pekar
In my Seminar Creative Writing: Visiting Writers class (CRWT 191), we read Harvey Pekar’s graphic narrative, American Splendor.
image created by Derek Walls
In the graphic narrative genre, the art is a combination of how the images and text work together.
However, in Pekar’s case, while all the text is written by him, all the images are drawn by artists other than himself. In fact, each strip is drawn by a different artist.
My question is, is this piece then to be considered autobiographical? Biographical? Somewhere in between?
Evaluation based on The Autobiographical Pact:
1. A. narrative yes
B. prose no
2. Individual life, story of a personality yes
3. Author= narrator yes for the text
No for the images
4. A. narrator= main character yes
B. retrospective point of view yes
Other than it not being a prose piece, the main discrepancy is in the conflict of half of the piece, the art half, being done by a separate person.
Graphic narratives are usually non-autobiographical and written and drawn by the same person (at least in the case of artistic graphic narratives and Asian graphic novels, as opposed to industry produced comics where different people do line, color, etc… like an assembly line), but in Pekar’s case, the story and text is autobiographical, but the drawings are portraitures or caricatures done by professional comic artists. As far as the audience knows, though the comic artists seem to observe Pekar before going about their rendition of him, Crumb seems to be the only one of these artists who truly knows Pekar, and is close enough to be considered a friend. Crumb even finds himself in a strip or two.
However, upon reading American Splendor, although I am extremely interested in visuals and art, I can say that the texts were, for me, far more intriguing than the images, and that the text could stand alone as a narrative without any images at all. In fact, I often find myself ignoring the images, and just reading the text. I could see the text being typed out separated from the images, and made into a narrative in that way. If that was to happen, that body of text would fully constitute as being autobiographical-- and with a few additions, an autobiography.
Thus, due to the distance between the text and images formed from not being created by the same author or having a single director oversee the piece, it is possible to completely separate the text and images as being two entirely separate works-- one of which is autobiographical, and the other biographical.
image created by Derek Walls In the graphic narrative genre, the art is a combination of how the images and text work together.
However, in Pekar’s case, while all the text is written by him, all the images are drawn by artists other than himself. In fact, each strip is drawn by a different artist.
My question is, is this piece then to be considered autobiographical? Biographical? Somewhere in between?
Evaluation based on The Autobiographical Pact:
1. A. narrative yes
B. prose no
2. Individual life, story of a personality yes
3. Author= narrator yes for the text
No for the images
4. A. narrator= main character yes
B. retrospective point of view yes
Other than it not being a prose piece, the main discrepancy is in the conflict of half of the piece, the art half, being done by a separate person.
Graphic narratives are usually non-autobiographical and written and drawn by the same person (at least in the case of artistic graphic narratives and Asian graphic novels, as opposed to industry produced comics where different people do line, color, etc… like an assembly line), but in Pekar’s case, the story and text is autobiographical, but the drawings are portraitures or caricatures done by professional comic artists. As far as the audience knows, though the comic artists seem to observe Pekar before going about their rendition of him, Crumb seems to be the only one of these artists who truly knows Pekar, and is close enough to be considered a friend. Crumb even finds himself in a strip or two.
However, upon reading American Splendor, although I am extremely interested in visuals and art, I can say that the texts were, for me, far more intriguing than the images, and that the text could stand alone as a narrative without any images at all. In fact, I often find myself ignoring the images, and just reading the text. I could see the text being typed out separated from the images, and made into a narrative in that way. If that was to happen, that body of text would fully constitute as being autobiographical-- and with a few additions, an autobiography.
Thus, due to the distance between the text and images formed from not being created by the same author or having a single director oversee the piece, it is possible to completely separate the text and images as being two entirely separate works-- one of which is autobiographical, and the other biographical.
