I cannot resist any email that includes the above line. Or one that opens with, "Question for you, oh knower of things." Both of them together? I'm totally sunk.
I've been sworn to secrecy about the details (actual exchange: "It's very hush-hush, so don't tell anyone about this." "Like I talk to people. Ever. How long have you known me?") which makes me feel about as badass CIA as I ever will - but the basic concern was convincing a school to use a graphic narrative - anticipating the objections and having a critical framework in place. And me? I can spin critical framework like it's going out of style (which, sadly, it very often is. This one time, I decided that I needed to be the next great myth critic. No one bothered to tell me that myth criticism was so totally over and, well, it was embarrassing... wait... what?)
First order of business: what the heck do you call this kind of text, one that intersperses images and text, combines paintings with photographs with design elements. Is it a "graphic novel" even though there aren't frames, per se, there aren't the the regular markers of what we've come to accept as indicative of a graphic novel? The concern was that the reacting parties would label this a "picture book," consider it something akin to The Very Hungry Caterpillar and question the authority and rigor of the assigning institution. So, what do we call it, then, that makes it sound legitimate but also acknowledges that it's different?
See, the problem begins with the fact that I'm not sure we need to "acknowledge that it's different." Oh, and also that I like The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It's interesting. It's pretty. It's award-winning. And it breaks down the expectation of printed texts, getting the reader to interact and play with the book as art object, casting aside expectations of rigidity and formality in the structure of the page. And, uh, it's pretty.
So, from a personal standpoint, I'd call it a "picture book" (It's a book. It has pictures. Boom!) But I get why that wouldn't fly within academia. So, the sticky issue arises - is it considered a graphic novel? That's a term that academia has become quite comfortable bandying about - it's no longer cause for a big dramatic hanky-grabbing gasp when you mention "graphic novels" in a literature course. Granted, the definition is a bit narrow, though. Basically, if it looks like Maus, it's in. If it doesn't look like Maus? You have a case to make.
Don't get me wrong. I love Maus. Well, I love/hate Maus (the balance shifts noticeably when I get back to work on the Maus-focused first chapter of my (hypothetical) dissertation, hit another wall, fling another book). Maus very much cleared the way for using graphic novels in academia - it's a perfect storm of weighty topic versus animal characters, of accessible artwork versus iconic imagery, of assumed high and low discourse. One of my basic assumptions in my (hypothetical) dissertation is that most literary graphic novels (of the flavor with which I deal) stand on the foundation struck by Maus - so it'd be foolish to try to justify this new graphic narrative without acknowledging the influence of Maus.
But does that mean that it has to be held in direct comparison to The Greatest Graphic Novel Of All Time? That seems kind of limited - that there's space for graphic narratives in academia... as long as they play by Maus' rules and cover the same kind of topic and maybe kind of look like Maus and, well, hey... why don't we just use Maus again? That seems much easier.
So, how to get around it? I have no idea. I'm just a lowly graduate student writing a (hypothetical) dissertation. I told my friend to ask the same questions of this graphic narrative as she would of a work like Maus. Why does this work need to incorporate the visual? What's the gap between the written and the visual narratives? Where is the disconnect, the juxtaposition, the ironic and intentional clash between what is written and what is presented? Sure, it might look simplistic and Hungry Caterpillar-esque because there are so few words on the page, so think instead about the amount that's being said visually, that's implied not just by image but by that particular image at that particular moment. Why does this page have a painting (why is the painting of this style, of this object, from this perspective) while that page has a photograph (why is it a photograph of this kind of object, why is it in color, why is the photographer's shadow included) while that page has nothing at all (is it fair to call a page with words on a colored background nothing at all)? Ask it the kinds of questions you'd expect from a text used in academia for this specific purpose and see if it stands up to the criticism.
So, I don't know what the outcome is. I do know I got a little too invested in what started out as a casual email and maybe - maybe - sent back four emails in return, one of which had an extensive works cited page and that name dropped everyone from Chute and Foss and Drucker and I think there might have even been a Sophie Calle mention in there somewhere. Because if you can't convince them based on the merits of the text alone, you might as well just try to overwhelm them with names and citations.
