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Night of the Owls: Defining Transmediality as an Analytical Tool for Reconstructing Comic Book Mythology

Publication date: 11.12.2017

Arts & Cultural Studies Review, 2017, Issue 3 (33), pp. 372 - 389

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843860PK.17.026.7796

Authors

Tomasz Żaglewski
Institute of Cultural Studies, Adam Mickiewicz University, Szamarzewskiego 89A, 60-568 Poznań
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Titles

Night of the Owls: Defining Transmediality as an Analytical Tool for Reconstructing Comic Book Mythology

Abstract

In recent years, “transmedia storytelling” has become a handy term to describe certain types of popular narrative. While this term is now crucial to many areas of media studies, Żaglewski offers a challenge to the common, and often rather shallow, understanding of transmediality. He questions the very idea of transmediality and in particular its multimodal character. The basis for such an effort is modern comic book studies, and more specifically, the highly successful Night of the Owls story arc from the Batman universe. Żaglewski adapts the theoretical design of transmedial storytelling for at least two purposes: Firstly, he seeks to define the multi/transmediality of comics themselves, which can be seen in the unity of words and images. Secondly, he offers a new understanding of the enormous superhero-driven storylines that are an important feature of contemporary comic books (along with all of the associated retcons, reboots, crossovers etc.). Such story arcs are now presented as an important example of transmedial storytelling that takes place within a single (trans)medium. Exploiting a method that might appear to be paradoxical, Żaglewski opens up the definition of transmedial storytelling by limiting his discussion to a single medium: the comic book.

References

Gardner, J., Film+Comics: A Multimodal Romance in the Age of Transmedial Convergence, in: M.-L. Ryan, J.-N. Thon (eds.), Storyworlds across Media: Toward a Media-Conscious Narratology, Lincoln–London: University of Nebraska Press, 2014.

Hatfield, Ch., Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2005.

Horstkotte, S., “Zooming In and Out: Panels, Frames, Sequences, and the Building of Gra-
phic Storyworlds”, in: D. Stein, J.-N. Thon (eds.), From Comic Strips to Graphic Novels: Contributions to the Theory and History of Graphic Narrative, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2015.

McCloud, S., Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, Glasgow: William Morrow Paperbacks, 1994.

Packard, S., “Closing the Open Signification: Forms of Transmedial Storyworlds and Chronotopoi in Comics”, Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies 2015, vol. 7, no. 2.

Rippi, G., Etter, L., “Intermediality, Transmediality, and Graphic Narrative”, in: D. Stein, ­J.-N. Thon (eds.), From Comic Strips to Graphic Novels: Contributions to the Theory and History of Graphic Narrative, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2015.

Thon, J.-N., “Subjectivity across Media: On Transmedial Strategies of Subjective Representation in Contemporary Feature Films, Graphic Novels, and Computer Games”, in: M.-L. Ryan, J.-N. Thon (eds.), Storyworlds across Media: Toward a Media-Conscious Narratology, Lincoln–London: University of Nebraska Press, 2014.

Wolf, W., “Framings of Narrative in Literature and the Pictorial Arts”, in: M.-L. Ryan, J.-N. Thon (eds.), Storyworlds across Media: Toward a Media-Conscious Narratology, Lincoln–London: University of Nebraska Press, 2014.

Information

Information: Arts & Cultural Studies Review, 2017, Issue 3 (33), pp. 372 - 389

Article type: Original article

Titles:

Polish:

Night of the Owls: Defining Transmediality as an Analytical Tool for Reconstructing Comic Book Mythology

English:

Night of the Owls: Defining Transmediality as an Analytical Tool for Reconstructing Comic Book Mythology

Authors

Institute of Cultural Studies, Adam Mickiewicz University, Szamarzewskiego 89A, 60-568 Poznań

Published at: 11.12.2017

Article status: Open

Licence: CC BY-NC-ND  licence icon

Percentage share of authors:

Tomasz Żaglewski (Author) - 100%

Article corrections:

-

Publication languages:

English