Juxtaposition and the Modal Reach of Comics

The decision to use Archie as fodder for a horror pastiche is perhaps more about IP than anything else, but the medium of comics may be an ideal launch-pad for such an enterprise due to comics much-discussed emphasis on juxtaposition. #Archie #ComicsStudies 1/10

That comics are uniquely effective at juxtaposition draws in what’s called “modal reach,” which simply posits that certain modes of communication have unique specializations that make them well-suited (or alternately ill-suited) to certain types of representation. 2/10

As an example, text is very good at authority, labelling, and crafting interior perspectives (monologues); image is great at immediacy, spatial representation, and plurality; movies are great at spectacle; TV is great at extended character study; etc. 3/10

Speaking to the Archie horror comics line, scholar Alissa Burger argues that “the comics format offers writers, artists, and readers the opportunity for a new perspective – or intersection of perspectives – that not only combines image and text…” 4/10

“…but blurs the lines between past and present, multiple points of view, and familiar tales that become suddenly and unexpectedly reinvented…” In this, Burger speaks to the many forms of juxtaposition already at play in Archie comics. 5/10

And while there’s no consensus amongst comics scholars on how to precisely define what a comic is, the most popular option is that of Scott McCloud who, in “Understanding Comics,” famously defines comics as juxtaposed images in deliberate sequence. 6/10

Simply put, then, comics are built around the concept of closure – the relationships that form between 2 or more perspectives, or modes (text vs image), or subjects, etc. Thus, juxtaposing genres in comics, is just one more form of arrangement to play with. 7/10

This might seem counterintuitive in a medium historically overdetermined by superheroes, but the censorship of the CCA looms large here, and a glance before or after the CCA years (or a glance to nations that didn’t hit a Wertham dark age) shows rich diversity of genres. 8/10

Even a seemingly genre-specific character such as Batman can be seen to have dabbled extensively in non-noir genres such as romance, courtroom drama, high fantasy, horror, and psycho-drama, and that’s just in Tom King’s recent run alone. 9/10

Thus, what seems radical in “Afterlife with Archie” might actually be something quite intuitively familiar to readers of comics in general: putting two properties together and seeing what they become when read within a perceived continuity. 10/10