Medium independence and “malleability” – Mediamixing by Olga Kopylova (2)

 

In this series of posts, I’m interested in the concept of “malleability”, a term borrowed from Olga Kopylova’s very interesting paper which I consider to be one of the essential concepts for understanding graphic culture, and a central concept in my “mediagraphic” project. Central first at the level of graphic production, because “malleability” refers to an ability to transcend the boundaries specific to a creation, production, and distribution mode: in other words, to flout the medium. Central secondly at the level of reception? In a book I edited, which exploited the results of a national survey on comics, I posed a question: “what visual culture?” The very complete data collected indeed highlighted the emergence of a true graphic culture, with video game enthusiasts, comic book readers, and animated series or films fans constituting a well-identified audience. Quantitative and sociological identification of the “mediamix” and “otaku culture” phenomena studied by Marc Steinberg, Steevie Suan and Alban?

Mediagraphic: a visual culture?

Data measuring the intensity of “visual” cultural practices according to the number of comics read in the past year. As usual, the surveyed individuals with the most active cultural practices cumulate them and do not limit themselves to a single medium (the more books they read, the more they go to the theater, etc.). However, and unlike other types of readers, comic book fans always have the most sustained visual practices.

Figure 1. National survey on comics readership conducted in 2011 (cf. Berthou, 2015, VI, §15).

 

The “malleability” as I conceive it extends to both the production and reception of graphic productions, and its central question can be perfectly summarized by quoting Marc Steinberg: how to establish an “independen(ce) from any particular medium” (Steinberg, 2012, p.83)? What are the conditions that make it possible to think about such autonomy, and to ensure circulation between different expression and dissemination modes? The question is somehow paradoxical because any experience of a narrative, or more concretely of a character, indeed presupposes that it is embodied, produced in one context or another, and perceived within a comic book, an animated series, a video game… They don’t exist without a medium, without the support of an authority that enables them to be presented to an audience and to be the object of an aesthetic experience. Incarnation is a strict condition, a necessity for their existence and further development.

 

Graphic culture: what activities?

Data concerning the graphic activities of comic book readers only (manga, albums, US comics). Other types of readers (data not presented here) are concerned (to a much lesser degree) only by movies adaptation (for example, of a novel or a children’s book). Even the act of performing a theater play or writing and reading poetry aloud as part of an amateur club does not seem significant.

Figure 2. National survey on comics readership conducted in 2011 (cf. Berthou, 2015, VI, §25).

 

How then to conceive a “malleability” that implies never being confined in a given embodiment but being able to multiply and combine them? Do we need to imagine that there would be a “pre-graphic” or “pro-incarnation” stage, which would precede any form of media existence? In the manner of Saussure’s linguistics theory, which assumes the existence of a code and a faculty to use language as necessary conditions for the ability to write or mobilize other forms of graphic transmission? In a way, it is the possibility Olga Kopylova seems to be exploring in her paper “Drawing Works Together: Anime Media Mix and Graphic Style as a Shared Cultural Resource”. She develops a graphic approach to “mediamix” (and the “malleability” concept I’m focusing on) by questioning the complementarity, rivality, relations of two actors: the “character designer (kyarakutā dezainā)” and the “character concept artist (kyarakutā gen’an)” (Kopylova, 2023, p.196).

 

Participatory culture: the status of drawing

Data regarding the practice of amateur comic book drawing (characters or stories). The sample represented here consists solely of individuals over the age of 15 who declare reading comic book of all kinds.

Figure 3. National survey on comics readership conducted in 2011 (cf. Berthou, 2015, VI, §46).

 

If these two graphic designers differ from one another, it’s primarily in the purpose of their work and the use that can be made of their drawings. According to Olga Kopylova, the mission of the character concept artist is “limited to creating a collection of comparably rough but detailed drawings that need to be polished and completed by someone else” (Kopylova, p.196). Indeed, his work is not intended to be used as such in a graphic production: it is not produced for a wide audience, but for other professionals whose job it is to use it, and actually has a strange status. It’s not a sketch, the first step of a project consisting of graphic researches on the appearance and attitudes of the character to be imagined. It’s not a draft either, a first version that would be subsequently revised, improved, and then inked and possibly colored to move towards the printed or the animated series. And if it is eventually published, it’s not as part of a narrative but to enhance a graphic production as an illustration that can be seen on a website or in a magazine, like the ones studied by Olga Kopylova in her paper.

 

Character concept art: a graphic kit

Work for the animated series Attack on Titans. These character concept arts were created by the author of the adapted manga, Hajime Isayama.

Figure 4. Works presented on characterdesignreferences.com URL: https://characterdesignreferences.com/art-of-animation-8/art-of-attack-on-titan-part-1 (accessed April, 17, 2024). © Witt studio and Hajime Isayama

 

It seems to me that a much more appropriate term to qualify the work of the character concept artist would be “blueprint,” as proposed by Olga Kopylova (p. 192) quoting Bryan Hikari Hartzheim’s PhD. According to Oxford’s learners dictionary, the word refers to “a plan which shows what can be achieved and how it can be achieved”. In our context, it therefore refers to a graphic production designed to produce graphic works by precisely indicating their means and ends. And this is indeed the case: if the “blueprints” we’re interested in don’t mention dimensions or measurements, they do show the extent of possible expressions for a given character, and thereby anticipate the range of situations a character might face in the course of the narrative yet to be crafted. Its purpose is indeed to enable production, and we are indeed here in the “pre-graphic” or “pro-incarnation” stage that we mentioned earlier.

 

The “blueprint”: a technical drawing for graphic art

Work of Yoshitaka Amano for the animation movie Vampire hunter D: bloodlust directed by Yutaka Minowa.

Figure 5. Works presented on characterdesignreferences.com. URL: https://characterdesignreferences.com/art-of-animation-9/art-of-vampire-hunter-d-bloodlust (accessed April, 17, 2024). © Madhouse studios

 

At any rate, this is how we could define the second actor we’re interested in: a “character designer” who acts as a “incarnation technician” or an “embodiment engineer”, titles to be distributed according to the rank and skills of all the graphic workers. In any case, his mission is to take in charge the character’s inscription in a given context, as shown by his “responsibilities”: “they revise and modify the existing character visuals, such as manga illustrations or character concept art, or develop them from scratch to fulfill the needs of the adapting medium, whether anime or game” (Kopylova, p192). Generalist/specialist, artist/artisan? How should we then consider this graphic duo? It would probably be more accurate to describe the character designer as a professional of “media needs” with a different relationship to graphic creation. It takes the form of a kind of arbitration: the result of the character design process “must be easy to animate, instantly recognizable, and readily reproducible in other material forms” which supposes to reduce “the number of lines required for the character form, fixing the line quality, and developing distinctive silhouettes” (Kopylova, p.192).

 

Graphic embodiments?

Photograms from (left) Attack on Titans (season 1, episode 5) and (right) Vampire D: bloodlust

Figure 6. Attack on titans, directed by Tetsuro Araki © Witt studio. Vampire D: bloodlust directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri © Madhouse studios

 

Character concept artist and character designer: a duo that invites us to complete Marc Steinberg’s definition of “mediamix”. It cannot be seen just as a “set of models for how to do media” business, production, distribution and conglomeration (Steinberg, 2023, p.1) … We need to consider another dimension, both aesthetic and logistical: that of incarnation, or, more precisely, the ability to constantly compose (and decompose) the “independen(ce) from any particular medium”. But this research axis faces a real problem identified very well by Olga Kopylova: “a crucial stage of visual adaptation – from manga image or concept art to the cleaned-up character sheet – remains mostly “black-boxed”” and overshadowed by the “evolution of production materials from the approved version into the final product” (Kopylova, p.197). Yet, that’s where lies the key to “malleability”, which is, in my opinion, one of the foundational principles of our graphic culture.

 

Bibliography

Berthou, B. 2015. “La bande dessinée : quelle culture de l’image ? ” In Berthou, B. (Ed.), La bande dessinée : quelle lecture, quelle culture? Paris : Éditions de la Bibliothèque publique d’information. DOI:10.4000/books.bibpompidou.1682

Kopylova, Olga, 2023. “Drawing Works Together: Anime Media Mix and Graphic Style as a Shared Cultural Resource”. Mechademia, Volume 16, Number 1, Winter 2023, pp. 190-211. URL : https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/23/article/910026 (accessed April 10, 2024).

Steinberg, Marc, 2012. Anime’s Media Mix: Franchising Toys and Characters in Japan. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press.

Steinberg, Marc, 2023. “Introducing the Media Mix”. Mechademia, Volume 16, Number 1, Winter 2023, pp. 1-11.  URL : https://muse.jhu.edu/article/910015 (accessed April 9, 2024).

 

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