Cartoon
A story or comic is a succession of drawings that constitutes a story, with or without text, as well as the series of them that deals with the same story or of the same concept, and also the corresponding media as a whole.
Departing from Will Eisner's conception of this graphic narrative as sequential art, Scott McCloud arrives at the following definition: "Juxtaposed illustrations and other images deliberately sequenced for the purpose of conveying information or eliciting an aesthetic response from the reader". However, not all theorists agree with this definition, the most popular today, since it allows the inclusion of the fotonovela and, on the other hand, ignores the so-called graphic humor.
Interest in comics "can have very varied motivations, from aesthetic to sociological interest, from nostalgia to opportunism." During a good part of its history it was even considered a cultural by-product, hardly worth another analysis than was not sociological, until the 1960s witnessed its artistic vindication, in such a way that Morris and then Francis Lacassin have proposed considering it as the ninth art, although in reality it is earlier to those disciplines to which the conditions of eighth (photography, from 1825) and seventh (cinema, from 1886) are usually attributed. Surely, it is this last medium and literature that have influenced her the most, but we must not forget either that «her particular aesthetic has come out of the cartoons to reach advertising, design, fashion and, not to mention, the cinema ».
Comics are usually made on paper or digitally (e-comics, webcomics and the like), and can constitute a simple strip in the press, a full page, a magazine or a book (album, graphic novel or tankōbon). They have been cultivated in almost all countries and address a multitude of genres. The professional or amateur who scripts, draws, labels or colors them is known as a cartoonist.
Denominations
In Spanish-speaking countries several autochthonous terms are used, such as monos and its variant monitos (previously widely used in Mexico), and, above all, storyline, which comes from Latin America and is the most widespread. Some Spanish-speaking countries also maintain their own local denominations: muñequitos in Cuba, and tebeo in Spain. In Venezuela they are also called comiquitas by extension. In Peru it is called a joke. Around the 1970s, the term of Anglo-Saxon origin comic began to prevail in the Spanish-speaking world (today written in Spanish as "cómic" but coming, through English, from Greek Κωμικός, kōmikos, 'of or pertaining to comedy') which is due to the supposed comedy of the first comics. In English, the terms funnies were also used > (that is, funny) and cartoon (because of the type of rough paper or cardboard they were made on), but over time the "animated cartoons" or cartoons tended to reserve the word "cartoon". Subsequently, the term comix appeared from the countercultural movement, first in English and then in other languages, which is usually reserved for publications of this style.
Comics or graphic comics can be called narratives that tell different stories through a succession of images or illustrations, which are perfectly complemented with written texts, although there are also silent comics, that is, without text.
Obviously, comic strips do not have to be funny, and for this reason the French have used the term bande dessinée ('drawn strips'), abbreviated BD, since the 1960s. it's actually an adaptation of comic strip. Portuguese translated from French to create band desenhada, while in Brazil it is called história em quadrinhos (story in little squares), thus referring to the syntactic procedure of the comic strip, as is also the case with the Chinese term liánhuánhuà ('chained images').
Regarding Asian names, the term manga (漫画, 'informal drawing') has been imposed in Japanese since Osamu Tezuka took it from Hokusai, while the term komikkusu (コミックス) is reserved for the American comic strip[citation needed]. Filipinos use the similar komiks, but apply it generally, while the Koreas and China use terms derived from manga, such as manhwa and manhua, respectively.
Finally, in Italy the comic strip was called fumetti (little clouds, in Spanish) in reference to the speech bubble.
Cartoon
Various manifestations of Antiquity and the Middle Ages can fit the definition of comics given above: Egyptian or Greek wall paintings, Roman reliefs, church stained glass windows, illuminated manuscripts with square panels containing drawings in narrative sequence, such as Cantigas de Santa María by Alfonso X el Sabio, pre-Columbian codices, Biblia pauperum, etc. With the invention of the printing press (1446) hallelujahs were already produced and with that of lithography (1789), the mass reproduction of drawings began (the images of Épinal, among them).
In the first half of the XIX century, pioneers such as Rodolphe Töpffer stand out, but it will be in the press as the first means of mass communication, where Cartoons evolve the most, first in Europe and then in the United States. It is in this country where the speech balloon is definitively implanted, thanks to mostly comic series and cartoonish graphics such as The Katzenjammer Kids (1897), Krazy Kat (1911) or Bringing up father (1913). Starting in 1929, adventure strips with realistic graphics began to succeed, such as Flash Gordon (1934) or Prince Valiente (1937). They invaded Europe from 1934 with Le Journal de Mickey, although with resistance such as Tintin (1929) and Le Journal de Spirou (1938), and original movements like the one in the novel in pictures. As of this year, however, the American newspaper strips would begin to accuse the competition of the comic-books starring superheroes.
During the postwar period, the Argentine, Franco-Belgian and Japanese schools developed greatly, thanks to figures such as Oesterheld, Franquin and Tezuka, respectively. In general it can be said that "the bulk of North American production, for the second half of the sixties, has dropped in level and is below French or Italian production". It will be in both countries where a new awareness of the medium takes hold, with new authors (Crepax, Moebius, etc.) oriented towards an increasingly less youthful audience. With this, and with the competition from new entertainment media such as Television, the comic is ceasing to be a mass medium, except in Japan. Precisely, his comic will conquer the rest of the world from 1988, thanks to the success of its cartoon versions. Similarly, the underground comics experiences of the 1960s crystallize into a strong alternative movement, already in the 1980s, which in turn gives rise to the graphic novel movement. The Internet is also a new factor to take into account.
Cartoon as an educational resource
Comics can be a good educational resource, given the dynamic nature that they entail. The fact of being able to reproduce stories and create them provides motivation to the teaching-learning process. There are many linguistic features that can be worked on; from dialogues, monologues, more colloquial expressions, among others. It supposes a mixture of visual and iconic language that reconfigures our communicative capacities. But, in order for it to serve as a true educational resource, it must meet the following objectives (Guzmán-López, 2011):
- Encourage reading through the comic book.
- Translating to the written plane situations that occur in your daily life.
- Communicate through images.
- Stimulate the methods of analysis and synthesis.
- Develop communicative skills by learning the most used expressions in everyday language.
- Promote creativity and imagination.
- Transfer thoughts and ideas to formal structures that provide written language.
- Develop collaborative work.
Traditions
From the story explained above, it can be deduced the existence of 3 great cartoon traditions at a global level, all with their own production and distribution systems:
- Japanese: sleeve
- American: comics
- Franco-belga: bande dessinée
Of less global significance, we can cite other schools, such as:
- Argentina: comics
- British: British comics
- Spanish: tebeo
- Italian: fumetti
- Korean: manhwa
- China: manhua
Apart from the Argentine and Spanish production, we can highlight that of other Hispanic countries, such as Chile, Cuba or Mexico and, to a lesser extent, Colombia or Peru. Already at the end of the 1960s, Oscar Masotta affirmed that a true exchange of cultures or cultural universalization was taking place through comics, in such a way that «Italians and Germans read comics produced in France and vice versa, speaking peoples hispánica read strips produced in Anglo-Saxon countries, in the United States for the most part, etc.”, thus contributing to erasing national particularities. However, this theorist did not fail to mention, as a negative value, that:
... that universalization can be used—and it is certainly—as a means of influence by countries which, by their economic structure, are placed in a central position.
In this same sense, the book To read Donald Duck (1972) by Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart extends.
Industry
Traditionally, the comic book industry has required collective work, in which, in addition to the cartoonists themselves, editors, colorists, engravers, printers, carriers and sellers have participated. There have always been self-publishing, like those of underground comics, but lately they have increased due to the crisis in certain markets and the facilities achieved with the rise of computers and the Internet. The following publication formats can be distinguished:
- Press strip, composed of a horizontal strip of three or more vineyards.
- The page, which can compile several strips or present a single one, but displayed to all page and color (what is called Sundayfor publication on Sunday).
- The comic book (comic book en Estados Unidos pepines in Mexico and tebeo in Spain), usually with grappa and sometimes form a notebook, which presents one or several comics.
- The book, which is concrete in Album of comics, Novela and Tankōbon in the Franco-Blegian, American and Japanese traditions, respectively.
- Digital: E-comic, webcomics, etc.
The most common marketing channel for most of these comics was the kiosk until, with the development of the direct sales market in the early 1970s, the bookstore began to prevail specialized. Both the comics themselves and their originals are the subject of active collecting.
With a commercial objective, but also playful and didactic, there are many comic events (conventions, festivals, conferences, etc.) as a meeting point between professionals and amateurs. The most important festivals are the Barcelona International Comic Fair (Spain, 1981), Tokyo Comiket (Japan, 1975), the San Diego International Comic Book Convention (United States, 1970), the Angoulême International Comics Festival (France, 1974) and Comics & Games in Lucca (Italy, 1966).
Genres
A narrative genre is a model or tradition of formal and thematic structuring that is offered to the author as a scheme prior to the creation of comics, in addition to serving for their classification, distribution and sale.. Every genre is classified according to the common elements of the comics it covers, originally according to its formal aspects (graphics, style or tone and, above all, the feeling that they seek to provoke in the reader), and thematic (setting, situations, characteristic characters, etc), in such a way that "the characteristics of the script, planning, lighting and treatment" of a comic will vary according to the genre to which it belongs. Alternatively, comic genres are defined by the publication format. As Daniele Barbieri explains, "the division by genres is different from and independent of the division by languages", in such a way that
... regardless of the language in which they are told (take of literature, cinema, theatre, comics, or any other frame), most of the police stories, for example, have more characteristics in common with each other than, let's put in case, with the animal fables; and the latter, in turn, have many more characteristics in common.
There is currently no consensus as to their number, since the various classifications do not derive so much from classical rhetoric, with its division into lyrical, epic and dramatic, as from the popular novel and cinema, which are characterized by the little complexity of its regulation. It is not uncommon to find, for example, references to macro-genres such as adventure comics or action comics. To further complicate matters, genres can also be combined to form hybrid genres. There are, however, some quite defined ones with a long tradition, such as those distinguished in the monographs Gente del cómic and Mangavisión :
- Adventures;
- Bélico,
- Science fiction or futuristic:
- Mecha,
- Space opera, and
- Superheroes;
- Atomic and satirical;
- Costumbrist;
- Sports, martial arts or table games,
- Fantastic and legendary, including heroic fantasy;
- Historic, which has a consolidated subgener, that of the West comic or western;
- Police or criminal;
- Sentimental and romantic, and
- Terror.
Until the recent evolution of computer-generated imagery, it could be said that the proliferation of certain genres, such as science fiction or the fantastic, was due to "the ease and economy of means with which a A good cartoonist can introduce his readers to the most fantastic environments".
Sociology
It is also distinguished, although outside of any classification by genre, a children's comic, aimed at children, from another comic for adults, while the term family comic hardly has any predicament, which does have equivalents in the cinema, to refer to to works that appeal to readers of all ages. Children's comics have made up the majority of classic material "from all countries (including the United States)", while adult comics began their heyday in the 1960s featuring stories that could be as impossible and childish as the previous ones, but that included greater doses of violence, disturbing themes, foul words and, above all, explicit sex.
In the past there were specifically female strongholds in the West, either in the form of children's magazines for girls, or romantic melodramas.
In Japan, where there are specific comics for all kinds of audiences, they are also distinguished by the age group and gender they are aimed at: kodomo (boy), shōjo (girl), shōnen (boy), josei (woman), and seinen (man).
On the other hand, it should be noted that comics have often been despised by cultural elites and political representatives. This is explained by the "old prejudice that identifies the written word with the cultured and the image that explains it -or, as in this case, enriches and transforms it- with the illiterate". Mauro Entrialgo is of the opinion that:
It is a means that requires for your enjoyment less preparation and concentration than, for example, literature, but more than, for example, television. So you don't get the prestige of the first or the popular diffusion of the last one.
Professor Juan Antonio Ramírez considers that this recognition within high culture has been rendered impossible, paradoxically, "by the consolidation and extension of the art system" and literature departments separated by linguistic fields.
It should also be noted that many classic comics "offer only one of the faces of their characters and hide all the others", thus remaining pure anecdote. The medium as a whole has tended to "translate an ideology traditional, conservative and immobile for many years", either because of the convictions of its authors or not to displease the group of its readers and risk losing them or even suffering the effects of censorship, as occurred in regimes such as those of Mussolini or Frank and, regarding horror and crime comics in the United States and Great Britain in the 1950s. This explains why comics that did not adhere to the prevailing social values manifested themselves through underground publications and that themes such as Homosexuality did not surface until the 1980s, as it was being accepted in official culture, nor did they produce until then their first authors recognized by critics and the public, such as Ralf König or Nazario.
In the same way, "only in recent decades have good comics starring women begun to be produced", either playing the role of the traditional hero or showing their own psychology. In this regard, it should be noted the abundance in recent years of memories made by women, such as Zeina Abirached or Marjane Satrapi.
Currently, comics are mostly read by teenagers and young adults, which is why they are becoming "more complicated, more open, more sensitive and more liberated", that is, more adults.
Language
For Oscar Masotta, what determines in the first place the value of a comic is the degree to which it allows the properties and characteristics of the language of the comic to be manifested and investigated, revealing the comic as language. Jean Giraud affirms that
The brain has to think and need written language, while drawing has an underground language that comes through the eyes. The message that the sketch artist sends is a secret message, in encrypted code, that goes from the drawer to the body, to the sensations. But consciousness, reason must be educated in order to decipher it according to a logic that goes beyond the unconscious feeling.
Iconography
Historically, type characters have been very important to the medium, since the reader "wants, wants and expects the "good guy" put on a good face, and the "bad" have a mean face".
The comic depicts, with static means, the real movement, using techniques already practiced by the futurists.
Text
The text is not necessary, but it is usually present, either in the form of balloons or speech bubbles, cartouches, loose texts and onomatopoeias. The words spoken by the characters are usually collected in the balloons, unless they are presented outside to indicate that they have raised their voices.
All the texts are usually written in capital letters and the typographical differences, in size and thickness serve to highlight a word or phrase, and maritza voice intensities. Masotta establishes in this regard a scheme with 7 oppositions:
- Dialogue - off
- Inner language - prophesied language.
- Normal language - exceptional language.
- Close - far
- Balloon - Extra-globo.
- Straight line - sinuous line (or zig-zag, or starry, etc.)
- Normal typography - exceptional typography.
Narrative articulation
Every comic is a graphic narration, that is, developed through a sequence of drawings, and not a series of illustrations whose merit lies in themselves, in such a way that "each picture or vignette must be related in some way to the next and with the previous one". In the fortunate expression of Román Gubern, the "vignette is the graphic representation of the minimum significant space and/or time. The space that separates the cartoons is known as street” and the process by which the reader fills that gap is called closure. McCloud distinguishes 5 types of transitions between panels:
- 1. Moment at the moment.
- 2. Action to action.
- 3. Item.
- 4. Scene to stage.
- 5. Non-sequitur.
The greater the format and the number of iconic and verbal signs, the more time and attention we must pay to a given cartoon. The comic uses variations of the visual angle, framing and planes, terms that it has taken from the cinema, to energize the narration.
Relations with other media
Due to its condition as an interstitial medium from its origins, the comic strip is primarily related to the plastic arts.
Literature
Given the age and prestige of literature, "any close relationship between one and the eyes, because, it is supposed, gives the girl 'category'". In comics, however, "the texts do not live a life of its own within" as it does in literature.
Secondly, its relations with:
Cinematography
Film and comics share a long history of mutual influences. In this sense, Federico Fellini stated that "the comics that are made getting too close to the cinematographic technique are for me the least beautiful, the least successful" in such a way that those "that deserve consideration are those that have inspired the cinema and not the reverse". In this way, he cited classic American comic strips, such as Katzenjamer Kids and Bringing up father , which he considers to be undoubtedly the inspiration for certain Chaplin settings and characters.
Regarding other more modern disciplines, Ana Merino was of the opinion that:
... the loss of audience has meant for the comic the loss of its civic-popular capacity. Now, the comic, as already noted, has to compete with television, video games or the internet. But it is true that much of the aesthetic used by new technologies is a product that has been graphically inspired by classic comics, underground or superheroes.
Styles
In a previous section of the history section, mention has already been made of the revolution that in the 1930s brought about the imposition of a new type of realistic graphics for "serious" to the detriment of the distorted and cartoonish graphics that had predominated until then. In turn, since the mid-1960s, many authors have tended to "destroy naturalistic realism to find new paths: fantastic realism, deformation and angulation, more expressive montage", etc.
In reality, the graphic styles used by cartoonists are as varied as the intention and skill of the author, distributing these within a triangle formed by three vertices (abstraction, reality and language) that ranges from photographic realism to (Luis García, Alex Ross, etc), to the cartoon.
Several styles can also be combined in the same vignette. McCloud calls the mask effect the combination of cartoonish characters with a realistic environment that we can observe in the clear line or Osamu Tezuka's classic manga.
Despite such possibilities, classical cartoonists always tried to maintain the same style throughout their careers, perhaps due to the imposition of their syndicates. A more modern author, like the Spanish Josep María Beá, despite highly estimating those who preceded him, considers that "style, when it is perpetuated indefinitely and does not evolve, is a sign of fossilization, of mannerism".
Some types of stories and comic publication formats
- Press strips (comic strip), chargé and cardboard (art) (carton) (short stories, the first criticism of social values, the second criticism of people and things of contemporaneity and the third criticizes the situations of the day to day).
- One-shot (complete story) and mini-series (limited series) (middle- and long-lasting stories, the first has a duration of a single edition and the second is extended for more than one edition, usually between two to four, although a little longer, as well as, for example, thirteen).
- Tebeo, graphic novel and fanzine (the first is a traditional comic book, the second is a comic book and the third is a comic book edited by fans and with quite diversified content).
- Webcomic (a comic book available for reading on the Internet, most published only on the web with a design adapted to that medium) and e-comic (students that are made specifically in paper, for sale or distribution; and that are transformed digitally to be read on a PC or similar).
Other comics
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