{"id":3007,"date":"2023-10-13T14:56:53","date_gmt":"2023-10-13T14:56:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sequentialscholars.com\/?page_id=3007"},"modified":"2023-11-16T03:08:36","modified_gmt":"2023-11-16T03:08:36","slug":"the-thorny-question-of-comics-authorship","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sequentialscholars.com\/?page_id=3007","title":{"rendered":"The Thorny Question of Comics Authorship"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Thorny Question of Comics Authorship
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The Governor General\u2019s Award is widely considered the highest honor in Canadian Literature. Though \u201cSkim\u201d was the first graphic novel to be nominated for this distinction, the committee\u2019s choice to credit Mariko Tamaki as sole author foregrounds a huge problem in comics.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Weeks after the nomination was revealed, Chester Brown and Seth (highly accomplished Canadian graphic novelists) published an open letter that condemned the decision to leave artist Jillian Tamaki off the ballot. They write:<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cThe Text of a graphic novel cannot be separated from its illustrations because the words & the pictures together are the text.\u201d The council didn’t change the nomination (citing time restrictions) & Skim lost the award. But the open letter was cosigned by many in the comics.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In an interview with THIS Magazine, Jillian graciously takes notice of the letter, stating that, \u201cIn a tiny way, I believe the letter nudged the comics community and the book community together, at least in Canada and albeit briefly.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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As her interviewer, Drew Nelles, notes, Jillian \u201cis everywhere in Skim, in every pained adolescent expression & looming empty space. Her contribution escaped the Canada Council for the Arts, unaccustomed as it was to a foreign format. But her presence stays with the reader.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Like cinema, comics are a collaborative medium. Unlike cinema, comics do not (typically) have directors, and centring accreditation on the author is a problem. Often, the writer is functionally the director of a comic. Often, however, they are not.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Nor is this simply a question of vanity. Consider the legal battles & media wars around the \u201cauthorship\u201d (and therefore \u2013 to some degree – proprietary rights) of Disney\u2019s multi-billion-dollar Marvel comics properties. The stakes on this issue can be ludicrously high.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Further questions arising from these debates include: which other collaborators get credit (inkers, colorists, letterers etc)?; how do comics get cited in academic papers?; how much input is required to constitute \u2018plotting\u2019 or even \u201cco-illustrating\u201d through script notes?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Jillian\u2019s tremendous contribution to \u201cSkim\u201d is obvious enough that it shouldn’t merit debate. Yet The council made the same mistake in 2014 as well, crediting Mariko alone for \u201cThis One Summer,\u201d while awarding \u201cChildren\u2019s Illustration\u201d to Jillian for that same comic. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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As extreme as Jillian\u2019s case was\/is, there are many even subtler instances out there to be engaged with, all pointing to a simple broader point: our literary infrastructure just isn\u2019t built to approach comics and we should fix that.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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This thread has a video version! Watch here or on YouTube.<\/p>\n

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The Governor General\u2019s Award is widely considered the highest honor in Canadian Literature. Though \u201cSkim\u201d was the first graphic novel to be nominated for this distinction, the committee\u2019s choice to credit Mariko Tamaki as sole author foregrounds a huge problem in comics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2989,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3007","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Thorny Question of Comics Authorship - Sequential Scholars<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sequentialscholars.com\/?page_id=3007\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Thorny Question of Comics Authorship - Sequential Scholars\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Governor General\u2019s Award is widely considered the highest honor in Canadian Literature. 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