Aesthetics and Genre

The way in which the style of a given comic affects its genre is often overlooked. Often the focus is on thematic elements within the images of a comic, instead of the way in which they are drawn. But how much of an influence can be attributed to an artist's style?

Let us take, for example, a sprite comic. Sprite comics, such as 8-bit Theatre, harvest images from 8-bit or 16-bit video games and use them to represent characters, objects, or even backgrounds. Aside from various arrangements of these images, there is rarely any actual pictorial content generated by the author, although there is the possibility for significant alteration of a comic's meaning through the arrangement of these images. Sprite comics typically make jokes about video games, or continue the plot of a particular game, so the representation of the game's images or characters can be said to correlate with the author or artist's attitude or message towards their subject. Perhaps the aesthetic and visual elements of a sprite comic, then, could make the difference between homage and lampoon. Thus one could conclude that such comics are simply "video game comics," but at the same time, such a dismissal seems to neglect perhaps the strongest example of genre-aesthetic codependence in webcomics.

8-bit Theatre

How, then, does a sprite comic compare to the likes of Penny Arcade, which is also often called a "video game comic?" Obviously the two are different, as one uses actual art while the other just uses images ripped from old games. A sprite comic can be attributed to a specific sub-genre that arises from its use of sprites, in that its genre can be partially classified simply by nature of it being a sprite comic. Thus, the genre of a comic is not defined only by its content, but also by its art.

The point here is that individual styles of art are "genres" in themselves, and attract various types of audiences. Comics drawn in a manga style will attract fans of print manga; others that emulate the works of Marvel or DC will attract fans of superhero comics; and the aforementioned sprite comics will attract fans of video games. The list goes on and on.

The style of a webcomic can also be used to make a statement about, or parody, another graphic work. An example of this would be Perry Bible Fellowship, which repeatedly uses styles similar to other comics.

"Way Too Much"

It is not uncommon for both webcomics and print comics to reference works by other authors. However, it seems to occur much more frequently on the internet; perhaps this is because there is less fear of a fellow artist becoming angry over an appropriation of their characters. Indeed, the internet provides a medium to comic artists that is somewhat more "free" than that of traditional media. Webcomic artists are able to freely express themselves to their audience, without having to worry whether a newspaper or magazine will publish their work or not. Compared to newspaper artists, webcomic artists have more stylistic leeway available to them. They can radically alter their design, utilize color and complex patterns, and vary the size of their comics at their own leisure. Such are the differences between webcomics and print media that they can be classified into separate "genres" of comics themselves.

The earlier example of Perry Bible Fellowship straddles these two "worlds" of comics. As both a webcomic and a print comic, Perry Bible Fellowship provides further insight into just how the medium of the internet can affect the presentation of a graphic work. In the case of webcomics, the "medium is the message," because the presence of the work on a computer screen instead of a physical book or paper changes the way the reader views and interacts with the work. Those who first read it in a newspaper probably have an entirely different perception of the comic than those who first encountered it on the internet. In webcomic form, a comic's archive is easily accessible, and each comic can be reviewed in rapid-fire succession. But in the newspaper, readers were only given one comic every week, leaving them only a single work to ruminate upon.

But which aspects of aesthetics actually define the genre of a webcomic?

As said, the artistic style of a webcomic does a lot to affect the genre in which it is written. In some cases, the aesthetic is used to reinforce the subject matter of the work, such as in the sprite comics discussed, where the pixilated video game aesthetic matches up with the video-game-related subject matter of most of these works. At the same time, there is no rule stating that a sprite or 8-bit comic has to be about video games; that is just the convention. If, theoretically, one were to write a sprite comic whose text formed a storyline about a Sociology professor named Louie trying to find love, then the genre would no longer really be a video game one, related to gameplay and the idea of a video game story. It would be perhaps a romance, but the sprite aesthetic would then add the suggestion that “real life” (the real life of Louis, the professor) is like a video game, or that its reality is no more real than the realities brought forth by PlayStation or Nintendo.

Castle VidconsOn the flipside, a webcomic like Castle Vidcons deals with video games in its subject matter, despite the fact that the genre could be argued to be fantasy or adventure, just with gaming systems as the cast of characters. The aesthetic, additionally, gives it the appearance of an antiquated manuscript, reinforcing the idea of a more medieval setting. The idea then seems to be to draw a certain amount of humor from the disparity of the medieval adventure setting and the video game references. This could have been decided upon in order to differentiate this comic from the myriad other video-game-related webcomics on the web and put a new spin on the same sort of commentary. This also could be to target not only audiences who know a lot about video games but also those who have only a peripheral knowledge of them and will be drawn in by the humorous and accessible storyline. In this way, Castle Vidcons could theoretically increase their readership based on their unique and eye-catching aesthetic alone, which is reflected in their interesting melding of genre.

Married to the SeaSimilar to Castle Vidcons, Married to the Sea runs one-panel gags that use illustrations that are most often in the style of Victorian and colonial etchings, calling to mind a time period past. In contrast with this aesthetic, however, the topics are modern and often somewhat offensive, peppered with a lot of ridiculous contemporary slang. The humor is then drawn primarily from the discrepancy between the "serious"-style engravings, and the associations with straight-laced Victorian culture that come with them, and the outrageous dialogue the figures are given. Because of this, Married to the Sea, a comic in the genre of one-panel gags, only works because of the historical etching and engraving aesthetic.

Silver AgeAnother comic where the aesthetic initially seems incongruous with its genre is Silver Age, which is technically a superhero comic, but aesthetically seems much more like a “Sunday funny.” (Although the Sunday funnies are quite disparate in style themselves.) Because of this aesthetic, with its horizontal strip-style layout and humorously unrealistic art style, the expectation of the reader is suddenly that it will be a funny strip, rather than a serious attempt at the superhero genre. This is because the expected aesthetic of the superhero genre follows the conventions made popular by such publishers as Marvel and DC, with a relatively realistic art style and page-like layout mimicking the shape and construction of a comic book. The art style and horizontal strip layout here, then, mimics more closely the conventions of newspaper funnies, thereby informing us visually to connect Silver Age more with Dagwood Bumstead than Batman. Were the aesthetic of Silver Age more like a traditional superhero comic, the gags might still work but reader expectation would be very different. As it is, the readership receives what they are expecting: a more lighthearted, sarcastic approach to the superhero genre that often delves into the minutiae of everyday life in the modern world. In this way, one could almost argue that Silver Age comes across as Penny Arcade in tights and capes. That being said, it provides a commentary on the superhero genre and therefore sets itself apart from the more traditional superhero comics, and its appearance makes this difference clear at very first glance.

BizazOne of the most interesting experiments with a comic’s aesthetic might be in Bizaz, a webcomic about gangs and gangsters in the inner city. The art style, however, is really interesting, as it seems to be photographs put through odd Photoshop filters, giving the tale a confusing, unsettling quality, due to its psychedelic coloration and often almost inscrutable images. It is sometimes unclear what one is looking at and what is happening, and the characters are therefore nearly impossible to distinguish and the lack of actual speech bubbles reinforces this, because when multiple people are talking in a panel, it is next to impossible to be sure which dialogue box goes with which person. This aesthetic adds a lot to the webcomic, because the story becomes secondary to the bizarre, colorful, off-putting visual style, which serves to disorient the readers and even disturb their senses, thereby mirroring the state one would be in living in the fast, dangerous world that the characters inhabit.

LackadaisyGoing back to a more historicized genre of gangster comics, however, aesthetic can also be used to soften or lighten a comic book’s subject matter. For example, Lackadaisy uses anthropomorphic cats in a tale about bootlegging, speakeasies, and the criminal underworld in St. Louis in the 1920’s. Their felineness does not seem to figure into the storyline in the least, however, and in fact is not even mentioned. We can read this, then, as a way to visually lighten the crime/gangster genre in which this webcomic is operating. There is, of course, a vast difference between seeing the aftermath of a couple of humans killing a warehouse of their peers and the aftermath of a couple furry cats doing the same. Although both the former and the latter would be just drawings and not real warehouse deaths, we seem to assign more weight and realism to images of people and more whimsy to images of anthropomorphic animals, who we read as incapable of actually doing such things in the "real world," thereby allowing us to distance ourselves from the carnage we have just witnessed. In this way, the aesthetic can be argued not so much to support as to subvert the genre in which this webcomic is ostensibly operating.

AllanAnother interesting genre of webcomic is the diary, wherein the cartoonist literally creates a webcomic from their daily life and updates it (often daily) to reflect their own goings-on. One example of this is Allan, which is done by a teenaged boy. The appearance of this webcomic is generally a single panel wide and very long, as though drawn in the margins of a notebook. The sketchy art style, while also being conducive to daily updates, also keeps the impression of a diary, as though the readers are reading Allan's secret scribbles, unpolished and uncensored. This seems in keeping with other webcomics in the diary genre, such as Planet Karen, which is written by a young woman in London. The sketchy, improvisational aesthetic of both of these webcomics lends credibility to the idea that they are off-the-cuff recollections and reflections of daily events. On the other hand, American Elf, one of the longest running diary webcomics displays a certain level of polish, but the art style is loose and humorous, lending to a more informal visual tone. It seems, then, that too much polish and care to a diary webcomic will cause the audience to stop believing in the authenticity of the work.

Although we have started the exploration of the interplay between aesthetics and genre in webcomics, there is still much left to look at. For every webcomic that uses their style or genre in one way, there is another that takes the same idea in a completely different direction. While we have provided a good overview of the range of genres and aesthetics, there are thousands upon thousands of webcomics on the internet, many (if not all) of which are doing very innovative things with their aesthetic as they test the bounds and freedoms that the web offers. Not only can one create sprite comics using computer technology, but one can also generate the kind of digital art that gave Bizaz its truly dizzying look. At the same time, traditional media and media that looks like traditional media are all still welcomed and used to their full potential in many new and interesting ways. Therefore, what is presented here is merely a springboard for exploring the interplay between genre and aesthetics, rather than an exhaustive and authoritative examination.

Webcomics:
Brown, Keith, and Ron van Dijk. Bizaz. http://www.artificialcomix.com/bizaz/Slideshow.htm.
Butler, Tracy J. Lackadaisy. http://www.lackadaisycats.com/.
Clevinger, Brian. 8-bit Theatre. http://www.nuklearpower.com.
Dee, Drew, and Natalie Dee. Married to the Sea. www.marriedtothesea.com.
Gavin, Charlie. Silver Age. http://silveragecomic.com/.
Gurewitch, Nicholas. Perry Bible Fellowship. http://www.pbfcomics.com/.
Holkins, Jerry, and Mike Krahulik. Penny Arcade. http://www.penny-arcade.com.
Kochalka, James. American Elf http://www.americanelf.com/.
Rhodes, Tyler. Castle Vidcons. http://www.castle-vidcons.com/.
Wood, Allan. Allan. http://www.allancomic.com/.