Telling images? The self-reflexive turn in contemporary American graphic novels
Telling images? The self-reflexive turn in contemporary American graphic novels

Summary/Abstract: This article proposes to see graphic novel as the epitome of a twofold turn. First, as the genre of the pictorial turn, a form that demonstrates the transition from the verbal to the visual. Indeed, the graphic novel can be described as a verbal-visual compound whose power of expression arises from the tension between text and image. The burden of advancing the plot is primarily placed on the visual sequence: images in graphic novels serve to “tell” of the events. With its roots in the popular medium of the comics, the graphic novel embraces unequivocalness of the image as its main principle. This rule, however, is being increasingly violated. This development signals the second turn: the so-called “self-reflexive” turn, where the image is emancipated from the referent. This article examines instances of a play with the image and its representational status. I will analyze selected sequences from contemporary American graphic novels, including David Mazzucchelli and Paul Karasik’s City of Glass (1994), Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan (2000), and Craig Thompson’s Blankets (2003), describing the strategies employed to render the narrative less straightforward. Such strategies as the use of color fields, non-standard page layout, or emphasis on the abstract character of the portrayed shapes and forms constitute significant additions to graphic tales. I will demonstrate how this subversive visual language enriches the medium of the graphic novel – a primarily self-reflexive form.

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