“Comic Books: An Evolving Multimodal Literacy”

by Taylor Quimby | Xchanges 7.1

4. Other Representations of Literacy in Comics: Intertextuality and “Ambient Literacy”

Literacy events are not the only windows into how the readers and writers of comics value literacy. Initially we addressed intertextuality in regards to panels, but it is also a means of understanding how texts use other texts as points of reference. Some comic books are filled with so many outside references, they become a kind of creative homage. Populated with Victorian-era pulp characters like the Invisible Man, Captain Nemo, and (Hulk’s ancestor) Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is such a comic. In his book Reading Comics, Douglas Wolk writes that Moore understands the potency of cheap, popular entertainment and its formulas — he’s a connoisseur of pop wonders and cool trash and successful hackery of every era, because there’s a kind of magic about them (232). Moore’s celebration of Victorian pulp literature is an implicit endorsement: the comic is so jam-packed with literary winks and nods, readers are likely to look up characters with whom they’re not familiar. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, in addition to being a stellar comic book, is practically a recommended reading list. Bill Willingham’s hit comic book series Fables is similarly composed of characters popularized elsewhere, in this case from dozens of fables and fairy-tales spanning American, European, and even Arabic folk-lore. Willingham’s modified versions of Snow White, Bluebeard, and Pinocchio are for all practical purposes immortal — a not-so-subtle statement about the timelessness of story.

There is one more important vehicle for understanding representations of literacy in popular culture. As static images that can be viewed for any desired length of time, even small details on a page or panel can have amplified significance. In comics, print can reveal literacy values regardless of whether or not characters are engaging in its production or comprehension. I call print of this kind, which appears in the background disconnected from the action of a comic, “ambient literacy.” To better understand how “ambient literacy” can reveal hidden literacy practices and values, let’s take a look at a sequence from the fifth issue of Ex Machina (Fig. 4).

Notice the bookshelf behind the boy. Although they are not integral to understanding the story up to this point, the titles are clearly legible. Though some are slightly cut-off, we can easily fill in the blanks: Firearms, Chemistry 101, Explosives, and The Anarchist Cookbook. Although the boy is not actively engaging with the books in the frame, it is clear from preceding events that he has read and utilized the information within them in order to commit acts of domestic terrorism. The proximity of these books with one another would be a cause for alarm for most parents, but the boy has made no effort to conceal them. The panel at the top of the excerpt shows a man — presumably the boy’s father or guardian — half-asleep in an armchair with open beers visible nearby, barely roused despite the presence of a SWAT team in the apartment.

In this example of an “ambient literacy” event, literacy is represented as a tool that, if left unsupervised, can be appropriated for dangerous and destructive purposes. It also places some blame implicitly on the father, suggesting perhaps that the literacy practices of children and teenagers must be guided by those most capable of doing so: the parents. Despite its innocuous presence in the panel, the boy’s bookshelf says a great deal about the literacy values represented in Ex Machina.

“Ambient literacy” is a vehicle of perception. Take for example Warren Ellis’s quintessential series TRANSMETROPOLITAN. The setting functions as a character: a hedonistic spider web of print and images referred to simply as “The City.” People on the streets are walking billboards, broadcasting news on their skin. Posters for musical events and political candidates are plastered everywhere and colorful literate and semi-literate graffiti fills in the cracks. The main character is Spider Jerusalem, a gonzo journalist reminiscent of the late Hunter S. Thompson. He is often surrounded by multiple “feedsites,” floating holographic websites featuring combinations of textual and visual information. This comic depicts a future in which multimodal literacy has invaded every nook and cranny of society for any number of purposes: for advertisement, for the spreading of public information, for individual expression, etc. (see Fig. 5).

Ellis uses “ambient literacy” to give his world depth without having to modify the main narrative to include unnecessary information; it exists for the benefit of the reader. The extent to which Ellis uses this device is indicative of the importance he places on literacy as a means of conveying information, even in a technologically advancing world.