Week 2

What does Baetens (2001) mean by 'monstration', 'graphiation' and the 'graphiateur' ?

In a comic, the words play a important roll of storytelling, the pictures do this as well, because a picture in a comic is not only a image to look at, but also carries meaning, it should be read. Thus, the pictures in the comics are both visual and narrative.

Therefore, when a artist draw a picture in a comic, he or she is thinking about how to use picture to represent the story. For example, she or he may think what is the character should be, what the character's situation, what kind of reaction the character should have, how to represent it what kind of mark form should be used etc. All these enunciations combined with the artist's personality will be represented by the artists drawing. What the artist want to represent can be described as graphiation and the artist is the graphiateur. More precisely, "Mason propose to call the 'graphiation' the graphic and narrative enunciation of comics and 'graphiateur' the agent responsible for it"(Baetens,2001, p.147). However, although every graphiateur's drawing bears the trace of graphiation, the analyses their work can only get a hint of their graphiation.

Monstration is a new theory from Gaudreault (as cited in Beatens,2001). He describes film as monstration because it is a great "combination of several types of narration" (Beatens,2001,p.147). I think, compare with graphiation, monstration is more clearly, directly and easily to be presented by the film, because the monstration can be carried out by moving images and sounds. so, it includes the stance of the novelist, film directors and other related staff.


Baetons, J. (2001). Revealing the trace : the new theory of graphic enunciaton . In Varnum, R. & Gillbon, D. (ED.). the language of comic: word and image (pp.145-155). Jackson: U Press of Mississippi.