Week 2

Hi guys,

I would just like to apologise for being pretty inactive over the last week, I've really enjoyed reading your posts, but seem to have been pretty slack at doing my own! I've given this one a go- after finally getting my head around it.

What does Baetens (2001) mean by 'monstration', 'graphiation' and the 'graphiateur'?

'Monstration' is a description suited to films, according to Baetens (2001) A scene in a move might be monstrative if the characters act according to the circumstances they are surrounded by and therefore help the story to narrate itself - rather that following a narrative portrayed by a narrator. It is the act of showing, rather than telling. It is argued in Baeten's text, that the same term does not really apply to other visual media such as comics where the visual elements work with words as more of a storytelling device and as the direct, subjective product of the author.

'Graphiation' is a term that has been created to specifically refer to the way that language is used within comics through a mix of communicative graphic and narrative elements and 'graphiateur' is the agent responisble for it (Baetens, 2001). I think that communicative is a key word in the definition of graphiation, as the graphiateur can convey the message and theme of the comic through their individual style, and thus graphiation can be observed and read best as the handwriting of the artist in the first stages of drawing, their initial sketches- rather than the finished product. The reason for this is that "the closer the drawing is to the original enunciative act, the more the reader has the impression that they can discover something of the initial graphiation." (Baetans, 2001)

According to the definition of graphiation and the grahiateur then, the act of enunciationn is key feature in the creation and analysis of comics. However, I'm not sure how this analysis would work if a comic, such as tinitin, was drawn by a team of artists- in that case, 'graphiation' loses some relevance as the graphiateur is not the unique creator of the comic but a vehicle through which the author expresses their ideas. The final product is still read as the creation of the author, not the graphiateur...

Baetens, J. (2001). Revealing Graphic Traces: a new theory of graphic enunciation. In Varnum, R. & Gibbons, C. (Eds.), The Language of Comics: word and image (pp. 145-155). Jackson: U Press of Missisippi.