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

Bingham 37
Chapter II:
Transfusion and Transference: Ideology, Art & how bleeding ink blots substitute
exploding bodies in The Walking Dead
“If we accept the hypothesis that our popular arts mirror our culture, that they are somehow tied to our
concerns and based upon widespread assumptions, then the study of our popular culture becomes an
important means of understanding our society.” -Berger, The Comic Stripped American p. 6-7
An artwork is both a product of labor and an object with timeless qualities—its
value often depends upon its age, rarity, purpose, and ability to convey the skill or
reputation of the artist responsible for its creation. When determining the economic value
of such a work, one also considers aesthetic values. In the case of popular art forms like
comics, economic value is almost always indicative of reproducibility. Generally
speaking, what's reproduced will be related to by a wide-spread audience whose support
is the only guarantee of profitable success. Though comic-strips and books may have a
singularly low economic value, they have been and still are purchased with great
frequency. Engaging interest in an audience over an extended period of time proves that
comics have remained culturally relevant. Discovering how requires an exploration of
content, its presentation, and why that material appeals to an audience too.
Beyond seeing art as an object for consumption, there is a deeper subjective
attraction to art since it is believed by some to possess a direct link to the soul. By this I
mean to say that, at the most basic level, an object evoking aesthetic sensibility also often
elicits an emotional attachment from the viewer which can be so powerful that it equates
to a religious or spiritual experience. One way the significance or success of an artwork
might be measured is in terms of its ability to create shared experience which promotes
communal interaction and response.
Partly as a result of their relatively easy
reproduction, comics have acted as a perfect outlet for expressing matters of political
concern. Comic strips and the longer graphic narratives they've inspired have deep roots