page_title: Comics studies
section_title: Defining comics
hierarchical_section_title: Comics studies / Theorizing comics / Defining comics
caption_attribution_description: English: Scott McCloud at the Rhode Island School of Design, as part of his 50-state "Making Comics" tour. This was taken at the end of a Q&amp;A; I asked if I could take a picture for Wikipedia, and he said yes. Taken with a Canon Digital Rebel with a 50/1.8 lens, 1/40s, ISO 800. Français&#160;: Scott McCloud à la Rhode Island School of Design, lors de sa tournée "Making Comics" dans les 50 états.
context_page_description: Comics studies is an academic field that focuses on comics and sequential art. Although comics and graphic novels have been generally dismissed as less relevant pop culture texts, scholars in fields such as semiotics, aesthetics, sociology, composition studies and cultural studies are now re-considering comics and graphic novels as complex texts deserving of serious scholarly study.
  Not to be confused with the technical aspects of comics creation, comics studies exists only with the creation of comics theory—which approaches comics critically as an art—and the writing of comics historiography. Comics theory has significant overlap with the philosophy of comics, i.e., the study of the ontology, epistemology and aesthetics of comics, the relationship between comics and other art forms, and the relationship between text and image in comics.
  Comics studies is also interrelated with comics criticism, the analysis and evaluation of comics and the comics medium.
context_section_description: Similar to the problems of defining literature and film, no consensus has been reached on a definition of the comics medium, and attempted definitions and descriptions have fallen prey to numerous exceptions.  Theorists such as Töpffer, R. C. Harvey, Will Eisner, David Carrier, Alain Rey, and Lawrence Grove emphasize the combination of text and images, though there are prominent examples of pantomime comics throughout its history.  Other critics, such as Thierry Groensteen and Scott McCloud, have emphasized the primacy of sequences of images.  Towards the close of the 20th century, different cultures' discoveries of each other's comics traditions, the rediscovery of forgotten early comics forms, and the rise of new forms made defining comics a more complicated task.
caption: Cartoonist and comics theorist Scott McCloud
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