PSYCHOANALYSIS AND COMICS: A PARTIAL LACANIAN ONTOLOGY

Author(s): Scott Contreras-Koterbay

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Source: Notes in the History of Art, Vol. 27, No. 2/3, SPECIAL ISSUE ON ART AND
PSCHOANALYSIS (Winter/Spring 2008), pp. 90-95
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PSYCHOANALYSIS
A PARTIAL

AND

LACANIAN

COMICS:

ONTOLOGY

Scott Contreras-Koterbay

attention, comics
Despite
increasing
still
comic books and comic stripsare
art-historical
discourse.1
This
slighted by
poses an interesting set of problems. David
Carrier writes: "Aestheticians

and art histori

ans have justifiably devoted a great deal of
attention to visual representation. . . . With
comics ... until we properly grasp how their
of words and pic
particular combination
tures functions, how can we evaluate them
or understand
critically (and politically)
their relation to high art?"2 Something seems
to be different about comicsin their appeal

and in their form. Focusing on the condi

tions of reception and on the formal qualities
of comics through psychoanalysis
as in
formed by the ideas of Lacan, it is possible
to make certain claims about comics, differ
entiating them from other visual arts. By
this
examining comics psychoanalytically,

essay serves as a limited typographical exer

cise within aesthetic ontology; not only are
aspects of the nature of comics revealed but
also, to a lesser extent, perhaps something
about art and the nature of art history.
Two simple qualities differentiate comics

from "high" art. First, comics are meant to be

consumedthat
is, experienced as a com
modity. Purchased comics become yours, as
to art objects in museums
and
opposed

galleries or reproductions in a book; even

actual ownership of art carries with it an aura
of unavailability, a distancing Symbolically
constructed in the subject's relationship to the
nature of comics
object. The consumable
involves a contrast between private experi

ence and mass availability, and the experience

of comics is almost always a personal one
(it's strange to think of reading comics

together with another person). Whereas other

of art are often deliberatively
examples
communal in their experience, with comics
the privacy of the consumption

complicates

things.
Second, comics are differentiated from
many other visual arts by their intrinsic
formal characteristics, evident in two related
elements:

the gutter and the multiplicity of

images. The gutter is the empty space be
tween panels, typically sustaining unseen
information and narrative that the reader fills
in, completes,

regardless

of the

continuity

or

between

discontinuity
panels. Frequently,
there is a uniformity of responsesmost
readers will fill in similar information. But
the fact that there is a dependency upon the
reader to fill in the blanks means that there is
an impossibility, even an inappropriateness,
of "translating" a comic for another, an im
from private to
an
public language,
irreducibility endemic to
the form and the nature of its private con
possibility

of transference

sumption. Equally important to the gutter,

and dependent on it, is the multiplicity of
images in comics. Scott McCloud notes that
"comics

panels fracture both time and space,

offering a jagged, staccato rhythm of uncon
nected moments. But closure allows us to
connect these moments and mentally con

struct a continuous, unified reality."3 The

gutter separates images, but it is also a
crucial part of the conceptualization
of the

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91

"No
those images.
one image may be to
another, there is a kind of alchemy at work in
the space between panels which can help us
find meaning or resonance in even the most

of jouissance

and its relationship

between
relationship
matter how dissimilar

conception
to comics.

jarring of combinations."4 Or, to emphasize

this, because of the gutter and the multiple
panels, comics seem to be an alchemy of the
reader's own making, an opportunity for a
type of free play. But, of course, they are not.

differentas opportunities for phallic jouis

sance within the Imaginary order, in contrast
to jouissance in the Symbolic order. For La

Examples of "high" art that share similar

features certainly exist, but comics are still
different. Carrier makes an extraordinary
claim, writing: "Cartoon
strips are self
interpreting pictures."5 Are comics so self
evident that we immediately
grasp their
of comics
a
Is the language
meaning?
available one, despite its insistent
private usage? Or are comics only self
interpreting because we must Imaginatively
believe them to be so? Lacanian
theory
publicly

asserts that three discursive orders govern

our experience of the world, of which only
and the Symbolic
are of
the Imaginary
concern. In the Imaginary order, we speak of

'
It is easy to argue that high art is en
countered in the Symbolic order, but it is
possible to argue that comics can be de
scribed in their reception as something quite

is a result of desire that

can, jouissance
resists reduction to the Imaginary or facilita
tion of the Symbolic for the subject; jouis
sance is a transgressive pleasure beyond the
of Symbolic, a pleasure beyond
continuously repetitive desires divorced from
boundaries
a causal

relationship to the object itself, a

coming into pleasure that disregards the
unfulfilled pursuit that Lacan equated with
Marx's

concept of surplus value. Jouissance

is a joy beyond the ordinary, an escape from
the continual pursuit of pleasure, even if it's
only a temporary respite. And with art, the
joy partially and potentially resides in inter
pretation, in creating a meaning that over
comes the material conditions of the art ob

things as being of our own, while in the

Symbolic order we speak of things as of the
our own, not mine. In the
Othernot
what exists is a dual rela
order,
Imaginary
between
the
tionship
subject and the signifier,

position, however,
ject. From a Lacanian
comics are not an opportunity for this type of
jouissance. The appeal and the form of com
ics in their private consumption preclude the

are in a state of "absolute

an order of language constructing identi

fications with objects in the world by which
the individual ceaselessly
attempts to shore
his
or
her
the
identity;
Imaginary is ante
up

characterized
of symmetry,
by illusions
a reciprocity
and
but
similarity,
reciprocity,
that is self-directed and contrasted with the
Symbolic order, in which the relationships

non-reciprocity"6
and directed to the Other. In relationships to
objects, particularly to art, the Symbolic is the
order that the individual utilizes to establish
a relationship with the world as not ourselves,
as different from ourselves. The functional
distinctiveness

between "self-interpreting"
and "non-reciprocity" may, however, be use
ful, particularly in understanding Lacan's

Symbolic as a turning away from its de

mands and present opportunities for the
Imaginary. Lacan's description of the Ima
ginary is of unarticulated, fundamental ele
ments that are part of the creation of the self,

cedent to the Symbolic relationship between

the self and the world, the building blocks of
the self wherein a continual series of fan
tasies of identification arise in the face of the
trauma

of the Symbolic

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order. When

we

92
in the Imaginary,

indulge

we

experience

phallic jouissance.
Phallic jouissance

is the inscription of the

self as the creation of the self-image. In the
space of separation from the mother's desire
and desire for the mother through Symbolic
becomes
an
differentiation, the phallus
emblem of the self's desire. However, in the
case of the lack of a phallic Symbolic in

scription, what arises is a narrowed form of

more precisely,
castrationor,
jouissance;
the fear of castrationbecomes
crucial in
that phallic jouissance
is a movement away
from the creation

Symbolic
jouissance
immediate

of identity through the

presence of the phallus. Phallic
is the jouissance of language in its

usage, a seeking out of pleasure,

but a pleasure in one's own self because of a
fear of failure (whereas jouissance
itself is
necessarily a failurean embracing of fail
ure, and a beautiful one at that). Phallic

jouissance
desired

as

literally leaves
a rejection

something

of the

Symbolic

to be
order,

a type of fantasy in which the world can be

forgotten, a masturbatory activity that never
engages but emptily imitates, precisely be
cause real engagement is too dear an invest
ment.

Comics

provide the opportunity for phallic

and facilitating a
demanding
separation from the world. The gutters that
divide the panels as well as the multiplicity

jouissance,

of panels

seemingly require a piecing to

the
reader but are also a closing off
gether by
one's self from the world, and private con
sumption is the creation of obstacles against
the world

writes: "phallic
or, as Lacan
is
the
obstacle
jouissance
owing to which
man does not come (n 'arrive pas) . . . be
cause what he enjoys in the jouissance of the
organ .. . [is] the avowal [of] that jouissance
of the Other, of the body of the Other."7
Phallic jouissance is a conscious pleasurable

withdrawal, and comics are opportunities for

that are created by the
phallic jouissance
Other, by an infinity of the Other, but are
received
Imaginatively
the
Other.
As
against

and are, therefore,

con
Imaginatively
sumed objects, comics allow a fulfillment of
our desires given to the subject by the Other
but are, simultaneously, transformed to be
ours alone. The gutter, actually existing or
not, is the most obvious structural example
of this in that it is a cut that is filled, ordering
the cacophony of multiple images that could
not be pieced together otherwise. However,

because

it is a cut, because it demands of the

subject that meaning be inscribed by the
subject, such demand functions for the sub
ject on the subject's own terms. Or, to put it
another way, because
we must fill in the
the sequence
of multiple
our ownthat is, we complete the
experience of comics and take pleasure in
our ability to do so on our terms.
gaps,

we make

images

This

provides

a Lacanian

explanation

for

the reason that comics are often thought of as

lesser examples of art within a canonical
the structure of comics
hierarchy. Because
depends upon the tradition of comic form,
for art-historical discourse comics must be
avowed in favor of more Symbolic objects;
desire needs to be turned away from the
fear of castration

toward the
castrated
self.
Comics
are, of
Symbolically
course, a language. But, as McCloud points
continuing

out:

when you look at a photo or a realistic

drawing of a faceyou see it as the face
of another. But when you enter the world
of the cartoonyou
see yourself. I
believe

that this is the primary cause of

our childhood fascination with cartoons.
. . . The cartoon is a vacuum into which
our identity and awareness are pulled ...

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93
an empty shell that we inhabit which
enables us to travel in another realm. We
don't just observe the cartoon we be
come it.s
It is this "becoming
that art history avoids.
The Imaginary order, appearing as a self-ev
idently self-sufficient totality for the subject
rather than as a fractured relationship with the
world, as a regressive opportunity, is a cas
tration of one's self from the infinite possi
bilities in the Symbolic. The self-contained
experience of comics is precisely thatself
contained. In their consumption and within

the limitations of their conditions, comics, as

Imaginary constructions, are fantasies that
are not fantasy, aversions to the risk involved
in filling the void of the Other Symbolically
(as jouissance
attempts to accomplish), and
self-imposed reclusions.
Art-historical discourse, vis-a-vis comics,
is thus made problematic.
The question

arises: If jouissance
if
is still jouissance,
phallic jouissance is still a type of jouissance,
then should comics be regarded as func
tioning equivalently to "high" art even though
the functionality remains quite different. And
if the functionality is equivalent, why, then,
are comics still being slighted by art his
torians? Lacan writes: "One is always respon
sible for one's position as a subject."9 Within
the construction of any interpretive discourse,
including art history, responsibility is bound
with desire. Questions arise: Is art, especially

for the art historian, a type of pleasure? A

Are not the examples of
type of jouissance?
art that art historians study confined at a
distance from them; and in that distancing, is
there not a desire for pleasure, spoken of as
valuable in and of itself but still dependent on
that desire for pleasure
which is never
fulfilled? Does

this say something about the

of
comics?
And does a Lacanian
repression

interpretation of comics thereby say

thing about art history?
The Symbolic order evolves into a state of
fantasy, one that Lacan calls "aphanisis."
Here, the subject, in the Symbolic relation
ship with the object and, through the object,
with the Other, is overshadowed
by the
of
the
to
such
a
signifier
object
degree that

the signifier becomes

the determinant for
the subject's
individuality, so that, in the
the
fantasy,
subject's relationship with the
object's signifier becomes an assertion of
the subject's own alienation. Thus, the sub
one of fading
ject's relationship becomes
from
the
Other, requiring a repetitive
away
out
of
seeking
pleasure. Aphanisis, as the
fantastic recurrence
of pleasure
without
occurs
in
the face of the art
enjoyment,
object. Art-historical discourse
dispenses
with art objects as the discourse evolves, but
dispenses with them in such a fashion that
new ones are continually
required. Art
historical discourse
seeks pleasure in the
new in the Symbolic relationship, and, in
the new, art history seeks an assertion of its
own desires in an almost confrontational
manner with its object without release or
relinquishment. In the subject's Imaginary
relationship to comics, however, repetition
exists time and again, and judgments are not
made assertively in the face of the Symbolic
signifying presence but in conjunction with
their Imaginary presence for the self.
Comics thus facilitate a type of castrated

an abbreviation of the cre

meconnaissance,
ation of the self through an engagement at the
in the form that
level of a phallic jouissance
the structure allows, a type of free play in the
languaged structure itself, and in the forget
ting of the insistent desires ever-presently
rooted in the Symbolic order. This is evident
in the repetition of stories occurring through
out the history of comicssuperheroes'

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94

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Fig. 1
Nonoy Marcelo, the "Easter Egg" episode from the comic strip
Ikabod. From The Manila Chronicle (Mar. 1992), Sunday Fun section.
Pen

and

ink, 5 x 7 in. (Image:

courtesy

of Dario

Marcelo

and

family)

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the Marcelo

95
origins are told and retold, and the characters
of Peanuts have never agedbut it is also
evident in the very structure of comics, as it
is in the Ikabod
comic strip by Nonoy
Marcelo, created from the late 1970s until his
death in 2002, featuring the character Ikabod
Bubwit ("small rodent" in Tagalog; see, for
example, Fig. 1). A satirical retelling of the
social and political problems that beset the
Philippines
during and after the Marcos
Ikabod
illustrates this application of
regime,
a
Lacan;
typical example of comics struc
it
is
turally,
readily comprehendible regard

less of one's knowledge of Tagalog. Ikabod,

like so many comics, can be consumed freely
without complete
and in
understanding
in
dulged
satisfactorily purely from the sub

ject's own position, without specific acquaint

ance with the history or culture of the
Philippines. It is seductively self-sufficient.

Imaginatively embraced, but avoided by art

history Symbolically.
Over the years, art historians have paid lip
service to some of the best artists in comics.
Yet, from a Lacanian

position,

there is an

inevitability for their disregard: comics are

unable to rise to the status of "high" art
because of the very conditions of their recep
tion and their structure; and art-historical
discourse is unable to "lower itself' to anoint
such figures as Winsor McCay,
George
Herriman, Jack Kirby, and others to a status
Matisse's, or War
equivalent to Picasso's,
hol's for the very same reasons. Fredric
Wertham wrote: "Comic-book
readers are
in
handicapped
vocabulary building because
in comics all the emphasis is on the visual
image and not on the proper word."10 This
accusation hinges on the phrase "the proper
word" as if, somehow, comics are tainted

not only immoral (which was Wertham's

intention), but inadequate, failing to build a
means of being in the world in the "proper"
sense. For Wertham, "Those with good read
ing ability are seduced by comic books into
"n And
'picture reading.'
perhaps it is the fear
of castration, the fear of not looking at the
"proper" images in the face of such seduction,
that we have the answer as to why art history
tends to ignore comics.

NOTES
1. Notable

and

controversial

exhibitions

High and Low

See Kirk Varnedoe

Comics.
and Low:
(New

Modern

York:

Museum

Paul

Carlin,
American

Art and Popular

Culture, exh. cat.
of Modern Art, 1990); and John
and

Karasik,

Comics

are the
exceptions
and Masters
of American
and Adam Gopnik, High

(New

Brian

Haven:

Walker,
Yale

2005).
2.
2000),
3.

Park:

The Aesthetics

Carrier,

Pennsylvania

pp. 2-3
Scott McCloud,

Invisible

of

Press,

of Comics

(Uni

Carrier, p. 86.
Jacques

Lacan, "Kant with Sade," in Ecrits: The

First Complete
Edition in English, trans. Bruce Fink
(New York: Norton, 2006), p. 653/774.
7. Id., On Feminine
The Limits of Love
Sexuality:
and Knowledge,

Art (New

67.

4. Ibid., p. 73.

State

University

Press,

McCloud,

9.

Jacques
729/858.
10.

The
Comics:
Understanding
York: HarperPerennial,
1994), p.

trans. Bruce

1998), pp. 7-8.

8.

David

versity

Masters

University

5.
6.

(New

Fink (New

York: Norton,

p. 36.
Lacan,

"Science

and Truth," in Ecrits,

p.

Fredric Wertham,
Seduction
of the Innocent
York: Rinehart, 1954), p. 125; quoted in Carrier,

p. 69.
11. Ibid.

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