Judging a Comic Book by its Cover
Marvel Comics, Photo-covers, and the Objectivity of Photography
Roy T. Cook
Abstract:
Marvel Comics produced a number of comics with photographic covers during the 1980s. In this paper, I examine the aesthetic function played by these photo-covers. After examining and rejecting two inadequate accounts -- first, that these photo-covers are merely a marketing tool, and second, that these photo-covers give us privileged access to the (fictional) appearance of the characters and settings depicted on the covers, I argue that these covers are instead intended to meta-fictionally comment on the indirect, inferential nature of depiction in comics. In short, by utilizing the purportedly objective medium of photography, yet still failing to provide reliable evidence regarding the appearance of characters and settings, these covers highlight the fact that all information or evidence regarding appearances provided by the images contained in, or appearing on, comics is indirect, inferential, and defeasible.
Résumé:
Dans les années 1980, la société Marvel a publié un certain nombre de comics à couverture photographique. Dans cet article, j’analyse la fonction esthétique de ces couvertures. Je commence par écarter deux explications inappropriées, à savoir (1) que ces couvertures photographiques seraient un instrument de marketing et rien de plus, et (2) qu’elles donneraient un accès privilégié à la représentation (fictionnelle) des personnages et des décors. Je défends en revanche l’idée que ces couvertures fonctionnent comme un commentaire métafictionnel sur le caractère indirect, par inférence, de la représentation en bande dessinée. Bref, en utilisant le médium soi-disant objectif de la photographie, sans pour autant être capables d’apporter une preuve fiable de l’apparence physique des personnages et des décors, ces couvertures soulignent le fait que toute information ou toute preuve relative à l’apparence offerte par des images dans une bande dessinée est indirecte, faite par inférence, et donc sujette à caution.
Keywords:
Comics Covers and the Objectivity of Photography
During the 1980s (and early 1990s) Marvel Comics produced a number of issues with photo-covers, including: Amazing Spider-Man #262 (March 1985), Dazzler #21 (November 1982), Fantastic Four #268 (July 1984), Marvel Team-Up #128 (April 1983), Punisher Vol. 2 #57 (December 1991), and
Spider-woman #50 (June 1983).1 The prevalence of photo-covers on Marvel comics during this period
was no accident.2 Bob Layton, who wrote and drew the interior pages for Amazing Spider-man #262,
stated that “[a]s far as the photo cover goes, I have to credit Jim Shooter for the original idea. Photo covers were a pet project for him and he approached Eliot and me about doing one for my fill-in project” (n. pag.). Eloit Brown did not merely produce the cover for Layton’s issue of Amazing Spider-man, however. All of Marvel’s photo-covers of this era were created by Brown.3 Thus, while Marvel’s
photo-cover trend might have been a marketing ploy, it was more than this: taken together these photo-covers are a significant, substantial, unified body of work, produced under the explicit direction of Marvel’s then editor-in-chief (Shooter) and created by Marvel’s resident photo-cover auteur (Brown).4 Thus, these
covers are not merely quirky, playful, and occasional deviations from standard comics cover production practices, but serve some artistic or narrative end. As a result, it is worth interrogating how, exactly, we should understand such covers -- that is, we should attempt to determine what artistic or narrative end these photo-covers serve. This is the task undertaken in the remainder of this essay.
In asking how we should understand these covers, one obvious but notable characteristic stands out: these covers are instances of photography, a medium often celebrated for its objectivity. The idea that the chemical/mechanical process underlying photography provides the medium with a particular claim to objectivity -- one not shared by other, more intentional means of pictorial depiction such as drawing or painting -- traces back to André Bazin, who writes that “… the photographic image is the object itself, the object free from the conditionals of time and space that govern it. No matter how fuzzy, distorted, or discolored… it shares, by virtue of the very process of its becoming the being of the model of which it is the reproduction; it is the model” (14). We need not accept Bazin’s suspect identification of photograph and photographed in order to acknowledge the more fundamental claim: that photographs do, in fact, seem to present their subject matter in a more objective manner than other modes of representation, including the drawings typically found on the covers of comics. In particular, 1. The one-shot Marvel Fumetti Book #1 (April 1984) also featured a photo-cover. Since this comic was a genuine photo-comic (i.e., fumetti), rather than a more traditionally drawn superhero comic with a non-standard photographic cover, however, we shall set it aside for the moment. Scans of all of these photo-covers can be found at the Marvel Database website: http://marvel.wikia.com/Main_Page.
2. DC experimented with photographic covers a decade earlier, but these without exception consisted either of traditionally drawn characters superimposed over a photographic background (e.g., Action Comics #419, December 1972) or a photograph of a guest-starring real-life celebrity superimposed on drawn art (e.g., Superman’s
Pal Jimmy Olsen #141, September 1971). I know of no cases where DC Comics cover art depicts one of their
characters via a photograph of a costumed actor/model.
3. The interior pages of Fumetti #1 are attributed to Eliot Brown. Brown also created a partially photographic cover for Invincible Iron Man #152 (November 1981) and a photographic cover for Punisher: War Journal #36 (November 1991). Since these covers do not depict the main characters photographically, however (the former consists of a traditional hand-drawn image of Iron Man superimposed over a photograph of New York, the latter is a photograph of a bloodied wedding cake with a ‘Punisher’ topper), they are somewhat orthogonal to our present concerns.
4. I know of no instances of Marvel comics with photo-covers produced by anyone other than Brown during the 1980s or 1990s.
photographs seem to provide reliable information about the visual appearance of the objects that they depict.5
Of course, seeming often fails to entail being: The idea that the mechanical / chemical process underlying photography provides a special, uniquely objective kind of access to the objects being represented -- one not provided by otherwise similar representations obtained via the non-mechanical, intensional processes involved in drawing or painting -- has not gone unchallenged. For example, in On Photography Susan Sontag writes:
But despite the presumption of veracity that gives all photographs authority, interest, seductiveness, the work that photographers do is no generic exception to the usually shady commerce between art and truth. Even when photographers are most concerned with mirroring reality, they are still haunted by tacit imperatives of taste and conscience… In deciding how a picture should look, in preferring one exposure to another, photographers are always imposing standards on their subjects. Although there is a sense in which the camera does indeed capture reality, not just interpret it, photographs are as much an interpretation of the world as paintings or drawings are. (6-7)
Fortunately, for the purposes of the present essay we need not settle this question, since Sontag’s observations grant us all that is needed: Even if photographs are not genuinely objective in the sense they are typically taken to be (by both everyday audiences and by some scholars such as Bazin), they are, in fact, typically taken (by both scholars and everyday viewers) to be objective -- that is, they have what I shall call objective purport.6
It is worth noting that the photographs we are interested in are fictional photographs -- they are photographs that fictionally depict various comic book characters (even while they also depict the actors and costumes that were physically present in front of the camera). Since the questions we are asking here concern the manner in which we ought to interpret these photographs as parts of the fictions in question, the relevant questions are not of the form:
Should we take these photographs to be especially objective with respect to the actual appearance of the actors photographed?
But are instead something more along the lines of:
Should we take these photographs to be especially objective with respect to the fictional appearance of the superheroes depicted?
5. Even amongst those who agree with Bazin that photographs are more objective than non-mechanical representations of the same subject matter, there is little agreement regarding what the objectivity of photographs amounts to, and what aspects of photography underlie this objectivity. Proposals for explaining the objectivity of photographs have been formulated in terms of photographs re-presenting their subjects (Bazin, “The Ontology of the Photographic Image”), being ‘traces’ of their subjects (Gregory Currie), having perceived objectivity (Barbara Savedoff), and being transparent representations of the actual world (Kendall Walton)..
6. Note that it seems unlikely that even Sontag pronounces a warning about the lack of objectivity of her vacation photos before showing them to family and friends.
If our questions concern whether and how we are to understand these photo-covers as representations of the superheroes depicted -- that is, if they are questions about how to understand these photographs as (parts of) fictions -- then whether or not photographs are, in fact, objective seems somewhat beside the point, since genuine objectivity presumably only holds (if it holds at all) between the viewer and the actual objects photographed (i.e., the actors, their costumes, etc). Instead, what seems relevant is whether the creators of these photo-covers would take photographs in general to be objective, whether they would expect their readers to do so as well, and whether they intend the reader to interpret the photo-covers with these ideas (mistaken or not) in mind. In other words, with respect to interpreting the comics in question as fictional narratives, the important issue is whether photographs have objective purport, not whether they are in fact objective in Bazin’s sense.7
The objective purport of photography suggests a possible answer to our question about photo-covers. If readers can be expected to (legitimately) attribute the same sort of objectivity to photo-covers as representations of the appearance of Marvel superheroes as we tend to attribute to more everyday applications of the photographic medium (regardless of whether we are right to do so), then it follows that the photo-covers produced by Marvel during the 1980s provide us with a particularly reliable guide to the (fictional) appearance of the characters depicted on those covers. In particular, according to this reading, these photo-covers would provide more reliable guides than the stylized art found on the interior pages of the comic, and Peter Parker would ‘really’ look like the actor who portrays him on the cover of Amazing Spider-man #262.
While this reading of Marvel’s photo-covers is tempting, it is also incorrect. Photo-covers do not, in general, provide us with more reliable information regarding the physical appearance of characters than that provided by more traditional hand-drawn cartoon depictions. Instead, photo-covers are most fruitfully understood as functioning metafictionally. They highlight and comment on the quirks and limitations of the means of representation in traditionally hand-drawn comics, and forcefully underline the consequent epistemological limitations regarding our knowledge of the appearance of people and things contained within the fictional worlds described by comics.
Covers and Contents
Before undertaking the main argument, one potential objection to the entire project needs to be headed off: the thought that mainstream comic cover art functions purely commercially, as merchandizing. The idea that photo-covers provide a particularly reliable guide to the appearance of the fictional characters depicted, in virtue of the objective purport of photography, requires at a minimum that the visual content of the cover of a comic book is relevant to our interpretation of, and understanding of, the fiction presented within, and to our assessment of the comic as a whole. If, however, comic book covers function purely commercially, this would suggest that the cover art of a comic is irrelevant to our appreciation of the comic itself as a work of art, or to our understanding and interpretation of the narrative given in the
7. For additional discussion of how the apparent objectivity of photography plays out within comics, see Cook, “Drawings of Photographs in Comics.” I appropriated the term ‘objective purport’ (here, and in the earlier publication) from Aaron Smuts.
interior pages of the comic. As a result, there would be little of interest in the investigation undertaken in this essay.8
The worry begins with the commonplace observation that the content of mainstream superhero comic book cover art often diverges from the content of the narrative given both verbally and visually within its pages. Of course, this is not always the case. In some comics, the content of the cover makes a relatively straightforward contribution to our understanding of the fiction contained within. For example, the cover might reproduce events explicitly depicted within the interior pages, or it might illustrate actions or events that are implied but not explicitly depicted in the interior art. In such cases, the cover presumably contributes to our appreciation and interpretation of the comic in much the same way as does the art on interior pages.9
In other cases, however, the connection between what is depicted on the cover of a comic and what is depicted within that comic is much less straightforward, and the literal content of the art adorning the cover of a comic may even be at odds with the content of the interior pages (for example, superheroes die, or at least appear to die, much more frequently on covers than they do within interior pages), forcing us to mobilize more sophisticated interpretative tools if we wish to arrive at a coherent interpretation of the work as a whole. Such covers are commonplace enough that John Byrne parodies them on the cover of The Sensational She-Hulk #37 (March 1992). The cover of this issue features Spider-man, Wolverine, and the Punisher in action poses, and “Wolverine, the Punisher, and Spider-man starring on this issue!” appears in a large ‘burst’ balloon in the upper left hand corner of the cover. Less noticeable at first glance is the She-Hulk, drawn as if she is pulling up the bottom of the cover and peeking out from behind it, warning the reader that “But you’ll notice that nothing is said about them actually being in this issue!” (n. pag. emphasis in original).
Given this, we can fairly ask whether coherent coordination of content between cover and interior pages is, in fact, an interpretative demand in the first place. After all, there is a straightforward, theoretically uninteresting possible explanation for this divergence, one that de-fuses the demand for an interpretation that coherently merges cover content and interior content: comic book covers are (merely) a marketing tool. Although speaking of novels, and not comics, fantasy novelist Larry Correia provides a particularly adamant formulation of this thought on his blog: “Aspiring authors, get this through your head. Cover art serves one purpose, and one purpose only, to get potential customers interested long enough to pick up the book to read the back cover blurb. In the internet age that means the thumb nail
8. Some readers might find this section overlong and bordering on overkill, especially since it is unlikely that an examination of comic book covers would appear in Image and Narrative if covers were not interpretationally relevant. Nevertheless, I think a careful examination of (the existence of) the interpretational role of comic book cover art is important for the following reason: Whenever I have attempted to discuss the interpretational or narrative relevance of comic book cover art, I have immediately faced repeated, adamant objections to the effect that comic book cover art is nothing more than merchandising, and thus irrelevant to interpreting the comic inside the covers. Objections of this sort have come from comic fans, comic book industry professionals, popular culture bloggers, and comics studies scholars.
9. Of course, providing a detailed account of how comic book narrative works is a Herculean task -- one that is likely to keep many comics scholars busy for a long time to come -- and I will not try to sketch a full account (even if I had one) here. The point is merely that, in cases where the content of the cover agrees with the content of the narrative given within the comic, it seems safe to assume that however those interior pages function, the cover will function similarly.
image needs to be interesting enough to click on. That’s what covers are for” (n. pag.). If, straightforwardly generalizing Correia’s suggestion, comic cover art is also nothing more than marketing, then it would seem to follow that the content of covers should be interpreted solely as a function of this understandable desire to move comics from shelves and spinner racks to the long-boxes of comics consumers. Thus, content that conflicts in some way with -- or even merely outstrips -- the story told within the interior pages can, on this account, be discarded as interpretationally irrelevant, an artifact of the commercial nature of mainstream comic books.
Nothing in the present essay is intended to downplay or contradict the observation that mainstream comic book cover art (or cover art for comics and graphic novels more generally) plays a significant commercial role in the relevant production and consumption practices, nor that such cover art is often designed with this role primarily in mind. Further, given the recent growth of fan studies and other sociologically-oriented approaches to comics and popular art, there is no doubt that much more needs to be said about how, exactly, these material, commercial concerns affect the content of cover art, and the ways that we interact with such art.10 But such a study will have to wait for another essay (and likely,
another researcher, with a distinct set of skills).
If the role of cover art is solely commercial, however, then an objection to the present project is easy to formulate: The photo-covers produced by Marvel during the 1980s and early 1990s are, no doubt, a marketing ploy (the point of the present project is to argue that they are not merely marketing ploys -- that is, that they are artistically, narratively, and theoretically significant). Given the fact that these covers are motivated (at least in part) by commercial, rather than aesthetic or narrative, factors, surely we can (and should) treat their content as playing a purely commercial, as opposed to aesthetic or narrative, role. In short, on this view any account that places a special emphasis on the objectivity or reliability (or apparent objectivity or reliability) of the appearances of characters in photo-covers would be a case of confusing the purely commercial function actually played by such cover art with a narratively and artistically relevant role rarely or never played by such content.
In order to rebut this kind of narrative and aesthetic deflationism regarding the content of cover art in general, and of Marvel’s 1980s photo-covers in particular, we need to determine whether, and how, the content of a mainstream comic cover impacts our understanding, evaluation, and interpretation of the narrative as a whole, regardless of whether that content owes its existence to commercial motivations, aesthetic / narrative motivations, or a combination of the two. And it turns out that, even if some aspects of a particular piece of cover art are due to purely commercial considerations, the cover and its content are still a part of the work, and any account of how narratives are constructed within comics will need to deal with the role played by that content. In short, even if in many cases an explanation of why a particular cover has a particular content should be given, at least in part, in terms of marketing and commercial factors, our account of how that content, once produced, contributes to our understanding of the comic as a whole might be independent of such considerations.11
10. For excellent examples of fandom studies, see Duffett; Jenkins; and Pustz.
11. Note that this last observation is formulated using “might be” rather than “is”. Although in many cases the way that the content of the cover contributes to our overall understanding of the work might be independent of the cover’s role in merchandising, this isn’t always the case. We have already seen an example of this: John Byrne’s parody of the merchandizing role of covers on The Sensational She-Hulk #37.
The most straightforward means for demonstrating that the cover art is a part of the work, and thus relevant to our interpretation and evaluation of the comic it accompanies, is to note that it is possible to have two distinct comics (i.e. two distinct works) whose interior pages are identical, and which differ only in terms of the cover art within which those pages are contained. Of course, there are many familiar cases where the same comic is produced with a range of different, ‘variant’ covers, and there is little doubt that these are nevertheless instances of the same comic.12 But the point does not require
that any change in cover art constitutes a change in the identity of a comic. We only require that such changes sometimes result in a new work. And this weaker claim is simple to establish: if the interior pages of Marvel Team-up #128 had appeared with cover art featuring the Captain America logo, rather than the Marvel Team-up logo, indicating that the comic was an installment in the Captain America series (rather than an installment of the de facto Spider-man-starring series misleadingly titled Marvel Team-up), then this would indicate that proper interpretation of the work would require appreciation of the work as an installment in a larger serialized work starring Captain America. Interpreting the work as part of a larger story about Captain America, however, rather than as an installment in a larger story about Spider-man, will have obvious interpretational ramifications.13 And if a change in cover art of this
sort can have ramifications for how we understand individual comics, then it follows that cover art is an integral part of a comic, and appreciation of and interpretation of covers is an important ingredient in proper appreciation of and interpretation of the comics they cover.
Cover art can make a number of distinct contributions to our understanding and interpretation of a comic. We have already touched on one rather substantial such contribution: in featuring the title of the comic, the cover art indicates the relevant series (or indicates the relevant mini-series or that the issue is a one-shot, etc.) within which the particular issue in question should be located, and against which it should be understood. I will call such covers, which are near universal in mainstream superhero works, titling covers. But comic book cover art can play other roles. Neutral covers, for example, straightforwardly re-depict some event depicted within the interior pages of the comic. Closely related, but more substantial in terms of interpretational effect, are reinforcing covers and focusing covers, which, via the depiction of particular events, or via the depiction of such events in a distinctive manner, serve to reinforce the importance of certain aspects of or themes within the narrative, and to focus attention on the importance of certain aspects of or themes within the narrative, respectively. Another role is the undermining cover, which ironically comments on or downplays the importance of some or all of the events depicted within the interior pages.14 A fifth type, rare in mainstream superhero comics
(but relatively common in DC Comics’ spinoff Vertigo imprint) is the non sequitur cover, where the 12. There are interesting questions regarding how we ought to understand the differences between varying tokens of the same multiply-instanced comic. For example, collectors distinguish between different variant cover editions of the same work, and we might ask whether such practices reflect art-theoretically relevant differences between the editions or merely reflect fandom-based commercial considerations. These issues are touched on in Cook and Meskin. A thorough examination of this issue is beyond the scope of the present essay.
13. For a detailed examination of the mereological properties of series and mini-series, and how these impact our understanding and interpretation of individual comic issues, see Cook, “Do Comics Require Pictures?”
14. John Byrne repeatedly used undermining covers in his two-part metafictional, parady-fueled run on The
Sensational She-Hulk. A striking example is the cover to The Sensational She-Hulk #2 (June 1989), which depicts
the She-Hulk reading an old Incredible Hulk comic, commenting that “Boy! Cousin Bruce sure had to put up with a truckload of weirdo’s in his second issue!” while a group of toad men sneak up on her from behind.
art neither corroborates nor conflicts with the content and tone of the interior pages, but instead seems completely orthogonal to the narrative contained in the work. Disambiguating covers serve to specify an interpretational preference for one reading of the narrative over another, where the interior pages are ambiguous in some manner. A seventh category -- allusive covers -- includes covers that reference some other comic or artwork. Allusive covers are quite common within comics, in the form of homage covers that pay tribute to, or parody, historically or artistically important comic covers.15 Finally, some comic
book covers -- metafictional covers -- involve overt metafictional commentary on the narrative content of the interior pages, often via a character breaking the ‘fourth wall’ and addressing the reader directly.16
This taxonomy is meant to be neither exclusive nor exhaustive17: comic book cover art can play
more than one of these roles, and some covers might not play any of them. For example, many covers of the last two types -- allusive and metafictional -- adopt these strategies in order to carry out their additional reinforcing, focusing, undermining, or disambiguating functions, and almost all mainstream superhero comics are both titling covers and instances of at least one of the other categories. Further, there are no doubt other interpretationally relevant roles that the cover art of a comic might play. Nevertheless, as an initial attempt to provide a representative sampling of the various roles that cover art might play, with an eye towards demonstrating that the content of cover art is often central to a proper interpretation of a comic, this taxonomy will suffice.
The Non-transparency of Cover Art
We can return to the main question: How should we understand the content of the Marvel Comics’ photo-covers? Recall the thought explored in the introduction: that these covers, in virtue of their mobilization of photography, and in virtue of the greater objective purport enjoyed by photography in comparison to drawing or painting, provide us with particularly reliable information regarding the (fictional) appearance of the characters depicted on the covers in question.
Before considering reasons why we should reject this account, it is worth noting that the account is not on the face of it absurd. On the one hand, the drawings found within comics are not particularly reliable guides to the appearance of the characters that inhabit the fictional worlds depicted. After all, it is true within the Spider-man fiction that Spider-man is a (genetically modified) human being, and it is true within the fiction that he appears to be a perfectly normal human being (at least, when not clinging precariously to walls). Given this, the drawings found on the interior pages of typical Spider-man comics do not provide particularly detailed or accurate evidence regarding Spider-man’s appearance, since they involve conventional and stylistic visual features (such as black lines surrounding objects, distorted or
15. For example, Fantastic Four #1 (November 1961) has been re-created in the form of allusive covers more than one hundred times. A gallery of such homages can be found at: http://zak-site.com/Great-American-Novel/ ff-tributes.html. Retrieved March 20, 2015.
16. John Byrne’s run on The Sensational She-Hulk provides a wealth of examples of metafictional covers, including the famous first issue -- The Sensational She-Hulk #1 (May 1989) -- where the She-Hulk threatens to tear up potential readers’ copies of X-Men if they don’t buy her comic book.
17. This taxonomy (and much of this section) owes much, including some of the terminology (“neutral”, “reinforcing”, “focusing”, “disambiguating”, and “allusive”) to the extremely insightful analysis of the functions played by the titles of artworks found in Jerrold Levinson’s “Titles.”
simplified facial and anatomical features, motion lines, etc.) that cannot be interpreted as representing what Spider-man and his world would actually look like were we able to enter it.
On the other hand, we do (and are meant to) take the appearance of fictional characters in photographic narratives – such as film, television, and photo-comics – as extremely reliable evidence regarding how those characters look. When viewing Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, we are meant to imagine that Obi-wan Kenobi in fact looks (fictionally) exactly like Sir Alec Guinness (actually). In short, when viewing the film we are in some sense seeing two things simultaneously: we see Alec Guiness pretending to swing a lightsaber, and we pretend to see, or imagine seeing, Obi-wan Kenobi (fictionally) swing a lightsaber, but the two events appear to us exactly the same.18
The difference between the objectivity of the depiction of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s appearance in film and the relative lack of objectivity, reliability, or accuracy in the depiction of Spider-man in comics does not rely on any in-principle difference between comics and cinema. The same limitations that affect our ability to ascertain exactly what Spider-man looks like when reading comics also affects our ability to ascertain exactly what Bambi looks like in the animated Disney film. Likewise, photo-comics (as opposed to comics that merely involve a photo-cover) such as Marvel Fumetti #1 provide reliable information regarding the physical appearance of the characters depicted within the comic: we are meant to conclude that the fictional character named “Stan Lee” that appears in Marvel Fumetti looks exactly like the actual Marvel Comics luminary of the same name. Thus, the relevant distinction is not between comics and cinema, but rather between comics and cinema whose depictions are generated primarily via the mechanical / chemical photographic process and comics and cinema whose depictions are generated by the intensional, non-mechanical processes of drawing or painting.19
How are we to explain this difference, then? One promising strategy is provided by Kendall Walton’s influential account of the nature of fiction.20 Walton develops an account of fiction whereby
fictions, including primarily pictorial fictions such as comics and films, are collections of rules for games of make-believe. The main components of the view are as follows:
1. If a statement is stated as, or shown to be, true within the fiction, then we are prima facie meant to imagine that the statement in question is true when playing the relevant game of make-believe -- that is, when experiencing the fiction.
2. A particular claim is true-in-the-fiction or false-in-the-fiction if competently playing the relevant game of make-believe (i.e. competently experiencing, understanding, and interpreting
18. This is not to say that the actual seeing and the pretended or imagined seeing have all the same properties: the lightsaber battle at the end of Episode IV can simultaneously appear to be both an awkward interaction between two aging actors and a dramatic and epic interaction between two fictional characters.
19. For a detailed examination of the differences between the way in which photographs and drawings / paintings depict, and the different roles that intentionality plays in each medium, see Scruton.
20. The present essay is not the place to defend Walton’s account as the correct account of the nature of fiction and fictional truth. Suffice it to say that I am extremely sympathetic to Walton’s approach, and that the account, or some modification of it, is both widely accepted and highly influential within analytic philosophy of art (although it is rather more contested in other academic disciplines concerned with the nature of fiction). At any rate, we need to adopt some account here, and Walton’s seems as good for present purposes as any other. Most of the points made in the remainder of this essay can be adapted to a wide range of competing accounts of the nature of fiction.
the fiction) requires that we imagine that claim to be true or false respectively.21
Extending this account to pictorial fiction (and pictorial representations more generally) requires an additional layer of complexity: if, in a novel, we read “Spider-man took off his mask”, we are meant to imagine that Spider-man takes off his mask, but we are not required to draw any particular conclusions regarding how, exactly, the act of mask-removal appears (either to us or to other fictional characters) beyond what is explicitly stated in, or implied by, the text. When we are reading a comic or shown a film that visually depicts Spider-man taking off his mask, however, we are not only meant to imagine that he removes his mask, but we are also meant to imagine that we are seeing him take off the mask, and to imagine that the act of mask removal appears to us as it appears in the pictorial depiction.22
As a result, the more stylized, and less realistic, a visual depiction is, the greater the gap is between how we are to imagine that a particular scene looks to us when we imagine seeing it (i.e., when we are playing the relevant game of make-believe) and how we are to imagine that the scene actually appears within the fiction (i.e., how it would appear to other characters within the fiction, who are not experiencing these events as mediated through the depiction and its role in the game of make-believe). Since photographs are typically significantly less stylized than drawn images, there is less inferring to do with respect to visual appearance: we can safely conclude that characters in standardly photographic media such as cinema closely resemble their appearance in the relevant photographs so long as their appearance in such photographs is (i) consistent throughout the work and (ii) similar, in relevant respects, to how such characters and events would appear were they to occur in the actual world.23 With the drawn
characters found within comic books, however, a good bit of inferring is required, since we are meant to imagine that they appear to us, when we are imagining seeing them, much as they appear in the panel art, but we are clearly not meant to imagine that they appear this way (surrounded by black lines, with pore-less skin and visible action lines, with dramatically variable physical appearances from one month to the next, etc.) when seen by other characters within the fiction.
The critical question, then, is whether this story generalizes to the Marvel photo-covers that are the focus of this essay. Is it the case that these covers, in virtue of their greater resemblance to how Spider-man might appear if he existed in the actual world, are reliable, objective representations of what Spider-man really looks like? There are at least two reasons for thinking that the answer to this question is “no”.
First, it is worth noting that the use of photography on these covers is non-standard: Mainstream Marvel superhero comics (including their covers) usually consist solely of drawn depictions of the characters, events, and locations that feature in the narrative, and the use of photography is thus a departure from the narrative and representational conventions standardly at work in these comics. An account that simultaneously admitted that the use of photography was a dramatic departure from the way comics storytelling typically functions, but which nevertheless claimed that this non-standard use
21. See, Walton’s Chapter 1 of Mimesis as Make-believe.
22. See, Walton’s Chapter 8 of Mimesis as Make-believe. For an excellent further development of Walton’s ideas, to which the present essay owes much, see Maynard.
23. Of course, there are many other kinds of inferring that comics readers must perform, the most famous of which is the filling in of information elided by the gutters between panels. For discussion, see McCloud; and Postema.
of photography somehow gave us better access to (fictional) truths regarding the narrative world being described than is given by the more standard storytelling methods, would be odd at best. Of course, much of the point of the previous section was to argue that covers -- including photo-covers -- are integral parts of comics, and that any satisfactory interpretation of a comic must take the content of its cover into account. But nothing in that discussion implies that the content of covers -- especially covers that conflict with the content of the interior pages in some manner, and this includes conflicting in terms of the mode of representation used -- must be interpreted as playing the same sort of role as more straightforward drawn depictions. On the contrary, one of the points of that discussion was to highlight the various ways that the content of cover art (photographic or not) can function differently from (and often comment on or inflect our appreciation of) interior pages. Given the oddness of photographic depiction in the genre in question, there seems to be little reason to conclude that a photo-cover provides more direct access to the physical appearance of characters solely in virtue of the fact that it is a photograph.
Second, and closely connected to the first point, is the fact that the content of a photo-cover is typically in tension with, or outright conflicts with, the content of the interior pages (as well as with the content of non-photographic covers of past and future issues). If we take these covers as particularly reliable or objective representations of the appearance of the characters depicted -- that is, if we invoke the objective purport of photographs when determining how we ought to interpret these covers -- then we would have to accept as true-within-the-fiction various claims that we clearly are not prescribed to believe, such as:24
• Captain America does not have a particularly impressive physique.
• Spider-man and Captain America wear rather cheap, silly-looking costumes. • Captain America’s shield is made of plastic.
Since we are clearly not meant to believe Cap’s shield is (or even appears to be) made of plastic, we are not meant to take these photo-covers as particularly reliable or objective representations of the appearance of these characters.
Actually, we can adopt a slightly more nuanced reading of photo-covers than is suggested in the previous paragraph, although the upshot is the same. Along Waltonian lines, we can interpret the cover art to Amazing Spider-man #262, Marvel Team-Up #128, and the rest, as evidence that Spider-man and Captain America look exactly as they are depicted on these covers, and we can adopt this reading of the covers in question in virtue of their photographic nature. Even if photo-covers provide evidence of this sort, however, they only provide defeasible evidence – evidence that can be overturned or trumped
24. The fact that these photocovers, in part because of their cheapness and silliness, are not reliable indicators of the physical appearance of the characters depicted should be understood as historically, socially, and medially situated. In short, the point is not necessarily that any photographs, at any time, in any context will of necessity fail to provide reliable visual information, but rather merely that these particular photographs (at the time of their production, and understood as parts of the comics they cover) do not do so. A very different story would have to be told regarding the role that photography plays in, say, live-action superhero television programs from the same era, or in twenty-first century superhero films. In addition, any account of the role of photographic media in television shows or films will need to grapple with whether or not the characters depicted in these photographic media are identical to the characters depicted in the comics.
by stronger, competing evidence. The important point to take from the discussion above is that, at the very least, the evidence regarding the appearance of these characters provided directly by these photo-covers is trumped by the competing evidence supplied by the art contained in the interior pages. Of course, much of the evidence regarding the appearance of characters provided by the drawn art must be inferred: We draw various conclusions -- also defeasible -- regarding how these characters appear within the fiction via reflecting on how we are meant to imagine they appear to us when experiencing the drawn art. Nevertheless, both the sheer amount of evidence of this latter type, plus the fact that this evidence is presented in a standard manner (as opposed to the non-standard-ness of the use of photography in mainstream superhero comics) entails that, when there is conflict between photo-cover and interior art, we should take the interior art to be more reliable.
What Do Photo-covers Do?
At the beginning of this essay, I suggested that Marvel’s brief photo-cover trend, overseen by a single editor-in-chief (Shooter) and carried out by a single artist (Brown), warranted an interpretation that viewed these covers as a single, unified project with a genuine (and hopefully interesting) artistic and narrative goal. We have seen that we cannot provide such an interpretation in terms of the objective purport of photography, understanding these covers as attempts to provide us with particularly reliable evidence regarding the fictional appearance of the superheroes depicted on the covers. So how should we understand them?
To answer this question, we need to return to the taxonomy of cover-functions developed earlier in this essay -- in particular, to the metafictional cover category. In that discussion I illustrated this category in terms of covers where one or more characters breaks the fourth wall, addressing the audience directly, such as the cover of Sensational She-Hulk #1, where the She-Hulk threatens to rip up readers’ copies of X-men if they don’t buy her comic. Metafictional covers can comment on the artistic, narrative, or fictional aspects of the comic they cover in much subtler ways, however. Marvel photo-covers function in just such a metafictional mode, by highlighting the representational limitations inherent in mainstream super-hero comics, and emphasizing the consequent epistemological limitations regarding our knowledge of the appearance of superheroes and other characters.
As noted above, photo-covers don’t provide us with reliable information regarding the (fictional) appearance of the characters depicted. Instead, these covers highlight the indirect, inferential nature of depiction in comics, and the fact that our access to the physical appearance of drawn characters in general is indirect, partial, inferential, and imperfect. This is in contrast to standardly photographic narrative media, such as film and photo-comics, which as we have seen do provide quite accurate information regarding the appearance of characters.25 Marvel photo-covers of the 1980s and 1990s are metafictional
reflections on these limitations: by mobilizing a representational medium that is standardly (taken to be) objective, accurate, and reliable, but doing so in a manner that undermines that objectivity, accuracy, 25. Restating the conclusions of the previous section in this blunt manner highlights an interesting corollary: Even if Sontag is right, and photographs do not provide objective, unbiased, reliable indications of the appearance of the actual objects photographed, they do sometimes (i.e., standard cases of photographic cinema or photo-comics) provide objective, unbiased, reliable indications of the appearance of fictional characters.
and reliability, these covers force us to reflect on the indirect, inferential nature of our knowledge of the appearance of comic book characters based on the standard, drawn depictions typically found within mainstream comics. By showing us that even the use of photography cannot eliminate or alter this epistemological limitation, these photo-covers highlight the fact that all of our beliefs regarding the appearance of fictional characters in mainstream superhero comics are indirect, inferential, and perhaps most importantly, defeasible. In short, none of us can be certain what Spider-man really looks like.26
I’ll conclude by noting that the cover of Amazing Spider-man #262 is, even amongst Brown’s photo-cover work for Marvel, a particularly resonant example. In this issue, Spider-man is photographed mid-costume-change by Jake Jones. Spider-man spends most of the remainder of the issue chasing down Jones, and eventually obtains the film. The cover depicts Spider-man being photographed by Jones, who is also depicted, with his camera mid-flash, in a conveniently positioned mirror at the end of the alley. Thus, we have a photo-cover depicting a photographer taking a photograph of another photographer who makes his living taking photographs of himself. The layers of self-referential representation of photography, both within the narrative content of the cover and in its depictive nature -- that is, the fact that it is itself a photo -- makes it impossible to interpret and evaluate it, and its role in our understanding of the comic as a whole, without examining the way that photography works as a representative medium, how it differs from drawing, and how neither mode of representation provides a completely reliable guide to the fictional appearance of comic book characters.27
Works Cited
Bazin, André. “The Ontology of the Photographic Image.” What Is Cinema? Trans. Hugh Gray. Berkeley: U of California P, 1967.
Cook, Roy T. “Do Comics Require Pictures? Or Why Batman #663 is a Comic.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 69.3 (2011): 285 - 296.
---. “Drawings of Photographs in Comics.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 70.1 (2012): 129 - 138.
Cook, Roy T. and Aaron Meskin. “Comics, Prints, and Multiplicity.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 73.1 (2014): 57 - 67.
Correia, Larry. “Fisking the Guardian’s Village Idiot Again.” September 1, 2014. Monster Hunting Nation.
http://monsterhunternation.com/2014/09/01/fisking-the-guardians-village-idiot-again/. March 20, 2015.
Currie, Gregory. “Visible Traces: Documentary and the Contents of Photographs.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57.3 (1999): 285 - 297.
26. A slightly different, and perhaps better, way of putting this point is this: There may be no facts of the matter regarding what Spider-man really looks like (when seen by other characters in the fiction, etc.).
27. A debt of gratitude is owed to Nancy Pedri, and to two anonymous referees, for comments and suggestions that greatly improved the essay. Work on this essay was supported by an Imagine Fund Grant from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities.
Duffett, Mark. Understanding Fandom: An Introduction to the Study of Media Fan Culture. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013.
Jenkins, Henry. Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Media Consumers in a Digital Age. New York, NYU Press, 2006.
Layton, Bob. “1985 – Anatomy of a Cover: Amazing Spider-man #262.” Thursday, May 24, 2012.
http://marvel1980s.blogspot.com/2012/05/1985-anatomy-of-cover-amazing-spider.html. March 20, 2015.
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Cornell UP, 2005.
Postema, Barbara. Narrative Structure in Comics: Making Sense of Fragments. Rochester: RIT P, 2013.
Pustz, Matthew J. Comic Book Culture: Fanboys and True Believers. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2000.
Savedoff, Barbara. Transforming Images: How Photography Complicates the Picture. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2000.
Scruton, Roger. , “Photography and Representation.” Critical Inquiry 7.3 (1981): 577 - 603. Smuts, Aaron. “’Pickman’s Model’: Horror and the Objective Purport of Photographs.” Revue
Internationale de Philosophie 4 (2010): 487 - 509. Sontag, Susan. On Photography. London: Penguin, 1971.
Walton, Kendall. Mimesis as Make-believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts, Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 1993.
---. “Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photographic Realism.” Critical Inquiry 11 (1984): 246 – 277.
Roy T Cook is Professor of Philosophy and CLA Scholar of the College at the University of Minnesota
- Twin Cities, and a Resident Fellow of the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science. He is the author of The Yablo Paradox: An Essay on Circularity (Oxford 2014), Key Concepts in Philosophy: Paradoxes (Polity 2013), and A Dictionary of Philosophical Logic (Edinburgh 2009), and is the editor or co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Comics and Graphic Novels (Routledge forthcoming, with A. Meskin and F. Bramlett), The Art of Comics: A Philosophical Approach (Wiley-Blackwell 2012), and the Arche Papers on the Mathematics of Abstraction (Springer 2007). He has published over seventy articles and book chapters on the philosophy of logic, the philosophy of mathematics, mathematical logic, comic studies, and the aesthetics of popular culture.
