, Readers and Memories.” Critical Approaches to Comics.      New York:      Routledge, 2012.

Pilikian, Armine. “Study of comics books helps scholars identify cultural trends.” The Human      Experience.           http://humanexperience.stanford.edu/graphicnarrative 

VTmtgrrl. “Timeline of Cultural Studies.” The Most Cake. http://www.blogger.com/profile/15926297886218347999  

Further Reading

http://comicsforum.org/scholarly-resources/scholar-directory/mel-gibson/
http://www.imageandnarrative.be/inarchive/illustrations/aarnoudrommens.htm
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21504857.2010.528638#preview
http://www.dukeupress.edu/Catalog/ViewProduct.php?productid=591