Page - 20 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 03/01

20 | Christian Wessely www.jrfm.eu 2017, 3/1, 17–44 the historical perspective overreaches when it looks for the origins of comics in Egyptian wall paintings or the friezes of Trajan’s Column, as has repeatedly been tried.8 Admittedly, the image is older than the written word and was therefore the primary medium and agent of expression within prehistoric societies and societies where reading was reserved for a very small educated class.9 And the picture remained the essential medium for the less educated members of a pop- ulation, but was secondary for members of an increasingly literate society (as is well illustrated by the development and later decline of the biblia pauperum). in many ways, however, such pictures are not what we would understand today as typical of the comic. Arguments about the history of the comic’s essential Americanness10 must also be challenged, for they are based on fallacy – the assumption that only “comic strips” (see below), which have appeared in the daily press since the 1890s, qualify as “comics”. While such work was ground-breaking in publishing history, the “comic” genre is not only much older but also of european prov- enance. We need a more precise definition that emphasises the specific medial value of comics, for which formal and functional categories are essential. histOry As demonstrated by fig. 2, a xylograph from a Dutch workshop, elements used to classify a comic (narration, abstraction, primacy of the image, and an extend- ed field of vision; see in detail below) could be found in the art of 15th-century europe. the ars moriendi illustration in fig. 2 depicts a dying man. Gathered at his bedside are Mary, mother of God, Jesus Christ, God the father, and a group of saints, while four demon figures fight over the dying man’s soul, with a fifth looking on from behind the bed. the pain of death can be read from the dying man’s face. While folding their hands in prayer or raising their hands in bless- ing, the saints speak words of encouragement such as “Tu es firmus in fide!” (You are firm in faith!). But the demons are very active, too. They hold out three ment designed to dull their audience’s minds, a suggestion that could still be heard in the 1980s. they deploy, however, a Marxist media theory and look at comics primarily as instruments of manipulation in favour of the status quo in the distribution of wealth and income. While the examples they used are out-dated, their argumentation should still be taken into account. 8 see e.g. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic#Geschichte [accessed 6 Dec. 2016]. 9 Between the black and white of literacy and illiteracy there are many shades of grey. in a culture that used scripture exclusively in a sacred context, reading competence was restricted to a very small group who had to have complete mastery of that skill (cf. simek 2006, 100–102), but in the increasingly secular and economic context of later millennia the ability to read and write was acquired to sup- port everyday life (cf. haarmann 2002, especially the chapter “Ökonomische funktionen des schrift- gebrauchs in Mesopotamien und Ägypten”). this phenomenon is also familiar in the 21st century, see https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/PisA-studien#entwicklung–der–Leistungen–2000.e2.80.932012 [accessed 10 Dec. 2016]. 10 see e.g. hollein in Braun/hollein 2016, 7 or Gubern 1978, 63–65.