How Comics Stories Reflect Social & Political History

On this presentation, I have explored a key importance of comics, in that the can tell complex stories, and express difficult ideas in a simple way. Comics are considered as an important and suitable teaching tool, taking into account its power in helping the reader to improve critical thinking skills. The most important reason why comics are ideally suitable as a learning material is that they are naturally motivating and engaging, and have an extensive appeal to adults and children. I have provided an overview of how readers deal with perceptual aspect of comics, called 'visual language' that consists of a drawing style, spacing panels (closure) and the sequences of words and images relationships.

The key idea was the nature of the visual language allows a lot of flexibility in the manipulation of the overall meaning in comics. Both the words and the images used as a structure of a montage. The structure of train strips can be exploited with narratives by translating sound into visual events that can be reinterpreted by the reader. Comics can help to guide the readers through a mix of words and images to gain and realise meaning.

I focused on the ideological analyses of comics that can take on an abstract and symbolic narrative form, which helps to identify social responsibilities within the comic culture. I used a selection of influential works to demonstrate the dominating ideological values in comics, for both adults and children. For example, the comparison images of Tintin in the Congo book explore interpretation of racist propaganda in a comic strip format for the younger reader, expressing political values during that time. On the other hand, Spiegelman's Maus was a key underground graphic novel that challenged the mainstream comics by using a form of popular culturing serious historical events of World War II.

Comic’s Relationship to Social History and Ideologies

The word ‘ideology’ tends to describe how people believe certain things about the world that may not reflect the reality as they are beliefs rather than scientific representations, for example, a nation. In some ways, the shared common beliefs of a community may be considered as a common sense of ideology, and they are often concerned about the protection of the individual and society as a whole, therefore, Ideology is strongly related to issues of sociological tradition. Focusing on the relationship of comics to the questions of ideology and how it connects to history, comics authors often took controversial ideological positions when bearing in mind history. Stuart Hall is a cultural theorist, and he has noted that ideology works by linking ideas together in certain ways and denying other kinds of connections that may make. Ideologies then, like living bodies, are constantly evolving (Smith & Duncan 2012 p. 225). People often create histories to create a sense of identity.

A study by Stuart Hall suggested that;

“Ideologies do not consist of isolated and separate concepts, but in the articulation of different elements into a proper chain of meanings. One of articulating the elements differently, thereby producing a different meaning.” (Magnussen 2000, p.18)

Comics offer different generations of characters and influence within a historical context. Comics may have been based on imagination, but they reflect ideas and problems of social- cultural artifacts. In comics, everything must have to mean, and it has to connect to a historical context. Comics combine printed words and pictures in a unique mostly entertaining and engaging way. How comics fit in with the social-political context of many countries takes into account such major trends as, democracy, and individualism. Individualism tends to be portrayed in a positive light when it has associated with freedom, as a sense of people's every day and shared identity and beliefs those who are bonded together principally by the relation of loyalty, shared values, and concerns. The main social characteristics of ideology shape our ethnicity. It gives us our sense of identity (Kivisto 2011, p.93). The scenes of war and ethnic cleansing in Europe and Africa were one of the characteristics of a political issue. Comic narratives have shown that they have engaged in racism, gender discrimination. In fact, the subject matter in comics is not necessarily humorous, but dramatic; the seriousness varies widely.

Resources:

Kivisto, P. (2011) Key ideas in Sociology, (London: Sage Publications)

Phaidon) Smith M.J & Duncan R. (2012) Critical Approaches to Comics: Theories and Methods, (New York: Rutledge)