A Preliminary List
of Constraints
by Thierry Groensteen, from Oubapo: Oupus 1 (L’Association, 1997).
Translated and summarized by Matt Madden
A. Generative Constraints offer tools with which to create new works
a) iconic restriction -- limiting or eliminating one visual element, eg the way Chris Ware never shows Jimmy’s Corrigan’s mom’s face
b) plastic restriction -- limiting the mode of representation, eg geometric shapes, rubber stamps, number of colors, stick figures, etc.
c) framing restriction -- limiting the framing or point of view. Crumb (in his monologues or in “A Short History of America”) does this a lot. Also see Richard McGuire’s “Here” in RAW v2 #1
di) iconic iteration -- repetition of one image or graphic element, eg David Lynch’s “The Angriest Dog in the World” or “Baby Sue”
dii) partial iconic
iteration -- repetition of an image w/some variation, eg “Jean Qui
Rit et Jean Qui Pleure,” Francois Ayroles, (Collection Patte de Mouche,
L’Association)
[In Oupus 1, Groensteen points out that these first four constraints regulate
the alternation of repetition and difference which is at the very core
of comics creation and thus are the most commonly used--MM]
e) pluri-readability -- comic that can be read meaningfully in more than one way, eg Marc-Antoine Mathieu’sL’Origine (Delcourt), an “acrostic” comic (Oubapo, p. 8), or a palindromic comic.
f) reversibility -- a comic that can be read in more than one orientation; an “upside-down” comic, e.g.Gustave Verbeek(Oupus 1, p.15) Joost Swarte also did this at least once, and I believe it appeared in English. If anyone has seen this please contact us.
g) coverage -- requiring manipulation of the page to enable new reading, eg Mad “Fold-ins” or supplying reader with transparencies or elements that can be overlayed on an existing page (an ironic example being the genital stickers in RAW #?)
h) random sequence -- panels that can be put together in any order, eg comics dice (Apres Tout Tant Pis, a project by Anne Baraou and Corinne Chalmeau where they created 3 dice that could be combined in any order and create a 3-panel strip that made narrative sense)
i) regulated distribution -- regulation (binary, arithmetical, exponential, etc) of a given element from panel to panel, e.g. a Stanislas strip featured in Oupus 1 where each panel has one more character than the previous. Groensteen further proposes a comic where the time lapsed between panels would increase according to a given rule. For example the time lapse between panels (i.e. in the gutters) could be increased by 2 (2 minutes, then 4, 6, 8, etc.) or each interval could be double (2,4,8, 16, etc)
j) page layout -- determining the order and shape of panels on a page, whether a regular grid e.g. Matt Feazell, which serves to foreground other elements of the storytelling, or a “geometric” ordering that is functional to the narrative and not just decorative, eg “Fearful Symmetry,” Ch. 5 of Watchmen, or Griffith’s “the Plot Thickens”
B. Transformative
Constraints modify an existing work
k) substitution --
substituting either or both the text and image of a given comic. An example
of verbal substitution would be the found comics modified by the Situationists
or the Church of the Subgenius; examples of iconic substitution are rare,
but apparently Schuiten added new images to part of a Tintin text and
incoporated it into his own story. A third variation proposed by Killoffer
is called “double aveugle” (twice blind). Someone chooses or
draws a comics page, then gives the text to one artist, asking him or
her to create new drawings; and gives the drawing with the text removed
to another artist, asking him or her to come up with new text to fill
in the word or thought balloons, narration, etc. Finally, the new drawings
and the new text are combined into a brand new comic, only marginally
related to the original work
l) N+7 method -- borrowed
from Oulipo, this means simply get a dictionary and replace every noun
with the seventh noun following. Since one is illustrating everything,
this is not very applicable to comics, but Killoffer gave it an intrepid
if intermittently succesful attempt (Oubapo, pp46-7).
m) expansion -- lengthening
an existing work by adding panels. Acrostic comics (see pluri-readability)
are one example; Also see “Towing the Line” below.
n) reduction -- opposite
of m); reduce a given work arbitrarily or using a guiding principle. eg,
Gilles Ciment reduced Herge’s Cigars of the Pharoah to the 6 panels
which include only exclamation points or question marks as dialogue (Oubapo,
p. 50). McCloud shows reduction and expansion in Understanding Comics,
but Groensteen points out that his examples aren’t convincing since
the long form is obviously padded for length, and not meaningfully lengthened.
o) reframing -- expanding
or reducing the framing of an existing panel, eg spiegelman’s brilliant
“Malpractice Suite” from Arcade, reprinted in Breakdowns and
[recent catalog]
p) graphic reinterpretation
-- redrawing a comic or recreating a style, whether parodic or not, eg
Mad parodies that lampoon styles (Caniff etc), or “tribute”
albums, popular in Europe, where artists draw Herge characters
q) hybridization -- putting together panels from 2 or more comics, whether from the same artist or not. The game “5-card Nancy” might be considered an example. also see Oubapo 1, p4, also Bob Sikoryak’s work using various recognizable “classic” comics styles (Charles Schulz, Bazooka Joe) to retell “classic” works of fiction (“The Metamorphosis”, Inferno)
Towing the Line
Adaptation of an Oulipo
exercise by JC Menu and Etienne Lecroart (Oupus 1 pp 68-100)
This is both a generative and a transformative constraint exercise. It
works like this:
-start with a two-panel comic, call the panels A1 and A2
-create 3 new panels, B1-3, and surround the A comic with them, using
the principle: B1-A1-B2-A2-B3. The new comic must still be readable and
meaningful.
-continue adding series of panels, inserting them in every gutter and
at the beginning and end, and maintaining readability, ie: C1-B1-C2-A1-C3-B2-C4-A2-C5-B3-C6,
and so on.
-as an additional constraint, the authors decided that the dialogue in
each panel had to begin with the letter denoted by its point in the series
(in other words, the text in each of the panels B1-3 has to begin with
the letter b).
SOME OUBAPO LINKS:
Links in English:
MAP>OULIPO
Site about connecting the arts and sciences.
Matt Madden's Exercises in Style
OUBAPO - AMERICA MESSAGE BOARD
Links in French:
place selling Oubapo book#1. offers brief description
Links to other experimental comics sites:
Lewis Trondheim's random gag generator
Scott McCloud, the one-man comics idea factory
USS Catastrophe has, among other cool items, an ongoing add-a-panel jam comic
Two English language links mimicing Raymond Queneau's 100,000,000,000,000 Poems:
http://www.wordengineering.net/ticker2.html