Postmodernism in Comics:
The Past, The Present, and The Future

Comic books have gone through their own sort of “postmodernization” in tandem with the rest of the art world, following a similar trajectory to most popular art that has been created since the postwar period. However, when discussing postmodernism and the way it has influenced artists and critics throughout the mid 20th century to the present, I’ve noticed that comics are barely mentioned or, more likely, completely disregarded. Brian McHale, noted postmodern scholar and writer of The Cambridge Introduction to Postmodernism provides a short, stereotypical blurb about the art form within his introductory text:

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“Following a similar rising trajectory from low to high is the genre of the graphic novel, rooted in the disreputable, low-art traditions of funny papers and superhero comic-books, but sharing some of the iconoclastic energies of the avant-garde underground comix of the sixties” (McHale 81).

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After this, he mentions three books scholars love to gush over (Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, and Maus), then largely ignores comics for the rest of the book. Now, the debate over whether or not comics (which I will use throughout as opposed to graphic novels) are art ended at least twenty years ago, so I don’t plan to dwell on it too much longer. But for a textbook published in 2015, not exploring the discipline more thoroughly is a bit out of touch. There are a bevy of culturally relevant comics that fully exemplify postmodernism — published before and after McHale’s chosen end point of 9/11 (which I vehemently disagree with). In fact, I would argue that there are three different works that, over the past thirty-odd years, should be studied in more detail to cement their influential roles in the continual maturation of postmodernism, within comics and outside of it: 

• The Sandman (by Neil Gaiman, Mike Dringenberg, Jill Thompson, Dave McKean, Todd Klein, and many more)

• Hellboy (by Mike Mignola, Dave Stewart, Richard Corben, Duncan Fegredo, John Arcudi, and many more)

• The Department of Truth (by James Tynion IV, Martin Simmonds, Aditya Bidikar, and more)

This is not to say these three series are the end-all be-all for postmodern comics or that they’re the only series worth discussing the prominence of; rather, I feel as though these three series do an exceptional job of progressing mainstream comics forward into the postmodern movement and beyond. The Sandman is one of the most mainstream comics out there — this barely scratches the surface! The constraints of this project kept me from taking the time to delve as deeply into independent and underground comics as I would have liked to, though that would be an excellent focus for work in the future 

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In order to really dive deep into these stories, let’s first delve into what it means to be postmodern. It is my understanding that postmodernism is a movement characterized by a questioning of master narratives and a strong connection to magical realism. Works of art that inhabit this space frequently question the truth and hold reality under a microscope, looking for holes and inconsistencies with the way the world runs versus how the greater public is told the world is run. A prime example of this would be something like the TV show Twin Peaks. The show starts off as a standard murder mystery set in a quiet northwestern town, but eventually, the series transforms into a supernatural exploration of the concept of evil, how it affects everyday people, and how it can corrupt space and time if given the proper power. It’s heady stuff, but that’s what makes it postmodern. The movement has only grown and evolved since its birth following World War II, and I really don’t feel as though it even began to reach maturity (and peak cultural saturation) until the 1980s and 1990s. 

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This is why I find it so hard to agree with McHale’s assessment that postmodernism ended on September 11th, 2001. If the postmodern era ends on 9/11, what does that mean for all of the art created in the aftermath that questions why the attacks happened? What about the creative art that is meant to question our government and the intense control they hold over the narratives of 9/11 and the wars that followed? Dystopian art that questions the nature of war and the reasons why people hurt each other, like Y the Last Man by Brian K Vaughan and Pia Guerra or even The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, were fueled by the painful anxieties that came with living in a world where the future seemed completely uncertain and wars were fought without any end in sight. Furthermore, there was a lot of art produced post 9/11 — particularly in comics — that had to do with metafiction, magical realism, or master narratives. Though, before tackling those stories, it’s important to discuss how U.S. comics also began to mature, since McHale conveniently skimmed over this development.

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While the Golden Age of Comics began in 1938 with the publication of Action Comics #1, comics themselves didn’t really begin to broach more mature themes until the mid to late 1960s, largely due to the self-censorship of mainstream comics in 1954. Underground (and later alternative) comics grew during this time too, occasionally tackling mature themes, but largely sticking to raunchy cartoons that tended to be ridiculously offensive (no matter how much R. Crumb has tried to explain them away). By the mid-1980s, comics had already started to move into the realm of the postmodern, with works like Chris Claremont’s Uncanny X-Men and the Hernandez Brothers’ Love and Rockets containing some of the strongest attempts at crafting cohesive stories containing thought-provoking ideas and plots within both mainstream (X-Men) and alternative comics (L&R). Stories began to focus on issues like identity, marriage/growing up, self-expression, discrimination, and more complex themes that fell right in line with the ethos of postmodernism. This set the stage for creators to step up and begin telling longform stories that questioned the world and our place in it. 

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The Sandman #1 was first published in 1989, a year which represents a great deal of change for comics. Most mainstream comics were beginning to move away from the more down-to-earth introspective stories of the 1980s and into more bombastic and art-driven stories that would dominate their output in the 1990s. Alternative comics were also in a period of transition, halfway between the self-publishing world that had dominated the landscape for decades and the stabilizing independent publisher space that would reach its zenith with Image Comics in 1992. Gaiman and co. were able to capitalize on this moment and crafted The Sandman to enter this new world of comics. The story follows Dream (aka Morpheus), the anthropomorphic embodiment of dreams themselves, after his escape from seventy years of confinement by a group of occultists. The series is devoted to Morpheus reconciling his place in the world he’s returned to, rebuilding his fallen kingdom (known as “The Dreaming”), and learning that even after billions of years of existence, it is still possible to change and grow as a person. Along the way, the readers are shown glimpses into the past, featuring Morpheus’ encounters with famous figures (historical or mythological), including William Shakespeare (see below), Marco Polo, Lucifer, Cain, Abel, and many more. The series was different from most American comics at the time due to its disinterest in fight scenes or prolonged battles with super villains, “but rather [solving problems] through the use of lateral thinking and imagination” (Gandolfo 24). 

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While not revolutionary, it’s a more unprecedented comic than most of what was on the stands around the same time, which included stories such as The Death of Superman, where Superman fights a giant monster until he dies and subsequently comes back to life within six months (no disrespect to such a fun story). Instead, The Sandman takes its time and really focuses on its characters. Some story arcs don’t even feature Morpheus, instead giving the reader a birds-eye view of the people that live in his world and the effects his decisions can have on them. If taken as one long narrative, The Sandman is really dealing with the nature of stories and how they impact people over the decades, or, essentially: a long, sprawling metafiction about fiction itself. The main series went on for 75 issues, concluding in 1996. It went on to have multiple spin offs and sequels in the years since, the most recent being 2021’s The Dreaming: Waking Hours by G. Willow Wilson and Nick Robles, which organically introduced queer elements into the story (something Gaiman had done prior, albeit clunkily) and continued the narrative about narratives approach of the original series.

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Now, not all comics concerned with postmodernism have anything to do with metafiction. Mike Mignola’s Hellboy, which first started in 1994, has much more to do with master narratives and questioning the truth than The Sandman does. The titular Hellboy is a half-man, half-demon who was summoned from Hell as a baby by Nazis in 1944 as an attempt to have a monster they could use to dominate the world. However, a scientist working for the U.S. government finds the baby and raises him to become the world’s greatest paranormal investigator (Mignola’s words, not mine) for the U.S. Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense. Although his destiny is to consume the world in flames and bring hell to earth, all Hellboy wants is to explore the world and go on supernatural adventures. The main story is made up of many different Hellboy mini-series that, while working well on their own, combined together, create one long epic from 1994 through to 2019. Along the way, Hellboy fights against the master narrative he has been told he has to follow, questioning until the very end, when he decides to give in to destiny — but does it the way he wants to, not the way everyone in his life has been trying to make him. 

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One of the more interesting aspects of the series comes from the artwork. While some might find it difficult to look for examples of postmodern qualities within comic book art, I feel as though one of the postmodern things comics can do is manipulate time and create non-linear narratives. The manner by which the reader moves from panel-to-panel and page-to-page matters a lot, but there are a lot of writers and artists who aren’t able to work in sync with each other and make the timing work. Hellboy is different. Towards the beginning of the series Mignola wrote and drew every issue on his own, meaning that he had direct control over the layout of the story. Rather than making page layouts completely straightforward, Mignola “[included] elements that [were] intended to slow down the reading process, to complicate more than complement it,” leaving parts of his stories up to the imagination of the reader (Bukatman 116). 

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Although the previous two examples utilized different parts of postmodern ideas to create their stories, they were still started during the maturation period of the movement. Therefore, while the work may be well-crafted, I don’t feel as though they can exemplify postmodernist theory to the fullest extent. For me, that distinction goes to The Department of Truth by James Tynion IV, Martin Simmonds, and a variety of artists and designers. It is a series that is still running, having kicked off in September 2020. The book fully utilizes magical realism, constructs and interacts with metafiction, and understands how to present a case against master narratives (while still weaving one within the plot of the book itself). Not only this, but Simmonds’ artwork is even more abstract than anything put to paper within The Sandman or Hellboy — so much so that I occasionally have to re-read each issue a second time after I pick it up (fig. 4). The main plot follows Cole Turner as he is inducted into the Department of Truth, a U.S. organization that covers up supernatural occurrences and conspiracy theories in an attempt to prevent those things from taking over the world. Each issue works to do two things: 

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1. Propel forward an overarching narrative about Cole Turner’s life and the work he does with the Department and their ideological opposites, the Black Hats

2. Educate the reader on the real history of the world and the strange beings/phenomenon that exist all around them

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This might sound like a lot to cover in a 30 page issue that comes out once a month, but Tynion and co. are able to handle the load and do so in a manner that still makes the comic enjoyable (as opposed to incoherent). Metafiction is a huge part of the series and mostly derives from the interstitial issues sprinkled between regular story arcs of the series. After five or six issues of the main story, Simmonds takes a break and another artist comes onboard the series to provide their own artistic flair for a short story. The shorts combine a subplot about the origins of the Dept. of Truth and also act as an introduction to a new cryptid/conspiracy theory that the main arcs will eventually tackle. The conspiracy theories are what really bring into focus the work Tynion does with master narratives. The whole point of the first two arcs of the series is that with enough belief, any conspiracy theory can become true and become incorporated into a master narrative. In context of the series, this is literal (hence, wacky creatures and the need for the DoT), but what Tynion is trying to show is how dangerous such theories can be in the real world and in the hands of people with too much power. Towards the beginning of the series, this is focused on the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, but the narrative eventually reaches QAnon and some of the conspiracy theories that grew right out of 9/11 (like the attack being an inside job or the idea that the Clinton family runs the U.S.). It’s hard to get a clear picture of the series as a whole since it’s still coming out, but with the nineteen issues currently out as of this writing, it’s certain that the book is firmly rooted in ideas of postmodernism, a solid twenty years after it allegedly ended. 

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My biggest gripe with McHale and other postmodern scholars is the way they’re so eager to lay a claim on naming the next movement in the arts that they’ve failed to consider that we haven’t even left the last one. If stories like the three I’ve gone over are still coming out and still grappling with postmodern ideas, how is it possible that the world has moved on? I understand that many of the concerns of these scholars are related to the growing acknowledgement that postmodern concepts are more amplified than they have been in the past and are slowly creeping into many different parts of our culture. However, wouldn’t the amplification of those qualities mean that the movement is nearing its peak, not ending? The arbitrary date of 9/11 is inherently flawed as the moment when art crosses the threshold because it means that McHale and others have failed to consider any sort of peak for the movement. Not only that, but it fails to consider all of the art produced post-9/11 as a reaction to both the terrorists attacks AND a reaction to the tumultuous events of the years prior to those attacks. The world is still grappling with the downward spiral it seems to be headed towards, and while there is a sense of hopefulness in the ending to pieces like The Sandman and Hellboy, the frustrations of the world we are currently in are fully expressed by The Department of Truth and will continue to be expressed in postmodern sentiments until we reach a true tipping point and are able to grapple with our place in the world. 

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Works Cited

Bukatman, Scott. “Sculpture, Stasis, the Comics, and Hellboy.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 40, no. 3, 2014, pp. 104-117. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.1086/677334.

Gaiman, Neil, and Charles Vess. The Sandman. vol. 2, no. 19, DC Comics, 1990, p. 2.

Gandolfo, Amadeo. “Relaunching in the Age of the Author: The Dreaming and Doom Patrol.” Leaves, vol. 1, no. 11, 2018, pp. 23-49. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.21412/leaves_1103.

McHale, Brian. The Cambridge Introduction to Postmodernism. Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Mignola, Mike, and Dave Stewart. Hellboy in Hell. vol. 1, no. 8, Dark Horse Comics, 2015, p. 2.

Tynion IV, James, and Martin Simmonds. The Department of Truth. vol. 1, no. 2, Image Comics, 2020, p. 4.

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