The Aesthetics of the Comic Strip
The Aesthetics of the Comic Strip
复制标题
漫画的美学
DOI：
10.1111/j.0022-3840.1979.1204_640.x
复制
发表时间：
1979
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
R. C. Harvey
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
R. C. Harvey
由罗伯特·C·哈维创作的报纸漫画被誉为一种独特的艺术形式。就像流行文化的许多其他方面一样，直到最近，漫画在很大程度上还被忽视了。唯一涉及这一主题的书籍涉及历史、个人轶事、传记素描和样片，出于插图目的而重印。多年来，托马斯·克雷文的卡通骑士(芝加哥：合并图书，1944)，马丁·谢里丹的漫画和他们的创造者(1944；rpt。纽约：露娜出版社，1971)，库尔顿·沃的《漫画》(纽约：麦克米伦出版社，1947)和斯蒂芬·贝克尔的《美国的漫画艺术》(纽约：西蒙与舒斯特出版社，1959)是参考书架上仅有的几本尝试过综合处理的书。但在过去的十年里，几十本书被堆放在那个书架上。有些是怀旧散文集；有些是几个月来特定连载的重印；另一些是大量插图的历史回顾。一些书籍和一些期刊文章将漫画作为一种文化现象来处理，强调这种艺术的社会学或心理学方面。虽然这些作品大多指出漫画作为一种艺术形式的独特性(一些作品声称只有美国独一无二)，但很少有人将漫画作为艺术来讨论，也没有人将漫画作为一种与其他艺术形式截然不同的艺术形式来发展审美。如果将漫画作为艺术来讨论，它们通常被认为是文学事业的一部分，或者是电影的静态变体。虽然这些分析中隐含的比较是有效和有用的，但它们并没有将主题本身视为一种艺术形式，因此几乎不能说支持这样的概念，即漫画是一种独特的艺术形式，具有独特的价值和原则，没有其他艺术表现形式。在最近的漫画作家中，只有世界漫画百科全书(纽约：切尔西之家，1976)的主编莫里斯·霍恩探讨了漫画的美学理论。但一旦他这样做了，他就退缩了，他说漫画艺术的“一般理论”还不能640版权(C)2000 Bell&Howell信息和学习公司版权所有(C)大众出版社I漫画带的美学641被开发：他说，它必须等到“一套专门适用于20世纪艺术形式的新的美学原则……被制定出来”(第47页)。霍恩的不自信更加引人注目，因为他的百科全书中的词条刻意是“有价值的”，这意味着已经存在一个标准--某种美学理论--根据这一标准，一些条带可以被谴责为“糟糕的”，而另一些条带则被认可为“好的”。这本书的含意比它的编辑的话(和许多“估值”)更准确。显然，有一种美学可以用来分析和评价漫画；它只需要经过计算和发展，就可以打开一条通往严肃批判性研究的道路。作为这样一个研究的开端，我在这里提供了几个关于漫画的概念，它们沿着我提出的作为美学理论的开端的推理路线串连在一起。对漫画的研究与艺术和文学专业的学生的目标相同：促进某种理解，从而提高感知和意识，最终导致对媒介的更敏锐的享受。但研究一开始就很容易被令人眼花缭乱的艺术风格、故事、人物和看似目的的杂乱所阻碍，当他凝视一页漫画时，这些东西就出现在他的眼前。从它们的多样性来看，漫画似乎一心想要令人沮丧的严肃和有序的考虑：一开始，…
BY ROBERT C. HARVEY The newspaper comic strip has been acclaimed as a unique art form. Until quite recently, the comic strip was largely ignored, like many other aspects of popular culture. The only books to treat the subject dealt in history, personal anecdote, biographical sketch and sample strips, reprinted for illustrative purposes. For years Thomas Craven's Cartoon Cavalcade (Chicago: Consolidated Books, 1944), Martin Sheridaan's Comics and Their Creators (1944; rpt. New York: Luna Press, 1971), Coulton Waugh's The Comics (New York: Macmillan, 1947) and Stephen Becker's Comic Art in America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1959) were the only books on the reference shelf that even attempted comprehensive treatments. But during the last decade dozens of books have been heaped onto that shelf. Some are collections of nostalgic essays; some, reprints of several months' runs of particular strips; others, lavishly illustrated historical reviews. A few books and a number of journal articles tackle the comic strip as a cultural phenomenon, stressing the sociological or psychological aspects of the art. Although most of these works point to the unique character of the comic strip aS an art form (and some claim that uniqueness for America alone), few discuss comic strips as art, and none develop an aesthetic for comic strips as an art form distinct from all others. If comic strips are discussed as art, they are often considered as a part of the literary enterprise or as a static variety of film. While the comparisons implicitinthesesaLnalyses arevalidanduseful, theydofnottreattheirsubject as an art form in itself and therefore scarcely can be said to support the notion that comic strips are a unique art form, with values and principles peculiar to it and to no other form of artistic expression. Of the recent writers on comic strips, only Maurice Horn, chief editor of The World Encyclopedia of Comics (New York: Chelsea House, 1976), approaches discussing an aesthetic theory for comics. But as soon as he does, he backs away, saying that a" general theory" of comic art cannot yet 640 Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) Popular Press I The Aesthetics of the Comic Strip 641 be developed: it must wait, he says," until such time as a new set of aesthetic principles specifically applying to twentieth century art forms... has been formulated"(p. 47). Horn's diffidence is all the more remarkable because the entries in his Encyclopedia are deliberately" valuative," implying that there already exists a standard-an aesthetic theory of sorts-by which some strips can be condemned as" bad," while others are endorsed as" good." The implicafions of the book are more accurate than the words (and many of the" valuations") of its editor. Clearly there is an aesthetic by which comic strips can be analyzed and evaluatead; it needs only to be arti-culated and developed ir order to open the way to serious critical study. By wmay of making a start at such a study, I offer here several notions about comics, strung together along a line of reasoning that I submit as the beginnings of an aesthetic theory. The study of the comic strip has as its objective the same goal as that set before the student of art and literature: to promote the sort of understanding that sharpens perception and awareness, leading, ultimately, to keener enjoyment of the medium. But study is liable to be balked at the onset by the bewildering assortment of artistic styles, stories, characters and seeming purposes that spread before the beholder's eyes when he contemplates a page of comics. By their very variety, the comics seem bent on frustrating serious and orderly consideration: at first …