Walking Corpses & Conscious Plants: Possibilist Ecologies in ...

1
Gillray, James. John Bull's Progress. 3 June 1793. Hand-Colored Etching. 11 7/8 in. x 14 7/8 in.
(303 mm x 379 mm) paper size. Published by Hannah Humphrey. Purchased, 1947 by
National Portrait Gallery, London.
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According to Scott McCloud, “Whenever an artist invents a new way to represent the invisible, there is always a chance
that it will be picked up by other artists. If enough artists begin using the symbol, it will enter the language for good—as
many have through the years” (Understanding 129). When visually constructing a story, elements of dialogue and
conversation certainly classify as invisible. For example, timing and delivery are difficult to convey merely through
captions especially in cases where words are spoken simultaneously. Variations in font style and size can also illustrate
tone, emphasizing particular phrases to convey changes in volume or other manners of speech. As techniques like
speech balloons became commonplace, it became more easy to convey narratives depicting the interplay between
various characters rather than ones structured upon scenes which condensed multiple series of actions or summaries into
single images.
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According to Amy Kiste Nyberg, “The notion of harm is at the core of many of the ethical questions raised about the
mass media, both historically and in contemporary times. In the controversy over comic books, this harm is defined at
two levels. First is the harm done to individual children and critics of comic books relied on anecdotal evidence of
children who modeled their own behavior after actions depicted in their comics. Second is the harm done to society,
since comic books were implicated by some in the rise of juvenile delinquency in postwar America” (28).