The long-term biased critical reception of comics did not allow the medium's theoretical remodeling, the highlighting of its multidimensionality and complexity, and its establishment as a self-sufficient and serious ...The long-term biased critical reception of comics did not allow the medium's theoretical remodeling, the highlighting of its multidimensionality and complexity, and its establishment as a self-sufficient and serious narrative medium. The creators of graphic novels in an attempt to upgrade and restore their "ancestors'" cultural status and to eliminate the negative stigma of the medium, by taking advantage of the self-referencing techniques, they try to redefine comics and reframe the field of their social practice. Graphic novels, even more, either allusively or straightforwardly, aquire metatextual quality, by exercising critique on the artistic phenomenon in general and on comics' history and theory in particular. Self-referentiality and metatextuality function as 'internal legitimization apparatuses of the medium and provide graphic novels the right to participate in the theoretical discourse, negotiate or even rearticulate it.展开更多
文摘The long-term biased critical reception of comics did not allow the medium's theoretical remodeling, the highlighting of its multidimensionality and complexity, and its establishment as a self-sufficient and serious narrative medium. The creators of graphic novels in an attempt to upgrade and restore their "ancestors'" cultural status and to eliminate the negative stigma of the medium, by taking advantage of the self-referencing techniques, they try to redefine comics and reframe the field of their social practice. Graphic novels, even more, either allusively or straightforwardly, aquire metatextual quality, by exercising critique on the artistic phenomenon in general and on comics' history and theory in particular. Self-referentiality and metatextuality function as 'internal legitimization apparatuses of the medium and provide graphic novels the right to participate in the theoretical discourse, negotiate or even rearticulate it.