“Comic Book Theory
for Medievalists:
The Poetics”

In Jesse’s words:

It is not rare to hear the playful suggestion that such-and-such manuscript, tapestry, stained glass sequence, or architectural frieze can be read like a comic book. In my project, I am trying to take this suggestion a step further by asking whether the specialists of comic book studies have established theoretical approaches to their analyses that might be put to use in examining pre-comic book era artifacts.

For example, what tools have they come up with to evaluate the interaction and balance of text and image in conveying a narrative?  Can their understanding of the conventions and innovations of comic book layout and design shed light on the cultural productions of the Middle Ages?

I have presented and published some of my observations in the past, but I’d like to pull together some new conclusions regarding the poetic “language” of the medieval experience based on what I have learned from comics experts.

The plan:

Jesse says “I’ll plan on reviewing some of the things I’ve said elsewhere before moving into my newest work, but it might enrich the conversation if participants would like to read this short published article in advance.”

• Comics Theory for the Ages: Text and Image Relations in Medieval Manuscripts.

—— International Journal of Comic Art (2017)

We invite you also to visit his own website, dedicated to the art of medieval manuscripts.

• Manuscript Art — Taking a Closer Look

A survey of “Comic Book Studies” appears here, with some references.

• Comics Studies

A Note on the Image:

Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, MS Français 1141, fol. 140v, detail. Illustrated copy of Le Pellerinaige de la vie humaine (“Pilgrimage of Human Life”) composed by Guillaume de Digulleville (1295 – before 1358).

Guillaume’s visionary dream explores a human’s Pilgrimage — presented in a dream as his own leading to death, before he awakes — as it encounters temptations embodied by the personifications of various Vices as well as Virtues. The figures of the former as tempters/tormentors often take monstrous forms.

The manuscript is digitized online:

• Bibliothèque nationale de France, Français 1141

The page-setting for the illustration appears here at the right. The manuscript opens with a full-page frontispiece illustration of Guillaume’s dream, shown below.

For other illustrated manuscripts of the same text, see, for example,

• Baltimore, Walters Museum, MS W.141
• Philadelphia, Rosenbach Museum & Library, MS 241/2

In manuscripts, Guillaume de Digulleville’s Pèlerinage de la Vie Humaine sometimes joins his companion Pèlerinage de l’Âme within one volume.

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Some Favorites

Also, as an example, Jesse points to this set of images place at front and back of a comic book.

Here are a couple of images from Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth, Pantheon; Reprint edition (2003). The top two panels are from the inside cover and the bottom collection is from a section on the flyleaf with the title: “New Pictorial Language Makes Marks” in which the artist depicts the process required to generate (and to decode) the simple comic at the top.

We warmly thank Jesse for his presentation for the RGME.

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• Episode 20. “Comic Book Theory for Medievalists: Tickets

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