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The aesthetics of comics

Front Cover
2 Reviews
Penn State Press, 2000 - Philosophy - 139 pages
From Gary Larsons The Far Side to George Herrimans Krazy Kat, comic strips have two obvious defining features. They are visual narratives, using both words and pictures to tell stories, and they use word balloons to represent the speech and thought of depicted characters. Art historians have studied visual artifacts from every culture; cultural historians have recently paid close attention to movies. Yet the comic strip, an art form known to everyone, has not yet been much studied by aestheticians or art historians. This is the first full-length philosophical account of the comic strip.Distinguished philosopher David Carrier looks at popular American and Japanese comic strips to identify and solve the aesthetic problems posed by comic strips and to explain the relationship of this artistic genre to other forms of visual art. He traces the use of speech and thought balloons to early Renaissance art and claims that the speech balloon defines comics as neither a purely visual nor a strictly verbal art form, but as something radically new. Comics, he claims, are essentially a composite art that, when successful, seamlessly combine verbal and visual elements.Carrier looks at the way an audience interprets comics and contrasts the interpretation of comics and other mass-culture images to that of Old Master visual art. The meaning behind the comic can be immediately grasped by the average reader, whereas a piece of museum art can only be fully interpreted by scholars familiar with the history and the background behind the painting. Finally, Carrier relates comics to art history. Ultimately, Carriers analysis of comics shows why this popular art is worthy of philosophical study and proves thata better understanding of comics will help us better understand the history of art.
  

What people are saying - Write a review

Review: The Aesthetics of Comics

User Review  - matt - Goodreads

Interesting and well researched, but limited in that it wants to make comic strips representative of the entire art form, among other strangely delimiting moves. Read full review

Review: The Aesthetics of Comics

User Review - Goodreads

This book spent a lot of time preaching an attitude that I hope anyone interested in reading a book called "the aesthetics of comics" would already understand, and that is that comics are a worthwhile ...

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Contents

CARICATURE OR REPRESENTING CAUSAL CONNECTION
11
THE SPEECH BALLOON OR THE PROBLEM OF REPRESENTING OTHER MINOS
27
THE IMAGE SEQUENCE OR MOVING MODERNIST PICTURES
47
WORDS AND PICTURES BOUND TOGETHER OR EXPERIENCING THE UNITY OF COMICS
61
INTERPRETING COMICS
75
THE CONTENT OF THE FORM OR SEEING PICTURES READING TEXTS VIEWING COMICS
77
INTERPRETING A POPULIST ART FORM OR THE LIBERATING FORCE OF KRAZY KAT
87
THE PLACE OF COMICS IN RELATION TO ART HISTORY
105
POSTHISTORICAL ART OR COMICS AND THE REALM OF ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE
107
BIBLIOGRAPHY
125
INDEX
137
Copyright

Other editions - View all

The aesthetics of comics
The aesthetics of comics
David Carrier
Snippet view - 2000

Common terms and phrases

Adam Gopnik aesthetic aftet anothet appeats atgues atgument Atthut attists attwotk awate Batman Baudelaite Baudelaite's befote caticatute cattoon Chaptet chatactets comic sttip commentatots concetn conttast cteate ctitical cultute Danto David Catnet depicted desctibe desctiption diffetent discovety dteam eatliet eatly entitely evetyone expetience figutes fotm ftame ftom G. E. M. Anscombe Gallety Gaty Latson Geotge Hettiman Gombtich gteat Hegel hete Hettiman histotians histoty images impottant intetesting intetptetation Joe Sacco Kntzy Kat leatn litetaty mastet metely modetn modetnist mote nattative sequence natute neithet nevet old-mastet othet otiginal Paintet painting patt pethaps petson philosophets pictute pleasute populat posthistotical ptesent ptoblem ptovided Richatd Robett scenes setiously soutces speech balloon stoty sttuctute Supetman tead teadet teally teason tecent tecognize tefetence telation temain teptesentation teptesented tequites tesponse tevealed theit theoty thete thtough Tintin togethet ttadition ttans ttanslated tteat ttue undetstand Univetsity Ptess vetbal vety viewet visual Wathol wete wotds wotk wotld wtites Yotk

References to this book

From other books

Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature
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David E. W. Fenner
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From Google Scholar

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References from web pages

David Carrier: The Aesthetics of Comics
“Carrier’s The Aesthetics of Comics is an indispensable and enjoyable contribution to disussions dealing with the end of Modernism, the function of art ...
www.psupress.org/ books/ titles/ 0-271-01962-X.html

PHIL308F: The Aesthetics of Comics
The Aesthetics of Comics, Chapters 4 “Words and Pictures Bound ... The Aesthetics of Comics, Chapter 5 “The Content of the Form; or, Seeing ...
www.typetoken.com/ 308F_syllabus.pdf

The Aesthetics of Comics
David Carrier The Aesthetics of Comics University Park: Penn State University Press, 2000. 140 pp.; many b/w ills. Cloth $29.95 (027101962X) ...
www.caareviews.org/ reviews/ 378

brandl 26..28
The Aesthetics of Comics, and elsewhere, Carrier is indeed. 1. The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art (New York:. Columbia University Press, 1986) ...
www.blackwell-synergy.com/ doi/ abs/ 10.1111/ 1467-8357.00241

A Note on The Definition of Comics
2; Carrier, The Aesthetics of Comics, p. 74. Carrier also claims that "what .... The Aesthetics of Comics. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press ...
www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/ ~phlame/ Comics(24-10-06).htm

414REVS.CHP:Corel VENTURA
worthy opponent for those wedded to a more. Kantian or historicist approach to natural beauty. ANDY HAMILTON. Durham University. The Aesthetics of Comics. ...
bjaesthetics.oxfordjournals.org/ cgi/ reprint/ 41/ 4/ 446.pdf

Canadian Journal of Communication - Vol. 29, No. 3 (2004)
David Carrier’s The Aesthetics of Comics claims to be the first book on comics authored by an ... If The Aesthetics of Comics has a larger point to make, ...
www.cjc-online.ca/ viewarticle.php?id=930& layout=html

SKEPTICISM AND THE ORDINARY From Burnt Norton To Las Vegas ...
The Aesthetics of Comics. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 30. 511. Cavell, The Claim of Reason, 351-2. ...
findarticles.com/ p/ articles/ mi_qa3982/ is_200301/ ai_n9176436/ pg_14

@article {Meskin:1 October 2001:0007-0904:446, author = "Meskin A ...
@article {Meskin:1 October 2001:0007-0904:446, author = "Meskin A.", title = "The Aesthetics of Comics", journal = "British Journal of Aesthetics", ...
www.ingentaconnect.com/ content/ oup/ aesthj/ 2001/ 00000041/ 00000004/ art00446;jsessionid=55657e403vjrw.alice?format=bib

The Aesthetics Of Comics - Boek - BESLIST.nl
Bekijk en vergelijk informatie, beoordelingen, vragen & antwoorden en de beste winkels voor 'The Aesthetics Of Comics' op BESLIST.nl ▪ Boeken Engels ...
boeken_engels.beslist.nl/ boeken_engels/ d0000097374/ The_Aesthetics_Of_Comics.html

About the author (2000)

David Carrier is Professor of Philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University. He is the author of many books, including Principles of Art History Writing (1991), The Aesthete in the City: The Philosophy and Practice of American Abstract Painting in the 1980s (1994), and High Art: Charles Baudelaire and the Origins of Modernist Painting (1996), all from Penn State Press.

Bibliographic information

QR code for The aesthetics of comics
TitleThe aesthetics of comics
AuthorCarrier
Editionillustrated
PublisherPenn State Press, 2000
ISBN0271038373, 9780271038377
Length139 pages
Subjects › 

Philosophy / Aesthetics
  
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