Contending with Closure in Comics

In his seminal book #UnderstandingComics, Scott McCloud argues that comics employ a unique brand of closure, and that closure is essential to the language & power of comics. It may be McCloud’s most enduring & influential theory. It’s also not without critique & controversy. 1/14 #ComicsStudies

McCloud’s theory of closure extends from his definition of comics as “juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence.” Note how McCloud emphasizes the art of juxtaposition–that is, the act of creating meaning through the creative combination & comparison of fragmented images. 2/14

There are, McCloud notes, many types of closure that occur within different types of media as well as our everyday observations of reality. We routinely encounter “incomplete” images or tableaus and instinctively fill in the “missing” pieces to create more complete pictures. 3/14

Much of the time, these acts of closure are unconscious and easy; we typically perceive film as continuous motion rather than a collection of fragments. But in comics, McCloud argues, “the audience is a willing and conscious collaborator and closure is the agent of change, time and motion.” 4/14

In comics, there’s conventionally a graphic demarcation between sequential images known as the gutter. As such, the fragmented nature of comics is always overtly visible. And this visible gutter, McCloud argues, “plays host to much of the magic and mystery that are at the very heart of comics!” 5/14

“Here in the limbo of the gutter,” says McCloud, “the human imagination takes two separate images and transforms them into a single idea.” Elsewhere, McCloud argues that closure allows us to transform a “jagged, staccato rhythm of unconnected moments” into “a continuous, unified reality.” 6/14

In the decades since the publication of Understanding Comics, aspects of McCloud’s closure have been avidly embraced by comics scholars, while other aspects have been criticised as under-theorized, in general and in relation to other fields of studies that employ similar concepts & terminology. 7/14

Many scholars embrace the participatory element of McCloudian closure, wherein artists & readers are “equal partners in crime.” The study of autobiographical & historical comics often emphasizes ways in which this participatory collaboration can foster radical empathy between artists & readers. 8/14

As Charles Hatfield explains, embracing McCloud’s closure helped elevate comics studies: “Early academic studies… tended to treat comics as a diversion from genuine reading… As if to challenge this condescending portrayal… comics studies has firmly embraced the McCloudian empowered reader.” 9/14

Other scholars argue McCloud doesn’t sufficiently explain how comics use closure differently than films. As Greg Cwiklik notes, McCloud “[p]aradoxically… illustrates his point about the uniqueness of this complicity between reader & creator with examples that apply just as easily to film.” 10/14

Ken Parille, meanwhile, argues McCloud’s closure is too simplistic: “For Understanding Comics, to imagine is to picture. Studies of cognition suggest otherwise… some people process visually while others think textually… we provide closure—or choose not to—in ways that defy simple theorizing.” 11/14

Yet other scholars have taken up McCloud’s theory of closure and modified it to fit their needs. For instance, Barbara Postema embraces the participatory aspect of McCloudian closure but differs from McCloud in her conception of how readers might–or might not–fill the gaps between the gutters. 12/14

For Postema, readers don’t necessarily reassemble fragmented comics panels into unified realities. Instead, “fragmentation and absence operate throughout [comics] as signifying functions,” encouraging participatory practices that can actually embrace jagged, staccato rhythms. 13/14

Ultimately, if comics artists & readers are “equal partners in crime,” the nuances of closure can and must be substantiated by ongoing debates between creators, theorists, and readers. So what do you think? Does McCloudian closure work? Or do we need to keep working on why it does or doesn’t? 14/14