PERFORMANCE

by

Blaise Larmee

"I invented one bad character but he’s only acting, he comes in and acts the bad parts in my stories, then he goes home and he’s nice."
-Gary Panter



Let's forget for a moment the "reality" that comics are ink on paper and speak instead in the naively functionist view that comics are a space that house characters and the actors who portray them

Different creators have different relationships with their characters. Some see them as representative of actual people, a view evident in certain autobio works, and some see them a step removed as actors, reading aloud the lines given them. Of course many relationships exist within and between these (somewhat arbitrary) categories. There are creators who could care less how their characters are feeling or whether their actors are mature enough for certain roles and there are creators who can't stand to make their actors uncomfortable or let anything bad happen to their characters. If one followed these two lines of thought to their extremes, one would find on one end the creator who actually believes in his character's existence (a kind of outward method acting) and the creator who only considers his characters to be "ink on paper," although one must ask at this point if it still be considered a "character?"





Performance is perhaps the most overlooked element in comics today. This is due in part to certain creators' desire for "unmediated expression," in which performance (a mediating device) is treated with scorn and skepticism.(1) In "mainstream" comics (Peanuts, Spiderman) performance is so ubiquitous that it is difficult to find a nonperformative space in which to isolate the performative element. In fact it is difficult to say there exists a nonperformative space in comics at all, since the entire reality of comics exists only in the mind of the reader and the creator. In this case each performance could be considered a performance within a performance, but this is not so different than performance in the "real world," in which we often see ourselves as characters.




Most creators focus on the diagesis and mise-en-scene, disregarding the actors involved. Certain art comics practitioners, by contrast, acknowledge their actors by allowing slip-ups, ad-libs, and roleplay. Austin English's actors are terribly inexpressive, but he shows their inexpression in extreme detail, making their reality as actors seem almost tangible. In this context the text (narrative) and images (actors) are not only separate but even oppositional, creating a oddly dynamic interplay.

Ivan Brunetti used to employ a wide variety of actors to play a single character - himself. Now he has apparently grafted onto the same paradigm as the whole of comics history - flatly realized characters in a highly aestheticized world, a world stabilized by triangulated inter-character relationships and straightforward or exaggerated performances. By hiding the actors behind blank icons Brunetti refuses agency to his actors, making them mere puppets for the characters they portray. When we separate the actor from character, some interesting relationships emerge. We can see the actors develop alongside their characters, whether to fit the part better or to deviate from it. In addition we can see the complexities of the creator's own relationship to his/her characters mirrored in the actor-character relationships.





CF deals explicitly with performance in "Powr Mastrs", constantly questioning and queering the actor-character relationships one finds within. Because his characters are aware of the make-believe aspects of their performance, the actors who portray them become characters themselves and vice versa. In fact the story begins with one of the characters, Subra Ptareo, imagining he is actually the persona he created. The notion of nonperformance is incompatible with performance, and Subra's character is often at odds with his counterparts. His idea of a nonperformative "reality" is quickly (and constantly) interrupted, and often serves as the butt of a joke. In this way the reader can feel comfortable with these characters' travails, since they are only performances, but the reader also worries about the actors involved (who, of course, are themselves characters). The resulting characters are infinitely complex - seen in a hall of mirrors in which the character and actor are indistinguishable.. CF seems to side with the idea of everything as performance, but of course then the reverse becomes true as well - nothing is performance. The ramifications of that in a comic - a completely performative experience - are interesting.



Although at first glance Peanuts seems to be a poor illustration of performance, in which the actor-character divide is so thin as to cease to exist (what mainstream critics would call a "perfect comic"), upon closer inspection the actors change quite a bit. Before Schultz drew Peanuts he drew "Lil' Folk, which featured many of the same actors but in different roles. Similarly the actors change while their character remains the same. When one looks at Charlie Brown toward the end of his career, with his scraggly and unkempt lines, one sees an old man still playing a child.



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As a genre, however, comics are steeped in the performative. Superheroes are simple archetypes played by many actors.

1Crumb, Clowes, Brown, and Brown have all pointed out their performance as "autobio" creators, but in such an over-the-top "making fun of themselves" way that they don't aknowledge the more complex and subtle aspects of performance. These comics read more like the creator's attempt to "purge" himself of all the "dishonesty" involved in representing oneself, reducing the issue to black and white terms. James Kochalka, on the other hand, seems very cognizent of the intricacies of representation and, by extension, performance.