In order to illustrate how the approaches work, I then apply each to an excerpt from Mazzuchelli’s graphic novel. I explain each approach using evidence from the scholars that have contributed to its formation. In the following review of literature, four main approaches are discussed: (1) the dichotomous approach, (2) the interdependent approach, (3) the stylistic approach, and (4) the braided approach. While the analytical approaches have no official titles agreed upon by the scholars, titles are needed to help separate one approach from another. These diverse approaches provide the reader of the comic with different options for how he or she may analyze a creator’s work. Each approach emphasizes that the reader should pay attention to certain qualities in the medium, such as the combination of words and images or the specific artistic style that the creator of the comic uses to compose their drawings. Scholars of the comics medium combine the theories from both fields in an attempt to investigate the different codes of signification in the medium and to support their arguments regarding how someone should approach comics analysis. In narratology, scholars investigate the shared techniques that writers use to create narratives and how these techniques affect the reading experience.
In semiotics, both words and images are considered cultural codes, or signs, that a reader interprets to find meaning. Much of the scholarship is based on semiotics and narratology.
In the field of comics studies, scholars put forth a variety of approaches that may be used to analyze comics. By giving each character a unique way of approaching his or her art, Mazzucchelli draws parallels to his own craft and the variety of ways it can be analyzed. Many of the characters are artists: Asterios is an architect, Hana makes sculptures, Willy Illium is a choreographer, and Kalvin Kohoutek composes music. Throughout the graphic novel, Mazzucchelli portrays each of his characters as possessing a unique outlook on the world. In order to set things right, he goes on a journey to try to change his way of perceiving things. Asterios’s choice to perceive everything through a lens that splits concepts into dualities leads to the end of his marriage and the loss of his job. In Asterios Polyp David Mazzucchelli explores the subject of human perception through his title character’s struggle to modify his outlook on the world.
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