Leticia Neria PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText ...

And what about comics? Comics take elements from reality and adapt and
recreate them into a two-dimensional image; however, they do this without the details in
the settings and the mise-en-scene so characteristic in cinema. Simplistically, it may
seem as though comics are not related to reality. However, when we read a comic we
recognise the characters and settings as fictional, and we interpret them and give them
sense by connecting them to our reality, as with films. In comics, readers need to fill the
gaps missing in the images and narrative themselves, and they do so using knowledge of
similar situations from their own reality. Thus, in both media, we identify elements from
real life - even if they are caricatured- such as objects, places, and feelings, and connect
them with similar ones belonging to our reality.
Another reason for using cinema and comics as a cultural source is because both
are human creations, they have been created by someone for some reason. There is no
impartiality in cinema, 6 and the same is true of comics. In both media what we see has
been selected by someone; they contain clues that guide us in the way in which this
‘someone’ wants us to see them, deciding what we should notice, and hiding or
downplaying other aspects. These ‘clues’ help us to understand what the creator is
trying to communicate to us. 7
Viewers recognise the reality that is presented on screen, and recall events and
images outside it. They do not limit their minds exclusively to the situations on the
screen or in the frames. 8 They do more than simply make sense of the narration
according to their own experience, and also enrich their own knowledge and experience.
This helps them understand reality better, and re-interpret the world in a more complete
6
Alejandro Montiel, Teorías del cine. Un balance histórico ([n.p.]: Montesinos, 1992), p. 114.
7
David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson, Film Art. An Introduction (McGraw-Hill Publishing Company,
1990), p. 99.
8
Andre Bazin, Bazin at work. Major Essays & Reviews from the Forties & Fifties, trans. by Alain Piette
and Bert Cardullo (New York and London: Routledge, 1997), p. 7.
3