The Politics of the Diagram as Graphic Narrative: Chris Ware and Chad McCail

[...]within each planche, multiple reading paths are possible. [...]Wealthy Parasites Need Millions of Submissive Zombies (Figure 2) is decomposed into numerous (usually borderless) panels, organized into small groups or mini-sequences, none of which necessarily demands to be read first: it is, in T...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	SubStance 2017-01, Vol.46 (2), p.33-49
Main Author:	Cohn, Jesse
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	"Building Stories" 1900-1999 1967 2000-2099 ACME Novelty Library series American literature Anarchism in art Anarchism in literature antiauthoritarianism Art galleries & museums Comic books, strips, etc Criticism and interpretation Cultural capital Cultural policy Culture diagram fiction graphic fiction Graphic novels Jimmy Corrigan Libraries McCail, Chad Modernism narrative form Narratives Paratext Political aspects Politics Postmodernism Radicalism Satrapi, Marjane (1969- ) Scottish literature The Smartest Kid on Earth Time Ware, Chris
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Summary:	[...]within each planche, multiple reading paths are possible. [...]Wealthy Parasites Need Millions of Submissive Zombies (Figure 2) is decomposed into numerous (usually borderless) panels, organized into small groups or mini-sequences, none of which necessarily demands to be read first: it is, in Thomas Bredehoft's useful term, not entirely formless or nonlinear but "multilinear" (885). [...]this element of "vitality"–here, knotted up or stifled under abstract armor; there, enwrapped in the winding dance of utopian joy–is what animates McCail's work, giving it its peculiar temporality. In his ACME Novelty Library, however, the quasi-diagrammatic text accompanying each "miniature panoramic 'peep show'" to be assembled is addressed to readers "quelled by their lack of emotional maturity [...] choos[ing] to remain alone in [their] room[s], free from the tensions produced by forced interaction with others" (ACME Novelty Library 8: n.p.). [...]they are positioned as "a handy virtual reference guide to the psychological setting" of the narrative (ACME Novelty Library 13: n.p.)–i.e., the same combination of melancholy, nostalgia, and (especially) sexual shame that block experimentation, motion, and relation. [...]in the summer of 2014, when planning new murals for Becontree, a council estate in Dagenham, England, McCail invited "[e]veryone who has lived, worked or simply passed through [...] to share their stories, photos and memories" with the aim of making murals that would be not only an expression of his own politics but "directly relevant" to the people living with them (Mayhew; McCail qtd. in Mayhew).
ISSN:	0049-2426 1527-2095 1527-2095