Unidentified Graphic Objects? Eccentricity and Graphic Afterlives in Contemporary British Graphic Novels (Martin Rowson; Bryan Talbot)

Abstract

This essay explores formal aspects of eccentricity in comic book adaptations of Tristram Shandy, Gulliver’s Travels and more loosely Alice in Wonderland. By looking at how graphic artists spiral out of set formal standards the argument raises questions that range from the effects of heterotopic images to that generated by the use of different technical devices (ink, water colour, digital drawing) and layering. The chosen corpus aims to exemplify three types of eccentricities that come into play. It is argued that the humour of pastiche is part of eccentricity and that the combination of satirical discourses from different epochs can conjure parallel words that coalesce on the page and in the reader/viewer’s mind. Comic book format adaptation of classics showcases landmarks of British visual culture intermingled with more or less light-hearted caricature while the medium itself frays in so many foreign waters that the editorial object may be perceived as a “UGO” i.e. an unidentified graphic object, though the latter term requires to be set against the current debate over graphic novels vs. traditional comic book forms.