Figural Solidarity: Grappling with Meaning in Comics

Thierry Groensteen’s concept of iconic solidarity (IS) is one of the most familiar terms in all of comics scholarship. This paper introduces a new theoretical term and concept, figural solidarity (FS), as a critical adaptation of Groensteen’s notion (1999; 2011); FS provides additional explanatory power in the central cases of narrative comics. FS is founded on the coreferentiality of sequential figures, which provides both cohesiveness and driving force for visual narratives. The introductory section compares empirical eye-tracking data with the hypothesized top-down strategies of readers influenced by FS, as they concentrate on recurring characters to understand narratives. Subsequent sections retrace FS’s theoretical roots in Groensteen, Mikkonen and other scholars. The concept of figure in the FS context is defined and intuitive motivation for it provided. We then address, without fully resolving, the question of whether and how linguistic theories of meaning can be applied to comics (with particular reference to Cohn’s Visual Language Theory). We hope that the concept of FS may promote a broader research program into how comics images create meaning.