Unreliable Iconicity

Or: Accounting for the Cartoonish Pictures of Comics in Multimodal Reasoning

Abstract

In this article, I explore how pictoriality in comics cannot be conceived as a single semiotic mode, but rather as two distinct thresholds of pictorial comprehension and interpretation: a mostly pre-attentional cognitive reconfiguration of two-dimensional lines on paper into three-dimensional bodies in space, as well as a more conscious interpretational mapping (or disentanglement) of perceivable features with storyworld entities, guided by often conflicting multimodal forces of specific textual cues, generic traditions, and paratextual markers. I analyze two comics by German artist Sascha Hommer that are typical for a medium-specific unreliability of iconicity in which we can never be sure how the inhabitants of both Hommer’s fantastic as well as of his autobiographical storyworld may be perceived by other characters. These questions, however, remain crucial for evaluating the thematic point of both works, especially as readers have to revise their earlier assumptions throughout their multimodal reasoning. My analysis of Hommer’s works will indicate how the two thresholds described prove indispensable for any account of the cartoonish pictures of comics and their media-specific unreliability.