A Few Words about The System of Comics and More...

Thierry Groensteen

Abstract The following text is the transcript of the presentation given by Thierry Groensteen at the conference of the International Bande Dessin6e Society at the French Institute in London on 14 April 2007, in which he outlined the key elements of his semiotic approach to the analysis of the comics medium in the recently translated System of Comics, the first part of a trilogy subsequently completed by the historical overview of Ast6rix, BarbarellaK Cie ['Asterix, Barbarella & Co.'], and the analysis of the cultural positioning of comics in France in Un objet culturel non identifi6 ['An Unidentified Cultural Object']. He also spoke of his priorities as a publisher: the affirmation of a European artistic tradition, the promotion of work by female artists, and the establishment of a dialogue between creativity and reflection. Let me first say how honoured I feel to have been asked to address the conference. I have been invited to say a few words about the translation of my book,

SystWme de la bande dessin6e, by the University Press of Mississippi.' The American edition appeared in February 2007 under the title The System of Comics.' The French edition was published in 1999, three years after my viva at Toulouse University. My doctoral thesis had the same title, SystWme de la bande dessin&e. It was divided into four parts, three of which consisted of a collection of previously published articles and studies. The only new materials were the general introduction and the second part, which is the one that was later published by PUF and that is now available in English. I do not know if this book can be considered 'the most important semiotic analysis of the medium published to date', as my translators, Bart Beaty and Nick Nguyen, were kind enough to write in their foreword. But it is a very systematic and in-depth examination of the structural working of comics.
i Thierry Groensteen, Systeme de la bande dessin6e (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1999).
2 Thierry Groensteen, The System of Comics, trans. Bart Beaty and Nick Nguyen (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007).

European Comic Art m.i ISSN 1754-3797 (print) 1754-38oo (online) Liverpool University Press

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The description of every constituent of the medium (the panel, the frame, the balloon, the strip, the page...) is as rigorous as possible, and I tried to approach them both in the way that they function and in the various possibilities that they offer to creators. In this sense, my work falls within the province of semiotic theory but also aesthetics. The theoretical description of the language of comics raises the question of the varying ways in which it may exploited artistically, and, ultimately, the question of how any individual application of this language may be evaluated aesthetically. My ambition was to provide a 'toolbox' which could be used to discuss any actualisation of the 'Ninth Art'. The title of the book needs a little explanation. System means 'a set of items that are held together'. I wanted to emphasise the idea that comic art is an organic totality that brings together multiple parameters and procedures, a combination of elements and codes, of which some are specific and others are not. They are all interrelated, and it is the simultaneous mobilisation of all these components that constitutes the unique language of comics. I suppose that the origin of my thesis was an article I wrote in Les Cahiers de la Bande Dessin6e in 1986, under the title 'L'Introuvable sp6cificit6' ['The Elusive Specificity'], 3 in which I expressed my dissatisfaction with some recent academic essays about comics. One of my reproaches was that the authors founded general conclusions on a corpus that was much too restricted. They conflated the performance of an individual artist with the competence of the medium as a whole. My conclusion was that the real challenge for a theory of comics was to be able to take into account the true diversity of the achievements of the medium. Ten years later, SystWme de la bande dessinie would be my own attempt to take up this challenge. In American comics criticism, scholars have given scant attention to semiotics, and the most significant works that can be mentioned are Will Eisner's 4 Comics and Sequential Art and Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. As both authors are artists themselves, it is not surprising that they have emphasised 'storytelling techniques'. Since the pioneering work of Pierre FresnaultDeruelle,5 however, France has developed a tradition of a more theoretical and analytical approach. I have tried to sum up the experience of my predecessors, and to clear comics theory of a few non-issues that had been the cause of a major waste of time and effort. At the same time, I have tried to expand on more general studies of word and image, and to take advantage of debates in the area of literature, painting or film, insofar as they could shed light on some of the questions raised within our own field. The collection in which my book originally appeared is called Formes
3 Thierry Groensteen, 'Lintrouvable sp6cificitf', Cahiers de la bande dessinee 70 (1986), 43-47. 4 Will Eisner, Comics and Sequential Art (Florida: Poorhouse Press, 1985); Scott McCloud, Under-

standing Comics (New York: Harper Collins, 1993).

5 Pierre Fresnault-Deruelle, La Bande dessinee: Essai d'analyse semiotique ['Bande dessin6e: Towards a

Semiotic Analysis'] (Paris: Hachette, 1972).

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THIERRY GROENSTEEN

S6miotiques and has included the work of Algirdas Greimas and the so-called 'Ecole de Paris'. Since my methods and concepts have little in common with the orthodoxy of this famous master of semiotics, the publisher felt it necessary to warn the reader, on the back cover, that my essay was very far from the theoretical horizon of the books that had been previously published in the same series. He obviously felt the need to apologise for publishing such a weird work on such a bizarre subject! Indeed, I share the opinion of my friend and fellow scholar Harry Morgan, who has demonstrated in his own essay, Principes des littiratures dessin6es ['Principles of Drawn Literatures'], 6 that classic semiotic theory is inadequate for an understanding and description of visual messages. There are many reasons for this, and a complete account of these would be very lengthy. For the sake of brevity, I would just make the point that a picture cannot be broken down into discrete, stable, elementary units in the way that language can. So I tried to establish that the basic unit of the language of comic art can only be the panel, and that the solidarity between panels (which I called iconic solidarity) is the true foundation of the medium, the main and perhaps only unquestionable element of its definition. My second basic statement is that breakdown and page layout are the two dominant processes of the language of comics. I am not sure that the English term breakdown is as meaningful as the French d&coupage, which conveys the idea of cutting out. Dicoupage should be understood in two different ways: that which is cut out (or broken off) refers not only to moments within the narrative tissue (the key moments of the action); it refers also to the use of partial views, selective framing that zooms in on pertinent zones, and the placing of certain information outside the frame. What is designated by the term page layout (mise en page) is mainly a matter of proportional and positional relationships amongst the panels, inside the multiframe that delineates a comics page. But I tried to demonstrate that many other questions need to be raised under the heading of page layout - notably the network composed by the balloons that are scattered across the page as a whole. Indeed, the relationship between the balloon and the panel is at once a relation between two forms and two areas: the positioning of the balloon within the panel is by no means arbitrary, since it is always relative to three different elements: the character who is speaking, the frame of the panel and, finally, the neighbouring balloons. I have not merely tried to produce a complete description of the materiality of the page. My other main goal was to understand how the reader approaches comics and how the medium achieves meaning. To go into the details of these complex questions would require another lecture. For the time being, I just want to share one important conclusion of my research, a conclusion that applies to any kind of image and not only to comics. An image is always an

6 Harry Morgan, Principes des litteraturesdessinees (Angoul&me: Pditions de I'An 2, 2003).

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utterable (Mnonable), in Deleuzian terms.7 An utterable, because I can translate or express what I see in linguistic terms. But it is also a describableand an interpretable. But that is not enough to restore to the image its semantic richness. As a reader, I can construct a more complete description of the image, but it necessitates a change in the modalities of reading. To read a comic, in the first instance, is always to attach priority to the chain of events, to the dynamic of the story. At this stage, the image is apprehended principally in its enunciable quality, as an utterable, therefore. In order to accede to a descriptive reading, it is necessary to establish an inventory of information contained in the image. And we must keep in mind that the drawn image is doubly describable: on the one hand, because it always shows more than is necessary to the intelligibility of the action; on the other hand because it is the product of a unique graphic style, arising out of the artist's skill and vision, so that each line is specific. A description has to take into account both the drawn elements and the manner in which they are drawn. Finally, every panel is also an interpretable, because it enters into relations, over and above the level of the narrative, with other panels, whether close to it or distant, which determine the final meaning of what is delivered in the image. It is my conviction that the theory of comics has to confront the two poles of production and reception: how comics are made, and how they are read. For the last ten years, I have been editing the journal 9c Art ['Ninth Art'] and I have written half a dozen other books about comics. Retrospectively, I would consider The System of Comics as the first part of a trilogy: the semiotic approach was complemented later by a historical approach in Ast6rix, BarbarellaK Cie ['Asterix, Barbarella and Co.'], 8 which is a history of French-language comics from their origin to the turn of the twenty-first century, and more recently by Un Objet culturel non identifij ['An Unidentified Cultural Object'], which is an essay on the cultural status of bande dessin6e, and how it is treated by the media, academics, national cultural policy, etc.9 Comics are considered in SystMme de la bande dessin&e as a language, in Astirix, BarbarellaoZ Ci as an art form, and in Un objet culturel non identifij as a cultural phenomenon. Semiotics, history and sociology are, it seems, the three major academic disciplines brought into play by the study of comics, and so I believe that I have proposed a comprehensive description of the medium, even if the historical and sociological parts were restricted to the French scene. Of course, these works are provisional syntheses, and today I could easily write a revised version of The System of Comics, including all sorts of additional considerations. But I am afraid that, even in France, it would be very difficult to find a publisher. In recent years, I have also concentrated on more narrowly focused studies,
7 Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 2: L'Image-temps ['Cinema 2: The Time-Image'] (Paris: Minuit, 1985), 43. 8 Thierry Groensteen, Ast6rix, BarbarellaK C' (Paris: Somogy tditions d'Art/Angoul&me: CNBDI,
2000).

9 Thierry Groensteen, Un Objet culturel non-identifie (Angoul&me: Mditions de IAn

2,

2006).

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some with specific themes, such as censorship or the importance of the human face and physiognomic expressions in the aesthetics of comics,'" and others based on specific authors, from the classic Herg6 to the challenging avant-garde artist Martin Vaughn-James." My current work is marked by the same distinction, since I am writing a survey of autobiographical comics and, at the same time, an in-depth study of the work of Edmond Baudoin. I have been interested to note that these two subjects have been touched on during this conference. I have always voiced my disagreement when journalists or others tried to describe or introduce me as a 'walking encyclopedia' of comics. Not only because the same goes for comics as for any other domain: the more you know about it, the more you realise how many facts and aspects you are ignorant of. But the very idea of an encyclopedic knowledge about comics seems absurd and depressing to me: on the French market alone, the sum total of new titles being published in a year is now more than 3,5oo. Even if you were to concentrate only on French bande dessin6e, American comics and Japanese manga and to try to follow up all the emerging trends and artists on these three major scenes, this would be a task far beyond the capacity of a normal human being, unless you never read anything except comics and you gave up all social and family life. Personally, I have decided to focus on the French scene and, even so, I don't even read io per cent of what is being published. Of course, since I founded my own publishing company in 2002, Les Editions de l'An 2, now part of Actes Sud, I have been so involved with the publishing process, including the publication of the annual journal 9g Art, that it has been difficult for me to keep up with criticism or theory. But in my opinion, publishing is an extension of criticism, by other means. I consider that every new title published by l'An 2 is a statement about comics: a manifesto. I believe that you cannot expect anything exciting from a publisher unless s/he is, in a way, an activist, someone who wants to defend certain ideas. Some of my own initiatives, as a publisher, have been to establish links between comics and illustration, to promote the rediscovery of neglected works from the rich heritage of comics, and to encourage female artists, who are still under-represented in the comics industry. The proportion of women on the French comics scene is less than io per cent, whereas they constitute more than 40 per cent of my catalogue. Finally, I am also endeavouring to develop exchanges among the various traditions within European comics. The linguistic barrier between European creators seems to be an obstacle for the circulation of their work. Mainstream publishers are obsessed by American and Japanese comics, supposedly more
io Thierry Groensteen, Lignes de vie ['Life lines'] (Grenoble: Mosquito, 2003). ii Thierry Groensteen, Le Rire de Tintin, Essai sur le comique hergeen ['Tintin's Laugh: Essay on Comedy

in Herg6'] (Tournai: Editions Moulinsart, 2oo6); Thierry Groensteen, La Constructionde La Cage,

Autopsie d'un roman visuel ['The Construction of The Cage, Autopsy of a Visual Novel'] (Paris: Les Impressions Nouvelles, 2002).

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popular and universal, and they simply do not pay attention to what is happening in neighbouring countries. For my part, I have always felt that the affirmation of a European identity, the instilling of a shared sense of belonging, begins at the cultural level. Back in the year 2000, I curated a major exhibition for the Bibliothque Nationale in Paris with the title Masters of European Comics. For the first time, original works of 69 artists representing thirteen countries and ranging from the nineteenth century up to the end of the twentieth were assembled and could be admired side by side. But, for some reason, novels seem to be more easily translated from one European country to another than comics. Since mainstream publishers are not really interested, we, the small players, have elbow room. So, I have published, under my own label, work by artists from Spain, Germany, Great Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Finland and the Czech Republic. I firmly believe that these encounters between different national traditions, the opening up to female sensibility and finally the dialogue between creative spontaneity and critical reflection are three conditions that must be satisfied if we want to keep the comics industry lively and innovative. These are the goals that sustain my own interest in comics and, after twenty-eight years of professional involvement in this business, keep alive my curiosity about new developments.

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TITLE: A Few Words about The System of Comics and More . . . SOURCE: Eur Comic Art 1 no1 Spr 2008 The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited. To contact the publisher: www.liverpool-unipress.co.uk