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THE OTHER RETHORIC FIGURE THAT’S NOT METAPHOR

There is one called metonymy. The one in which the reader does the closure job and is very similar to “the part for the whole” or vice versa. Metonymy’s something akin to this:

«Les dijeron que fueran a hablar con la Iglesia».

They were told to go and talk to the Church”

Churches are buildings. They don’t speak. Until we think the people managing them does. But it is not usual to say: “They were told to go and speak to the bishops and cardinals representing the catholic religion”. No, we make it short and use the building or the institute’s image as subs.

In such way, we’re able to make the duplicity of literature to exist. Closure, as understood in gestalt, is something that happens both in poetry as in comics through symbolic relationships. Just think in the bat…chap and you will get it.

WHAT’S ITS RELATION TO COMICS?

Alfredo Ballesteros names a book in his discerning about why comics and poems are alike. Let’s take a peek at what the author [Scot McCloud] has to say [heavily edited for reasons regarding copyright and my own convenience¹. Afterwards, I’ll explain things he couldn’t have guessed just because he doesn’t write poetry. NOTE: BEFORE I TRANSLATED THIS ENTRY, I HADN’T READ THE BOOK. THUS, IF YOU FIND I HAVE BEEN EXPLAINING THINGS QUITE WELL IT IS ONLY BECAUSE I’M VERY GOOD AT FIGURING THINGS.

UNDERSTANDING COMICS CHAPTER 3 [EDITED]

What do you think happened there? There is a guy with an axe…. Closure! Closure happened. You imagined then, it happened. The gutter is the use of closure in a comic.

Poetry is a rather personal thing. However, as I’ve said somewhere else; once out of your hands, it is the reader’s mind that will come up with whatever it is they want to come up. Specially when dealing with metaphors and metonimies. Let’s see this one:

Where did you meet him,

the thief who took it all from me?

This is part of a song composed because the author’s daughter’s wedding. If you know the fact, you understand it as a show off of paternal love. Yet, ignore that fact and…who stole your love from you? Right? You made up the story. Closure!

McCloud has admitted to this point that written word is the one media that gives more intimacy through closure. What he doesn’t know is that poetry makes that flying jump without the next panel. Poetry can be something as short as a haiku. Haikus have but a single panel. And that’s enough to fly. Rimbaud hits us with two panels… and it is enough to fly. Gustavo Adolfo Becquer hits us with four panels and that’s enough. 

Yes, only comics do create in the hybrid way they do. In spite of it, they are not the only media that brings up the dance. Poems and fiction do too.

HOW?

Through the invisible and the visible. Written fiction is the most abstract of possible abstraction. McCloud himself notices it when explaining something in chapter 2 of the book. Nonetheless, he doesn’t get himself into the problem of explaining how it works when writing fiction. He draws comics.

I write fiction about writing fiction and sometimes, fiction itself. I also read webtoons. That’s how I know.

What’s poetry? You inquire.

And such a question you dare,

Staring at me with blue hued eyes?

Poetry is you².

Hasn’t your mind danced to this? Poems create by naming things. Its is our minds that do the rest.

THE END

Fiu. I’m done with “copying” the topic. It was so much of a copy that I wrote 7 entries about comics and poems being alike instead of the original 4 features explained by Ballesteros. At the end, I came up with: silence, sequence, symmetry, subdivision in smaller units (but not the same measuring method) and closure or symbolic relationships; plus the highly educated literacy to be able to create them all as shared features between comics and poems.

I hope the journey was as enjoyable as it was insufferable. It is impossible to learn anything without the hard work.   It is impossible to enjoy without the suffering along.

Have you spent a great time creating? Like it, comment it, say I’m crazy (nothing new and quite obvious). Do! Or rest. Pasto kalo.

1. If you feel like reading it all, I’ll recommend buying it. Nonetheless, there’s always the case taxes have become a little pesky thanks to certain presidents or Amazon policies won’t allow you to properly get it because they don’t deliver such merchandise in your country. In such case I won’t be a prude. You can go to THAT library. ↩︎
2. My free translation of a Gustavo Adolfo Becquer poem. I don’t remember the number. Please comment if you do. I don’t think I’ll remember to check it up. ↩︎