First, the thesis...
This project examines the comics of three British writers—Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Warren Ellis―who work in the American comic-book industry. The majority of their collected works are metafictions, or more properly metacomics, that comment on abstract problems of representation and/or the generic expectations of American mainstream comics, which in large part means the superhero tradition. Though a small portion of their collected work is not metacomical[1], the majority is; Moore, Gaiman, and Ellis tend strongly to employ four specific narrative devices: stories about storytelling (Waugh's structural metafiction), the unwilling suspension of belief (Waugh's semiotic metafiction and the narrative equivalent of Mitchell's multistable images), retroactive continuity (or 'retcon'), and analoguing (the character equivalent of multistable images). Metacomical techniques are part of a larger movement in American comics commonly called Revisionism, which started in the mid-80s and continues to this day. Other Revisionist creators include Frank Miller, Grant Morrison, James Robinson, Garth Ennis, J. Michael Straczinski, Brian Michael Bendis, Kurt Busiek, David Mack, Brian K. Vaughn, and Alex Ross. Revisionist comics either introduce elements of realism[2] to the high-fantastical genres of mainstream American comics and/or comment on the 'lack' of realism in previous comics of the Silver Age; doing either of these things (usually both) often requires that the comics in question highlight the novelty of employing realism in comics at all, which often involves self-reflexive gestures.
For the purposes of this study, 'metacomics' and 'self-reflexive comics' are closely-related but theoretically different things. Self-reflexive comics admit to their own nature as constructs by breaking the fourth wall, referencing their own generic or formal conventions, or staging meetings between fictional characters and their real-world creators. These narrative acts usually create a breach in the division between fiction and reality. Self-reflexive comics do not, however, stage an actual commentary on comics, their narrative practises, their dominant genres, their formal nature, etc. They usually either ignore or attempt to repair any breaches they create. Metacomics, on the other hand, call attention to the breaches, and instead of repairing them, celebrate them. Such breaches are often necessary elements of the narrative, as is the case in Moore and Williams' Promethea, and Ellis and Robertson's Planetary, for example. In extreme cases, metacomics encourage the total collapse of fiction into reality, rendering the division between them non-existent. The difference between self-reflexive comics and metacomics is clear in theory, and in extreme examples is almost as equally clear. Wolfman and Perez' Crisis on Infinite Earths employs self-reflexive and intertextual gestures, but attempts no commentary on its genre. Promethea, on the other hand, begins with an explicit commentary, a college student's term paper, on the presence of fictional heroes in Western culture. There are, of course, many examples that defy clear categorisation. Gruenwald and Hall's Squadron Supreme, a Marvel series from the late Silver Age, might qualify as a metacomic if we deem it to be a commentary on superheroic ethics rather than an apologia for them, or, indeed, if we deem that apologia to be a kind of commentary. Morrison and Truog's Animal Man, a DC series that is definitely of the Revisionist style, might be self-referential if we find the commentary to be trite or superficial, as the writer's projection of himself in the narrative actually claims in his final issue[3] (Animal Man #26). This study focuses on how the comics in question use self-referential techniques, and/or the degree to which they take part in the active commentary of the metacomic.
These three writers create metacomics for very different stated reasons, sometimes in pursuit of a particular kind of realism, but more often for the sake of something more like expressionism, the projection of mental states or ideological concepts outwards onto the world of the fiction, the mise-en-scène, or the politics of the setting. Moore's late-90s work, for example, is a narrative explication of his theory of writing, which is based on his research into magic as a religious practice. Primarily Promethea, but also Tom Strong and to some degree From Hell, present this system as a combination of Aleister Crowley's 'magick,' the Kabala, and the Tarot, all of which add up to a construction of reality that is based entirely on perception and in which perception is a function of "language," which the series defines in terms that parallel a semiotic sense of a sign system. Metafiction is the logical outgrowth of this construction. Gaiman's metafiction in Sandman arises out of a practical desire to create a story in which he could write with as much variety as possible, thus he creates a protagonist who is an allegorical figure of storytelling itself, and the series is structured as a larger narrative that can contain many stories. Sandman is almost inevitably a story about stories. Ellis's motivations are perhaps the least easy to determine because he has the greatest amount of expository writing in circulation, and therefore has constructed the greatest number of possible explanations. At his most fanciful, he describes writing as "beaming Sex Rays across the world […] From my chair" (Bad Signal 2003), but in a more straightforward tone, he says that "the truth of any current superhero 'hit' is that they're about the audience’s relationship with old characters. So how do you replicate that without resorting to a bunch of analogue characters (again)?" (Bad Signal 2005). As this quotation implies, Ellis has used metafictional techniques in the past (analogue characters in Stormwatch, The Authority, and Planetary, commentary on reality as a construct of language and media in Transmetropolitan, etc.), and he does so as a way to create an instant relationship between reader and story. However, the specific motivations of the creators, as illuminating as they occasionally are, are not central to this research, which is rather a formal study of how their metacomics work, what they do, not what their authors meant them to do.
There is, as yet, very little academic work on metacomics. There are a few articles that address the subject, such as Mark Bernard and James Bucky Carter’s “Alan Moore and the Graphic Novel: Confronting the Fourth Dimension” (ImageTexT 1.2, Winter 2004). There are also short references to it in survey texts, like Matthew Puzts’ Comic Book Culture, which briefly treats John Byrne’s She-Hulk and the aforementioned Animal Man. On the other hand, there is a great deal of commentary on metacomics that is written by fans and non-academic critics, and it is usually published on the Web. A Google search for the relevant terms ("metafiction" and "comics") reveals ten pages of hits, and it is only that few because Google is programmed to limit searches to ten pages at a time. The first four titles are: a Wikipedia entry on Moore and Gibbon’s Watchmen; "'The World's Greatest Comic Magazine' (Part 4): What is the Impossible Man?, or Mighty Marvel Metafiction in Fantastic Four #176” (Double Articulation); "Metafiction in comics" (It’s All One Thing); and "'Boston Legal' vs. 'She-Hulk': Heritage and Metafiction on Trial" (Silver Bullet Comics). In light of an almost total lack of academic attention and a wealth of non-academic attention, it would seem imperative that someone from the academy addresses the topic.
[1] This word implies comedy, but is, in this context, meant to specifically denote metafictional and metapictorial representation in the comics medium. As an adjective, it is the wrong tool for a delicate job, but it is all we have.
[2] What kinds of realism they introduce―psychological, material, political, etc.―are another set of questions entirely, and whether they introduce realism or, in fact, a covert kind of expressionism is another significant question.
[3] The title continued after Morrison left, and the radical changes he made to it were simply ignored. Whether that constitutes a dismissal of Morrison's work or an embrace of the retcon is a difficult question to answer.
Posted by orion at January 8, 2007 5:27 PM