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Notes in the History of Art.
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PSYCHOANALYSIS
A PARTIAL
AND
LACANIAN
COMICS:
ONTOLOGY
Scott Contreras-Koterbay
attention, comics
Despite
increasing
still
comic books and comic stripsare
art-historical
discourse.1
This
slighted by
poses an interesting set of problems. David
Carrier writes: "Aestheticians
complicates
things.
Second, comics are differentiated from
many other visual arts by their intrinsic
formal characteristics, evident in two related
elements:
regardless
of the
continuity
or
between
discontinuity
panels. Frequently,
there is a uniformity of responsesmost
readers will fill in similar information. But
the fact that there is a dependency upon the
reader to fill in the blanks means that there is
an impossibility, even an inappropriateness,
of "translating" a comic for another, an im
from private to
an
public language,
irreducibility endemic to
the form and the nature of its private con
possibility
of transference
91
"No
those images.
one image may be to
another, there is a kind of alchemy at work in
the space between panels which can help us
find meaning or resonance in even the most
of jouissance
between
relationship
matter how dissimilar
conception
to comics.
'
It is easy to argue that high art is en
countered in the Symbolic order, but it is
possible to argue that comics can be de
scribed in their reception as something quite
position, however,
ject. From a Lacanian
comics are not an opportunity for this type of
jouissance. The appeal and the form of com
ics in their private consumption preclude the
characterized
of symmetry,
by illusions
a reciprocity
and
but
similarity,
reciprocity,
that is self-directed and contrasted with the
Symbolic order, in which the relationships
non-reciprocity"6
and directed to the Other. In relationships to
objects, particularly to art, the Symbolic is the
order that the individual utilizes to establish
a relationship with the world as not ourselves,
as different from ourselves. The functional
distinctiveness
between "self-interpreting"
and "non-reciprocity" may, however, be use
ful, particularly in understanding Lacan's
of the Symbolic
order. When
we
92
in the Imaginary,
indulge
we
experience
phallic jouissance.
Phallic jouissance
Symbolic
jouissance
immediate
jouissance
desired
as
literally leaves
a rejection
something
of the
Symbolic
to be
order,
Comics
jouissance,
of panels
writes: "phallic
or, as Lacan
is
the
obstacle
jouissance
owing to which
man does not come (n 'arrive pas) . . . be
cause what he enjoys in the jouissance of the
organ .. . [is] the avowal [of] that jouissance
of the Other, of the body of the Other."7
Phallic jouissance is a conscious pleasurable
because
we make
images
This
provides
a Lacanian
explanation
for
toward the
castrated
self.
Comics
are, of
Symbolically
course, a language. But, as McCloud points
continuing
out:
93
an empty shell that we inhabit which
enables us to travel in another realm. We
don't just observe the cartoon we be
come it.s
It is this "becoming
that art history avoids.
The Imaginary order, appearing as a self-ev
idently self-sufficient totality for the subject
rather than as a fractured relationship with the
world, as a regressive opportunity, is a cas
tration of one's self from the infinite possi
bilities in the Symbolic. The self-contained
experience of comics is precisely thatself
contained. In their consumption and within
arises: If jouissance
if
is still jouissance,
phallic jouissance is still a type of jouissance,
then should comics be regarded as func
tioning equivalently to "high" art even though
the functionality remains quite different. And
if the functionality is equivalent, why, then,
are comics still being slighted by art his
torians? Lacan writes: "One is always respon
sible for one's position as a subject."9 Within
the construction of any interpretive discourse,
including art history, responsibility is bound
with desire. Questions arise: Is art, especially
94
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Fig. 1
Nonoy Marcelo, the "Easter Egg" episode from the comic strip
Ikabod. From The Manila Chronicle (Mar. 1992), Sunday Fun section.
Pen
and
courtesy
of Dario
Marcelo
and
family)
the Marcelo
95
origins are told and retold, and the characters
of Peanuts have never agedbut it is also
evident in the very structure of comics, as it
is in the Ikabod
comic strip by Nonoy
Marcelo, created from the late 1970s until his
death in 2002, featuring the character Ikabod
Bubwit ("small rodent" in Tagalog; see, for
example, Fig. 1). A satirical retelling of the
social and political problems that beset the
Philippines
during and after the Marcos
Ikabod
illustrates this application of
regime,
a
Lacan;
typical example of comics struc
it
is
turally,
readily comprehendible regard
position,
there is an
NOTES
1. Notable
and
controversial
exhibitions
Comics.
and Low:
(New
Modern
York:
Museum
Paul
Carlin,
American
Karasik,
Comics
are the
exceptions
and Masters
of American
and Adam Gopnik, High
(New
Brian
Haven:
Walker,
Yale
2005).
2.
2000),
3.
Park:
The Aesthetics
Carrier,
Pennsylvania
pp. 2-3
Scott McCloud,
Invisible
of
Press,
of Comics
(Uni
Carrier, p. 86.
Jacques
Art (New
67.
4. Ibid., p. 73.
State
University
Press,
McCloud,
9.
Jacques
729/858.
10.
The
Comics:
Understanding
York: HarperPerennial,
1994), p.
trans. Bruce
David
versity
Masters
University
5.
6.
(New
Fink (New
York: Norton,
p. 36.
Lacan,
"Science
p.
Fredric Wertham,
Seduction
of the Innocent
York: Rinehart, 1954), p. 125; quoted in Carrier,
p. 69.
11. Ibid.