Storytelling, Folktales and the Comic Book Format

Abstract

The reading process in comics is an extension of text. In text alone the process of reading involves word-to- image conversion. Comics accelerate that by providing the image. When properly executed, it goes beyond conversion and speed and becomes a seamless whole. In every sense, this misnamed form of reading is entitled to be regarded as literature because the images are employed as a language. There is a recognizable relationship to the iconography and pictographs of oriental writing. When this language is employed as a conveyance of ideas and information, it separates itself from mindless visual entertainment. This makes comics a storytelling medium. (Eisner 5) Will Eisner, in his ground breaking work Graphic Storytelling, points out that regardless of the various methods of transmitting a story incorporating any form of modern technology, there are only two major ways for a story to be told: words (orally or written) and images. In comics, these two methods are combined (Eisner 13). Eisner defines a storyteller as the “writer or person in control of the narration” (Eisner 6). I have always considered the term to mean an oral transmitter of a narrative and will apply my denotation throughout this article, which will briefly comment on the way oral storytelling techniques are incorporated and celebrated in the comic book format. The major focus of this article, however, will be on examples of retellings of traditional folktales in comic book format, particularly for the young adult reader. I became interested in the similarities between oral storytelling and the comic book format when conducting research on reworkings of traditional folktales for New Tales for Old: Folktales as Literary Fictions for Young Adults (co-authored with Anna Altmann, Libraries Unlimited 1999). Reading folktales in this format made me realize that this was probably the closest literary genre to the oral art of telling a story. Both the comic book and the oral tale depend on dialogue and tone of voice, body language and gestures, and timing for an effective experience for the audience. Both of these storytelling forms require the audience to actively participate in the understanding of the story; the listening aud ience must decode the words and silences, the body language and the voice to make their own images of the characters, the stage and the action that is taking place in the tale. The strength of the oral tale is that each member of the audience uses his or her own experiences and background to create a story that is uniquely his or her own. In the comic book format, the reader must speculate on what happens in the gutters (the space between the panels) as well as read the visual cues to interpret the story and, as in the oral tale, the experience and background of the reader not only enrich the story read but also individualize it.