Frames and Framing in Documentary Comics

The introductory chapter explains the concept of frames and framing and defines documentary comics as a distinct form of graphic nonfiction in the tradition of social documentary. With a brief history of comics as a documentary form and an overview of the addressed primary works, the fundamental idea of conscientious authentication and the book’s multilevel framing approach is established. Moreover, the corpus is introduced, which consists of Safe Area Goražde (2000), The Fixer (2004) and Footnotes in Gaza (2009) by pioneering author Joe Sacco; A.D.: New Orleans after the Deluge (2009) by Josh Neufeld; Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City (2011) by Guy Delisle; as well as Sarah Glidden’s Rolling Blackouts: Dispatches from Turkey, Syria, and Iraq (2016). The chapter then explores the status of documentary comics as a counterapproach to contemporary media culture, especially with regard to digitalization and post-truth politics.

Connecting the role of the documentarian to a lawyer, this chapter discusses the theories that inform this study. First, the chapter traces the development of frame theory with its foundations in sociology and linguistics, and outlines its application to medial artifacts. Cognitive narratology is applied to account for the functions of frames in the comprehension of narrative texts. Second, the chapter explores documentary as a genre frame. The history and the technological foundation of documentary—for example, the “myth of photographic truth”—are discussed; following, the chapter addresses recent shifts in the perception of medial truth claims, connecting post-truth politics to notions of a “post-documentary” or “post-photographic” era. Third, the graphic narrative book is discussed as a medial frame that posits materiality against the more ephemeral digital media. The particular mediality of comics presents a unique way to materialize witness accounts in the mode of oral history.

This chapter explores the status of the paratext as part of the graphic narrative book’s extended medial apparatus. Paratexts are particularly important for documentary comics: they announce and explain the unconventional combination of medium and genre (in prefaces or blurbs), and fulfill the author’s pledge to accuracy (in notes, bibliographies, and other appendices). The paratext is discussed not as a stable material frame or ontological boundary for the book but rather as a pragmatic space to manifest framing strategies—which are subject to change with editions. Nevertheless, the materiality of the book is discussed as a distinguishing factor against digital media. The chapter discusses different functions of the paratexts, such as advertising the book as a commodity, sparking the reader’s interest, and offering clues toward the generic status—and, importantly, guiding (potential) readers in their interpretation of the text and the represented conflicts.

Approaching comics as a visual language, this chapter addresses the textuality of comics, both concerning cues for particular frames (i.e., a drawing style referencing a particular genre or period) and as framing techniques that structure the reader’s gaze by inclusion and exclusion of particular elements (i.e., through cartooning, perspective and composition, and page layout). Documentary graphic narratives operate in a mode of tension between naturalistic and abstract styles; the chapter demonstrates how both are used for particular emphases and to facilitate different types of realism. The multiplicity of co-present images on the double page determines that each panel is framed by the panoptical vision of its surrounding elements, which presents a unique environment for documentary framing. The chapter examines how, by juxtaposing particular images, meaning is created beyond the sum of its parts, disruptions are performed, and how visual cues guide the interpretation of the represented events.

Storytelling is a central concern of documentary graphic narratives. This chapter discusses narrative framing strategies in the selected works: for instance, how stories are told and contextualized, for instance, through comments and/or contradicting accounts, shapes the comprehension of the represented events. Each narrative discourse frames the represented events through particular representational choices. Moreover, different narrative levels frame each other: similar to a detective story, many documentary graphic narratives include a framing narrative that outlines the reporter’s investigation, and into which witness accounts are embedded to tell the story of a past crisis. Furthermore, storytelling is especially persuasive because of its lifelike rendering of events, which makes them emotionally relatable. As an integral dynamic, documentary comics faces a productive contradiction: authors both seek to immerse their readers in gripping stories and draw attention to the constructedness of the reported events.

The conclusion discusses the findings of the book with regard to the place of comics in contemporary documentary media culture and also offers a short outlook on current trends in documentary comics. As an emerging documentary phenomenon and a new visual language, comics enables authors to reframe the stagnating discourse of the mainstream media and interrogate its medial ideologies and truth claims. In its more enduring materiality, it presents a counterapproach to digital media, which sets the limitation of single authorship and personal accountability against the vast availability of constantly developing information online.