Autographic Double Exposure – the Narrative Characteristics of the Inked Black Line in Comics

Materiality plays a significant role in all artforms. In comics it is predominantly the inked black line that is used to construct the narrative.

Inking, putting black ink on top of pencil drawings to make them suitable for mechanical reproduction is a practice that is so deeply intertwined with comics that it is taken for granted.

The matter of inking comics has not been subject to any deeper artistic problematization, nor extensive scholarly interest.

This is unfortunate since inking was a crucial part of Swiss artist, author and cartoonist Rodolphe Töpffers (1799-1846) innovation literature en estampes [graphic literature].

The literature on Töpffer – today credited as the father of comics – is extensive, but lacks a clear description of autography, the printing technique that allowed him to draw and write without having to reverse images and text.This project will experiment with and explore inking in relation to autography and the similar, modern digital duplication technique risography, that challenges the current dematerialization of narratives and art.

The aim is to gain knowledge of new narrative features in comics through production of prototypes and develop these using the concept double exposure, both in the sense of practice, combining different visual material and narrative features – and as a metaphor for the layers of time and space in comics.

It will result in a significant work – a graphic novel.