Abstract
This article examines three comic books, Silver Surfer #11 (Marvel Comics), Omega Men #9 (DC Comics) and Promethea #12 (Americas Best Comics), as philosophy in themselves, and not merely as supplements to philosophical texts or as a convenient form through which the complex ideas of philosophy can be elucidated. Each of these three issues utilises the form of the Mobius Strip in their fabrication in a variety of ways that contend with concepts of the One and the Infinite. Within their construction, these comics challenge ways of reading that are exclusive to the form of the comic book medium and enable a distinctive method for exploring themes of the good life, truth, and creativity. The article then returns full circle once again to further interrogate the manner in which each of these three comic books engages with the four choices we are faced with in our understanding of the One and the Infinite.
Highlights
John Barth’s FRAME-TALE, which opens his 1966 collection of short stories, Lost in the Funhouse, takes the form of a Möbius Strip that loops infinitely to create both the longest and shortest story ever written. This FRAME-TALE invites the reader to cut along the dotted line on the right-hand side of the page to produce a thin strip of paper with the words: ‘ONCE UPON A TIME THERE’ on one side, and ‘WAS A STORY THAT BEGAN’ on the other
It is the use of the Möbius strip as a representation of the infinite that I would like to explore in three comic books, Silver Surfer #11, Omega Men #9 and Promethea #12, each of which are texts that offer up a set of conditions from which philosophical discussions on the One and the Infinite can emerge
Contrary to approaches that engage with comic books as complements to philosophy, I have set out to examine the manner in which comic books develop both epistemological questions concerning our knowledge of the world, and ontological questions concerning the nature of existence, and most especially how these can be seen in the form of the popular genres of comics that we buy each and every Wednesday
Summary
John Barth’s FRAME-TALE, which opens his 1966 collection of short stories, Lost in the Funhouse, takes the form of a Möbius Strip that loops infinitely to create both the longest and shortest story ever written. Barth’s FRAME-TALE is an example of ‘literature as philosophy’ and not literature used to elucidate philosophical concepts Other artists such as American sculptor John Ernest (1922-1994) and Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher (1898-1972) have used August Ferdinand Möbius’s discovery of a non-orientable, twodimensional surface, transformed into an infinite single surface in three-dimensional Euclidean space, to create works of art that are in themselves philosophical questions concerning time, space, perception and illusion. It is the use of the Möbius strip as a representation of the infinite that I would like to explore in three comic books, Silver Surfer #11, Omega Men #9 and Promethea #12, each of which are texts that offer up a set of conditions from which philosophical discussions on the One and the Infinite can emerge
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