Between the Verbal and the Pictorial: Comics as an Iconological Amalgam Cover Image

Mezi literárnem a výtvarnem: komiks jako obrazoslovní amalgám
Between the Verbal and the Pictorial: Comics as an Iconological Amalgam

Author(s): Martin Foret
Subject(s): Literary Texts
Published by: AV ČR - Akademie věd České republiky - Ústav pro českou literaturu
Keywords: Comics; literary; pictorial; book

Summary/Abstract: This article focuses on the defining of comics as an ‘amalgam’ in which the verbal category merges with the pictorial/iconic. The articles first discusses the concepts of the literary and the pictorial and then points out that these are discrete aesthetic categories, independent of the category of artistry. The author then moves on to selected phenomena that occur in the space between these two concepts: the picture book or illustrated book, and the book as artefact or visual poetry, particularly from an historical perspective. Apart from the explicit links with comics, a few phenomena important for defining its limits are highlighted. The author then specifies the opinion held hitherto that there is an opposition between the ‘verbal’ and the ‘pictorial’ in distinguishing between the two, and this opposition is also problematized. The mutual relations between word and picture are outlined in general terms and mainly in comics. In some means of expression the boundary between the two is even eradicated.

  • Issue Year: 58/2010
  • Issue No: 5
  • Page Range: 581-606
  • Page Count: 26
  • Language: Czech
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