EDITORIAL: SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF COMIC ART VOL. 1: 1 (SPRING 2012) by the Editorial Team SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF COMIC ART (SJOCA) VOL. 1: 1 (SPRING 2012) This is the inaugural issue of Scandinavian Journal of Comic Art (SJoCA) and we are immensely proud to add an academic journal on comics with a Nordic outlook to the ever-­‐growing field of comics studies in the world. Scandinavian Journal of Comic Art is an open-­‐access, peer reviewed academic journal about comics and sequential art. The scope of the journal is interdisciplinary, encouraging a wide range of theoretical and methodological perspectives. The language of the journal is English. Although global in its scope, publishing high quality research regardless of national or regional boundaries, the journal is rooted in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) and has the ambition to reflect and incite discussion in the field of comics studies in these countries. The background for this journal is in the Academic Perspectives on Comics, Manga & Graphic Novels as Intercultural & Intermedial Phenomena at Växjö University (now Linnæus University) in 2009, where Margareta Wallin Wictorin and Fredrik Strömberg conceived the idea. Also, Thierry Groensteen’s Forum text on French comics scholarship in this issue was originally presented as a keynote speech at the conference. Some of the articles in this issue have a background at another Nordic comics scholarship conference, the Contemporary Comics conference at the University of Copenhagen in 2010. We will publish new issues twice yearly (spring and fall) and we encourage submissions on all aspects of research on comics and sequential art. Scandinavian Journal of Comic Art welcomes articles for the peer reviewed section as well as texts for the Forum section, which provides the option for authors to present comics scholarship, that for example, has the character of a lengthy personal comment, essay or point of departure for debate. We also encourage reviews of scholarly books about comics, and if you would like to review a book, please contact the editorial staff. We hope you will welcome this new addition to comics scholarship and encourage comments from our readers. – 2 – SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF COMIC ART (SJOCA) VOL. 1: 1 (SPRING 2012) PAST AS MULTIPLE CHOICE – TEXTUAL ANARCHY AND THE PROBLEMS OF CONTINUITY IN BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE By Mervi Miettinen ABSTRACT This article analyses the graphic novel Batman: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland, focusing on the way the text comments on the problematic construction of superheroic continuities through a careful and considered application of so-­‐called “textual anarchy”, a denial of hierarchy or order that challenges the entire concept of continuity. This is done on a number of levels, from the visual shattering of panels to the “past as multiple choice” as proclaimed by the Joker. This article discusses the role and relevance of continuity and audience expectations in superhero comics in general, and analyses the way Batman: The Killing Joke actively goes against tradition by exposing an anarchistic diversity in the superhero narrative that clearly states the impossibility of a single linear narrative. Instead, the text comes to highlight the endlessly open-­‐ ended nature of the superhero universe, both textually and visually. – 3 – PAST AS MULTIPLE CHOICE – TEXTUAL ANARCHY AND THE PROBLEMS OF CONTINUITY IN BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE By Mervi Miettinen SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF COMIC ART (SJOCA) VOL. 1: 1 (SPRING 2011) an·∙ar·∙chy: a: absence or denial of any authority or established order b: absence of order (Merriam-­‐Webster Online 2011) *** Anarchy needs to be carefully constructed. (Alan Moore, Northampton, 2010) Following the lexical definitions given above, “anarchy” as a concept seems to firmly reject all hierarchies, whether governmental or abstract. There is no order or authority in anarchy – and yet, as comics writer Alan Moore claims, it needs to be “carefully constructed”. Moore’s own work within comics has tended to advocate anarchy, as for example his acclaimed graphic novel V for Vendetta (1988) clearly demonstrates. As Maggie Gray (2010, 31) points out, Moore, a “self-­‐ declared anarchist”, deliberately aimed at affecting the “particular socio-­‐historic context” in the 1980s through his comics works. While anarchy and anarchism are clearly present in the general themes of V for Vendetta, Moore’s other work from the same era offers a distinctively different kind of anarchism on the level of the story structure itself: the deliberate denial of continuity within superhero comics. In Batman: The Killing Joke (Moore and Bolland 1988; 2008), together with artist Brian Bolland, the inherently problematic constructions of superheroic continuity are exposed and represented through the notion of textual anarchy that explicitly denies any claims to seamless continuity. Moore displays his trademark levels of intertextuality, seen by Annalisa Di Liddo (2009, 62) as creating “deliberately diverse narrative forms that are open to the multiplication of interpretative levels”, ultimately controlled through his deployment of precise visual structures of cohesion and consistency. Through a careful extrapolation of DC’s over four decades of Batman mythology, Moore and Bolland create a layered text that is simultaneously ordered and denies any order within Batman’s (and the Joker’s) continuity. In this article, I will analyse Batman: The Killing Joke and the way it comments on the problematic construction of superheroic continuities through a careful and considered application of so-­‐called “textual anarchy”. Continuity has always been an issue within superhero comics: as the same characters go through the hands of innumerable writers and artists, accumulating the entire history of a character becomes increasingly challenging. Decades upon decades of superhero comics may lead to a complex continuity involving hundreds of characters, alternate worlds and multiple variations of the same events. The superhero comic is a serial production that has often been produced for decades. While the characters remain the same, their surroundings are adjusted to the – 5 – SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF COMIC ART (SJOCA) VOL. 1: 1 (SPRING 2011) contemporary, and though some artists and writers may spend long periods of time with a character, each superhero will eventually have had a large number of writers and artists working on him or her, “crossing decades in American history” (Klock 2002, 27). The open-­‐ended nature of comic books means that they can never be completed, and as Klock (ibid.) notes, this presents some fascinating paradoxes that each new narrative of the old hero needs to solve. DC’s attempts to contain some of these issues resulted in the infamous Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985–1986, which divided the DC continuity into pre-­‐ and post-­‐Crisis eras, completely erasing such characters as Supergirl and Barry Allen/Flash. In more recent history, DC announced the complete reboot of its entire fictional universe in the fall of 2011, canceling all its existing titles 1 and debuting a total of 52 number 1 issues. This reboot has received both praise and criticism, and undoubtedly one of the reasons behind the criticism arises from the transgression of established continuity. As Richard Reynolds (1992, 38) argues in his book Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology, continuity forms an essential aspect of both the consumption and enjoyment of superhero comics and other serialised fiction, but especially in superhero comics, this aspect takes on a level of complexity beyond any other forms of serialised popular culture. However, while such moves as DC’s recent “reboot” appear to act as a solution to this complexity, it is this very continuity and its various levels that, according to Reynolds (1992, 38), form the key component in what “has become an expected and integral part of the pleasure of the superhero narrative”. Reynolds locates three distinct levels of continuity within superhero comics: serial continuity, hierarchical continuity and structural continuity. Serial continuity is by far the most common of these, consisting of all previous stories, which the current storyline must take into consideration in order to preserve coherence and consistency within the narrative. As serial continuity is diachronic and develops over time, it creates the most challenges for the creators, as the accumulating amount of previous issues has to be taken into consideration with each new issue (Reynolds 1992, 34–40). Serial continuity establishes the canonical level of superhero narratives, and can sometimes result in debates about whether or not a certain story is a part of the hero’s official continuity or an “imaginary” tale outside the official continuity.2 Batman: The Killing Joke contains a famous example of controversial continuity, as Barbara Gordon, the Bat-­‐Girl at the time, was shot and 1 As of January 2012, a part of these new titles have already been canceled due to poor sales, while new titles are being introduced. For more, see: Khouri, 2012. 2 These “Elseworlds” tales usually explore such issues that explicitly break the “oneiric climate” (Eco 1979, 114) of the superhero world by introducing time into the narrative, such as marriage, aging or death. As Reynolds points out, texts that do not fit into the continuity can be divided either into texts that exist separately from the official continuity (like the Batman TV-­‐series from the 1960s) or purposefully rewriting certain stories within the official continuity (like the 1950s Captain America; Reynolds 1992, 43–44). Ultimate solutions to the problems of continuity can be seen in DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths, which dismantled the entire continuity structure. – 6 – SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF COMIC ART (SJOCA) VOL. 1: 1 (SPRING 2011) crippled by the Joker. Sanctioned by DC’s official editors (by the infamous phrase “cripple the bitch”3), the event made it into the official continuity, as Barbara Gordon was reintroduced into the DC universe in Suicide Squad #23 (January 1989) with her injury and taking up the alias of “Oracle”. Reynolds denotes “hierarchical continuity” as the overall hierarchy of the various interrelationships between superheroes and villains within the superhero universe, whilst “structural continuity” is essentially comprised of both serial and hierarchical continuity. More than that, structural continuity contains “those elements of the real world which are contained within the fictional universe of the superheroes, and (for the truly committed) actions which are not recorded in any specific text, but inescapably implied by continuity” (Reynolds 1992, 40–41). This kind of “extra-­‐textual continuity” is, according to Reynolds (1992, 43), a “vital key to the way in which the mythology of comic books is articulated in the mind of the reader”. In other words, a dedicated reader has the ability to envision an ideal superhero metatext, which sums up all the existing texts as well as the gaps those texts have created – but this metatext can never be complete, as no-­‐one can read every single canonical text ever produced and because new canonical texts are being added each week, meaning that no superhero universe is finite until the day superhero texts are no longer published (Reynolds 1992, 43). However, the serialised publication of superhero comics explicitly denies the narratives any finite quality, as the stories accumulate an infinite amount of narratives that comprise the continuity. Within this framework, Batman: The Killing Joke represents an interesting anomaly, as the text, despite being canonised as a part of the serial continuity, was published as a single, 46-­‐page album instead of as one of the traditional weekly/monthly serial issues. This was a rare occasion within superhero comics, and perhaps at least partially owing to the emergence of the “comics grow up” PR phenomenon that took the press by storm in 1986 and 1987 (Sabin 1993, 87). The publication of such works as Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986) by Frank Miller and Watchmen (1987) by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons was much publicised in the press as the rise of “serious” adult comics, representing what Roger Sabin (1993, 97) has referred to as “revisionist superhero comics”. While the press hailed the “new” phenomenon, Sabin identifies this as more of a distinct marketing move aimed at selling certain works as “graphic novels” instead of “comics” in order to attract older audiences with more money to spend; one such way to do this was to publish works in the album-­‐format long preferred in the field of European comics, which were seen as more culturally respectable and read by all ages (as opposed to just kids; Sabin, 1993, 93). When Batman: The Killing Joke was published in 1988, the rise of this new marketing trend 3 This phrasing has been confirmed by Moore in at least one interview by Wizard Magazine in 2006, where he identified DC’s Len Wein as the editor in question (quoted in Felton, 2007, 28). – 7 – SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF COMIC ART (SJOCA) VOL. 1: 1 (SPRING 2011) was at full swing, and undoubtedly contributed to the decision to publish the text as a single volume instead of separate issues. As Sabin notes, after the “boom” initiated by Miller and Moore’s work, the “graphic novel” became a buzz term and “virtually everything” was either published or re-­‐published in the trendy format (Sabin 1993, 96). A finite story published in a single volume, however, means that Batman: The Killing Joke goes very clearly against the traditional “mythic form” of serial superhero continuity that enables an infinite amount of narratives (Gray 2010, 35). More than that, the narrative subverts the superhero tradition by underlining its construction from an infinite serial continuity by “exposing the cracks in the sanity of organization” (Klock 2002, 59). It is this unique combination of tradition and subversion within Batman: The Killing Joke that creates the “textual anarchy” of this article’s title: while anarchy, as defined in the beginning of the article, appears to reject all notions of order and continuity, the text quite clearly deploys a substantial level of order and control in order to establish its denial of order. While the narrative itself is carefully ordered through a meticulous panel division and detailed artwork, the narrative simultaneously contains an anarchic level that problematises the very serial continuity it is built on. By drawing deliberate attention to its structure as built from decades of Batman lore, Batman: The Killing Joke highlights the conventional and continuous nature of the story itself (the Joker attempts to commit a crime, Batman arrives to stop it). This type of contrasting could be argued to produce an effect very similar to Darko Suvin’s (1979, 6) notion of cognitive estrangement, as the comic deliberately draws the reader’s attention to its own open-­‐ended nature. This level of estrangement of course calls for a more skilled reader, one who is aware of the genre conventions and character history of Batman and the Joker. The characters themselves contain an unusual amount of self-­‐reflexivity as Batman himself wonders where their never-­‐ending feud will ultimately lead them: I’ve been thinking lately. About you and me. About what’s going to happen to us, in the end. We’re going to kill each other, aren’t we? Perhaps you’ll kill me. Perhaps I’ll kill you. Perhaps sooner. Perhaps later. (Moore and Bolland 1988, 4; hereafter cited as TKJ in parenthetical references). This self-­‐reflexivity, combined with the narrative’s deliberate focus on the iterative nature of the narrative and its impossibility for a linear, singular past creates a subversive narrative that ultimately questions its own existence. Batman: The Killing Joke accomplishes this subversion of superhero tradition by presenting the reader with an origin story for the Joker, Batman’s arch-­‐nemesis (although I will argue that the – 8 – SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF COMIC ART (SJOCA) VOL. 1: 1 (SPRING 2011) narrative is not about the Joker’s origins, but a meta-­‐commentary on the very elements of superhero comics themselves). Loosely based on the Joker’s first origin story “The Man behind the Red Hood” from Detective Comics #168 (1951), Moore and Bolland’s origin story depicts the Joker as a failed comedian who agrees to rob a chemical factory to support his pregnant wife. He disguises himself as the Red Hood and is pursued by Batman. He escapes by swimming in a polluted channel where the chemicals from the plant alter his appearance for good, making his 4 skin white and his hair a garish green. Seeing his reflection, he becomes insane. While some, like Reynolds, view the Red Hood origin story from the 1950s as the definite version, others see the Joker as a character defined precisely by his unclear and undefined origins. For example, Brian Bolland himself stresses in the afterword of the 2008 Deluxe Edition that the story of Batman: The Killing Joke is “just one of a number of possible origin stories” (Bolland 2008, 48). This is a trope that has gained in popularity within the last decades, as testified by the widely successful Batman movie The Dark Knight (2008, dir. Christopher Nolan), where the Joker (played by the late Heath Ledger), purposefully retells his origins twice (his third attempt is cut short), and both accounts are vastly different. Instead of reinforcing a unified and linear narrative by repeating a canonised origin story that reasserts the continuity, the movie underlines the conflicting ambiguity behind the Joker’s chaotic character, suggesting that the ambiguity of the Joker’s past and his confusing 5 origin stories have in themselves acquired the status of a “resonant trope” within the Batman mythos. In Batman: The Killing Joke, Moore and Bolland take the Joker’s 1950s “origin story” and frame it with a “present” (insofar as any superhero narrative can exist in the present) story, where the Joker tries to prove that “all it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy” (TKJ 1988, 38), suggesting that something similar happened to him. In order to accomplish this, he shoots and paralyses Barbara Gordon, and exposes Commissioner Gordon to images of her, naked and suffering, in an attempt to drive him mad. Ultimately the demands of continuity and genre win, as the Joker fails and Gordon remains sane. Batman defeats the Joker in battle, restores the status quo and waits with him for the police cars to take him away. After capturing the Joker, however, Batman slightly breaks the expected narrative by suggesting rehabilitation to the Joker instead of sending him back to prison. This suggestion, if carried through, would mean the end of 4 A similar version of the Joker’s origins is presented in Tim Burton’s movie Batman (1989). The Joker, played by Jack Nicholson, is revealed to have been Jack Napier, a local gangster, who falls into a chemical solution after Batman has stopped him and his men from raiding a chemical factory. The solution disfigures his face, which drives him mad. In an attempt at closure, it is revealed at the end that Jack Napier (and not Joe Chill as in the comics) was also the criminal who shot and killed Bruce Wayne’s parents, and in effect created Batman. Thus, the theme of origins is strongly present in the movie. 5 Peter Coogan (2006, 7) defines a resonant trope as “familiar and repeated moments, iconic images and actions, figures of speech, patterns of characterisation [that] have gained this resonance through repeated use” within superhero comics. – 9 –