When Luna Smiles

[Greg Stephens]

Doesn't is seem as if When Luna Smiles is comic poetry?

[Doc MacDougal]

Yeah, I think so. At the very least, the sort of curving trails set it up as something of an analogue to Scott's version of Porphyria's Lover.

I think it's quite interesting to see something more oriented towards poetic expression, especially given how many/most comics authors are drawing almost entirely on the narrative vocabulary of film and theatre.

Comic poetry is still foreign enough that I'm having a little trouble absorbing it, but I certainly appreciate the opportunity to experience it. And if more work of that nature is created, then it, obviously, will eventually lose that unfamiliar feeling.

Doc.

[Greg Stephens]

Ah- There we have it. Scott himself calls it a "tone-poem" which is an interesting choice of words, since a tone poem is generally musical. Personally, I think "poem" covers it and addng the word "tone" is a bit of a red herring, but am I the artist? Not in this case.

[catgarza]

i'm just glad to see scott do that sort of thing. i know i've had my own experiments with poetry in comics, both verbal and nonverbal. seeing mccloud do it has me all excited and inspired. too bad it'll be a WHILE before i can do that sort of thing again... unless.....

[Alexander D.]

Personally, I think "poem" covers it and addng the word "tone" is a bit of a red herring, but am I the artist? Not in this case.

Actually, I would argue that the word "poem" is the actual red herring here, since what he's doing here is something altogether different. Really, what is it about this piece that makes it poetry? The fact that it's sureal rather than coherent? Or the fact that it's imagistic rather than narrative? There's a very definite tendancy for people to see works with these traits and call them "poetry." The problem is, neither of these traits is actually inherent to poetry. Certainly, a great deal of poets have used these tools, but there is just as much coherent poetry as sureal, and just as much narrative as lyrical. There is a dichotomy in poetry -- there are narrative poems, poems that tell stories and create characters -- and there are lyric poems, poems that conjure images and express feelings, without the need for a structured context.

What McCloud is demonstrating in this experiement isn't that comics can be poetry -- but that comics are capable of the same dichotomy as poetry. There are narrative comics, and there are lyrical comics.

Now, aside from my objections to what I consider to be unfair generalizations about what constitutes poetry, I really think that making this distinction is very important for comics as well. To say that this sort of comic is "comics poetry" or "tone poetry" is to say that comics can't express this sort of purely emotive content without borrowing from other forms. To recognize it as lyrical comics is to recognize that comics as an art form is complete in itself, capable of handling any content the artist wants without need to be braced by other forms.

[Greg Stephens]

I was wondering if it was even correct to use the word "lyrical" to describe this sort of comic, but according to Webster (my favorite online word resource, Dictionary.com isn't allowing me to connect at the moment, but if it were, the definition would be here), Lyric is defined as:

expressing direct usually intense personal emotion especially in a manner suggestive of song

So I'd have to quote agree with you on what you've said.

[glych]

I thought it was very cool, but a bit hard to understand when it was being posted in peices...

Personally I can't wait to see him attack "superheroes" in his next improv...

*claps childlike*

-glych