Comics and the Critique of Chronophotography,or ‘He Never Knew When It Was Coming!’

Abstract

In the wake of Muybridge's and Marey's experiments in recording movement, comics quickly began to emphasize the depiction of continuous movement. Chronophotography mapped the kinetic body onto the regulated spaces of industrial culture: it was a means of revealing the body and a tool for its containment and control. Comics by Wilhelm Busch, Steinlen, Winsor McCay and others, however, mimic the fixed viewpoints and measured progress of chronophotography, but caricature the instrumental reason that supplied its motivation. Each episode of Winsor McCay's Little Sammy Sneeze, for example, offered systematic and meticulous time–motion breakdowns of everyday activities, but the rhythm of efficient motion is subverted by the mighty sneeze that turns all to chaos. With an emphasis on the pioneering comics and animation work of McCay, this article explores the peculiar, parodic counter-logics that mark an oasis of disorder in a time of insistent regulation.

Keywords

animation chronophotography cinema comics discipline Eadweard Muybridge Étienne-Jules Marey movement regulation Winsor McCay

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Braun, Marta (1992) Picturing Time: The Work of Etienne-Jules Marey (1830–1904). Chicago: University of Chicago Press .

Carroll, Nöel (1998) ‘Keaton: Film Acting as Action’, in Interpreting the Moving Image, pp. 44–63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .

Crary, Jonathan (2000) Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle, and Modern Culture. Boston, MA: MIT Press .

Gunning, Tom (2003) ‘Never Seen This Picture Before: Muybridge and Multiplicity’, in Philip Prodger (Ed.) Time Stands Still: Muybridge and the Instantaneous Photography Movement, pp. 222–272. New York: Oxford University Press .

Kunzle, David (1990) The History of the Comic Strip: The Nineteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press .

Kunzle, David (2001) ‘The Voices of Silence: Willette, Steinlen and the Introduction of the Silent Strip in the Chat Noir, with a German Coda’, in R. Varnum and C.T. Gibbons (eds) The Language of Comics: Word and Image, pp. 3–18. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi .

McCloud, Scott (1993) Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Northampton, MA: Tundra Publishing .

McCloud, Scott (2000). Reinventing Comics. New York: Paradox Press .

Prodger, Philip (2003) ‘Make It Stop: Muybridge and the New Frontier in Instantaneous Photography’, in Philip Prodger (ed.) Time Stands Still: Muybridge and the Instantaneous Photography Movement, pp. 112–211. New York: Oxford University Press .

10.

Rabinbach, Anson (1990) The Human Motor: Energy, Fatigue, and the Origins of Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press .

11.

Smolderen, Thierry (2003) ‘Preface’, in A.B. Frost: An Anthology, pp. 5–13. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics Books .

12.

Spiegelman, Art (1990) ‘Polyphonic Polly: Hot and Sweet’, in Rick Marschall (ed.) The Complete Color Polly and Her Pals, Vol. 1: 1926–1927, pp. 5–6. Princeton, WI: Kitchen Sink Press .

13.

Williams, Linda (1989) Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the ‘Frenzy of the Visible’. Berkeley: University of California Press .