"Collages in comics: the case of Dave McKean"
(2014) The Cultural Standing of Comics/ Le Statut Culturel de la Bande Dessinée. Bande Dessinée et Engagement I — accepted/in-press
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- Abstract
- This chapter seeks to explore the interaction of Dave McKean's comics with collages, including the experimental collages merging different styles and techniques as well as the more programmatic collages prevalent in modern art movements that reflect the status and evolution of the conception of art itself. Far from subordinating comics to the biases of high art discourses, this comparison aims at revealing the extent to which the selected comics' interaction with collages and other techniques subsumed under the fine arts not only brings in new connotations and aesthetic textures to the comics but also destabilizes the cultural hierarchy of the arts and the compartmentalization associated with it. That McKean's works themselves often only marginally resemble comics further highlights the boundary-transgressing nature of the collage. The effects of such a technique, especially when it infiltrates the currently somewhat dubiously ranked medium of comics (thanks to its high art aspiring off-shoots like the graphic novel), are worth delineating because of its ability to subvert the high art-mass culture binary. The chapter situates this subversion in the abilities of the comics medium to mimic or absorb other visual and textual media.
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Ahmed, M. (2014). “Collages in comics: the case of Dave McKean”. In Jean-Louis Tilleuil (ed.), The Cultural Standing of Comics/ Le Statut Culturel de la Bande Dessinée. Bande Dessinée et Engagement I. Academia-L’Harmattan. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/69704