Abstract: This paper will discuss the rising trend of absurdism in popular culture, and in particular how that relates to the rather new medium of web comics. A history of both absurdist culture and web comics will be used to study these trends. I will also present a case study of one particular absurdist contemporary web comic (from “Eat More Bikes”) with an example of one of the earliest forms of absurdist illustrated humor. All this will stand to prove that comics in general are beginning to follow more closely with changing art and literary trends, and the web comics specifically are seeing a current rise in the absurdist trend.
Garrity, Shaenon. “The History of Web comics.” The Comics Journal. The Comics Journal, 15 July 2011. Web.
Shaenon Garrity, a web comic writer and artist herself, catalogues the history of web comics, beginning with the predecessors and very first artists of 1985. Garrity categorizes artistic movements into “Ages” which emphatically share names with archaeological periods to juxtapose the frivolity of the web comic medium with the severity of such ancient, well-founded history. Garrity discusses the popular topics, genres, and trends during each “Age” and provides specific successful paradigms for each. This timeline clearly shows the rising trend toward more absudist and surrealist comics through this online medium, which is indicative that the overall trend in literature, film, and other areas of pop culture toward this same end has affected the web comic medium.
White, Hayden. “The Absurdist Moment in Contemporary Literary Theory.” Contemporary Literature. 17.3 (1976): 378-403. Print.
Hayden White’s rationale on a trend in contemporary literary theory toward absurdist themes shows the general movement toward this end in culture as a whole. White explains that more and more critics are viewing contemporary art and literature through an absurdist lens, asking questions of existentialism and meaninglessness, the relevance of the very form itself. If one applies White’s argument to web comics, one may come to understand the medium better, in that the web comics are asking themselves “why do I exist?” This is an important question for a rather marginalized and “low brow” form in a world where all range of media is so widely accessible. With White’s writing as both a lens and a guide, I will act as the absurdist literary critic toward contemporary web comics.
Lear, Edward. “One Hundred Nonsense Pictures and Rhymes.” Nonsense Books. Boston: Little, Brown and, 1888. N. pag. Print.
In his Nonsense Books, Edward Lear presents multiple examples of what might now be called “surrealist humor.” This includes several illustrations with related and equally strange, amusing words, not unlike what one might find today in the form of a web comic. Lear, along with Louis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, was a predecessor to the first wave of absurdism in popular culture, dating back to the late 19th century. Lear includes one image and rhyme in particular that I will look at as a case study, in comparison to a contemporary example of absurdist web comics:
There was an old person of Deal,
Who in walking used only his heel;
When they said, “Tell us why?” he made no reply,
That mysterious old person of Deal.
Bulmer, Nathan. “Eat More Bikes: August 2013.” Eat More Bikes: August 2013. Eat More Bikes, 31 Aug. 2013. Web.
The above image and text will be compared with the following:
