I Can SEE Myself in this Comic!

Two things are true about Jimmy Corrigan and I:
One: I didn't really enjoy reading it.
Two: I can think of more to say about it right off the top of my than I could about any other book we've dealt with this semester.

After much pondering i decided it made sense to write about the most global Jimmy-related issue that's been knocking around in my head, and that is the issue of self-conciousness in comics. I feel like over the carious reading of this course, I've noticed that self consciousness in various is more prevalent in comics than it is in other types of literary media.

Obviously, it's true that many comics contain explicit themes and topics related to self-consciousness (and, in many cases, social awkwardness), but the kind of self-consciousness I'm referring to is more structural. I note that in many graphic novels, the artist makes specific, often explanatory and/or humorous reference to their own stylistic choices within the actual text. Nowhere is this trend more apparent in Jimmy Corrigan, with it's actually roadmap diagram (in which Ware cops to the fact that the plot may have been hard to follow), it's various paper-folding instructions and the final Corrigenda complete with a glossary explain the word "peach". Other books we've read this semester that reference their own style include Fun Home and Mauss II.

While I've put a bunch of thought into why this phenomenon may exist, I haven't come up with any answers satisfactory enough to share with you (the temptation to blame Dave Eggers is strong, but I suspect it's a longer story than that), so I'll focus the the effect that it has on my experience.

The effect that this self-consciousness has, at least for me, is that artist him or herself has a more palpable presence in the text itself than I am accustomed to with most prose. In this sense, even when a work is not about the artist him or herself topically, it always is FORMALLY, to some extent. This is cool, but it can also be annoying and self-absorbed-seeming (See Fate of the Artist).

I think it's more often cool when the self-consciousness is somehow derivative of the self as opposed to focused on the self. This difference is actually apparent in a certian movement of prose as well. Think Dave Eggers versus David Foster Wallace. When the actual self is the focus topically and formally, I get annoyed. When, however, an auteur of comics or prose uses stylistic elements derived from or referential to the self, as focused topically on the self. Oh man, i would like to see two wrestling matches: Foster Wallace vs Eggers, then Ware vs Campbell.