sequential art history

fineweber · Post by **fineweber** » Mon Jan 27, 2003 3:33 pm

hi there

i'm looking to find some books/websites (preferably books) on the history of sequential art. i'm interested in anything really, but especially stuff that doesn't look anything like current "comics." for example, cave art and egyptian hieroglyphs, etc. i'm really interested in how different sequential art can look from what we normally see, how far we can push it.

anything at all would be fantastic. thanks for your time

cheers,
keith leinweber

japanimationfist · Post by **japanimationfist** » Mon Jan 27, 2003 3:40 pm

Have a look at Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. He lists dozens of early examples which would probably fit the bill.

fineweber · Post by **fineweber** » Tue Jan 28, 2003 8:29 pm

great. thanks for the help.

i have read understanding comics, and mccloud touches on these topics, but i'm looking to get in a little deeper. does anybody know of anywhere else? good books on older sequential art? like i mentioned before, hieroglyphs, etc.

Tim Mallos · Post by **Tim Mallos** » Thu Jan 30, 2003 12:43 am

I don't know of any other works specifically. The reason might be that Scott (McCloud) is one of the few people to define some early art forms as sequential art. You might look at the examples he puts forward and look for other, more detailed texts on those specific artifacts and then draw your own conclusions. You may have to do your own leg work on this one.

Hey! Maybe you could write a book dedicated to the prehistory of sequential art. "Sabertoothed comics".

It's late, and I'm goofy tired. Sincerely trying to be of help. Your specific interest may be more refined than any of the scholarly work to date.

Good Luck!
Tim

fineweber · Post by **fineweber** » Sun Feb 02, 2003 4:49 pm

thanks a lot for the reply. i do trust that you are trying to help, but it's a tricky one... oh well, at least that means i'm probably doing something relatively original here. maybe i can elaborate on those connections that mccloud made.

thanks again for the help

cheers

keith l

losttoy · Post by **losttoy** » Mon Feb 03, 2003 6:21 pm

my answer is the end of one of those CBS specials ... visit your local library. You'd be suprized on what you find.

fineweber · Post by **fineweber** » Tue Feb 18, 2003 1:29 pm

well, after some hard searching (at my local library!), i did pretty well. there are some pretty good books out there. i'm bsy at the moment, but i can post titles if anyone is interested.

if you are, let me know, and i'll put up a few names for you

damonk13 · Post by **damonk13** » Wed Feb 19, 2003 12:21 pm

Your best bet is simply to forget about looking for a preexisting link between comics/sequential art and cave art or hieroglyphs, and go to the source itself, by looking for books that focus on cave art and hieroglyphs.

Essentially, delve into linguistics books that deal with either, as well as art history books that broach the subjects.

If I could offer you one title that may not be directly related, I'd suggest Pound's edit of Ernst Fenollosa's "The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry". Both Pound's comments and Fenollosa's are interesting, and deal with hieroglyph pictographic theory... While their ideas on relating the pictograms to poetry didn't hold much water, I believe that there may be some interesting potential with the Chinese pictograms and a correlation to sequential art.

Anywho, just my two cents (Canadian).

Post by **Scott McCloud** » Thu Feb 20, 2003 12:46 pm

I've hoped for a long time that somebody would indeed write such a book tying together not only ancient forms but also modern quasi-comics creators like Edward Gorey or the photographer Duane Michaels.

http://bugpowder.com/andy/earlycomics.html
...has some good leads

And of course there's Kunzle's great "The Early Comic Strip" (out of print unfortunately) but most such efforts stop at -- and even require -- printed material as a pre-requisite, which I find unnecessarily limiting.

InkAddict · Post by **InkAddict** » Sat Feb 22, 2003 6:32 am

Thanx Scott, this is GREAT

I was looking for similar material while working on a paper that a teacher of mine would like to insert in his XXth century art classes...

Otherwise, a nice link might be http://www.rpi.edu/~bulloj/comxbib.html

It's a comix research library with some helpful books you might find useful

Good Luck

fineweber · Post by **fineweber** » Thu Feb 27, 2003 1:43 pm

thanks a lot for the continued help, guys.

scott - i have kunzle's book (which, incidently lists mass production as a prerequisite for comics), it's fantastic. and thanks for the lead on the web site, i'll check it out. also, i got an email from you where you recommended tufte's information design books - great as well. cheers

now, my paper is taking a direction where i want to attempt to find key points in the divergence of text and image. part of my argument is that "reading" doesn't just mean words, and that the combination of text and image is something that we have placed a stigma on, and it's simply a cultural thing. the argument is that cinveying information should take the most effective form,, and that is a perfect marriage of text and image.

so if anyone knows of any great sources that pertain to the combination of text and image in different imtes and/or cultures that would be great.

p.s. if you haven't seen the pantheon educational comics (i have Marx for Beginners by Rius) they're fantastic. the way that the information falls into a conversational form makes it so readable.

well enough for today, thanks again to everyone that has been contributing, it's all really helpfull.

keith l

fineweber@hotmail.com

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sequential art history

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