Structure, form, and content: Mythology and comics

The attempt to define mythology is as varied and misunderstood as the art form of comics. Both are much broader in content and meaning than the ways in which they usually get considered. Myths are narratives with content that defines specific times and places through use of the structures of the imaginal and metaphorical tensions. Comics narratives also define specific times and spaces, using the structures of the comics panel and the comics page to also capture the imaginal and metaphorical tensions. Structuralism has always suggested that myths contain the oppositions of our lives in one narrative. They create unity, or non-duality, out of the opposites. The tensions that are contained thus create the power and meaning we find in mythology. Similar tensions are contained in comics in the structures of panels and pages. These create mythic power and meaning in comics. By doing so, the contents of comics can be regarded as myths. This dissertation will use examples of the comic strip (George Herriman's "Krazy Kat"), the superhero comic book, and the graphic novel, both from America (Justin Green's Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary and Alison Bechdel's Are You My Mother?) and abroad (Moto Hagio's The Heart of Thomas and Takako Shimura's Wandering Son), to describe some of the variety of myths that comics have created. As well, this survey will inform how mythology is present in human thought and consideration at all times. As a biologically dual species, humans are in many ways, nevertheless, non-dual due to the very nature of our genetic structures. Myths reflect our penchant to see the world in oppositions, even while we recognize the potential for oppositions to co-exist within each other. The ways in which our dualities actually do co-exist is expressed through the metaphors we use to create our myths. In similar ways, the panels of our comics visually express the same truth and create more myths.;Keywords: mythology, comics, structuralism, Krazy Kat, superheroes, graphic novels, manga.