How Do We Read Comics of the Quotidian? (Part I of a Series)

In two separate posts on Pencil Panel Page, Qiana Whitted and Aaron Meskin have explored the way comics readers engage with images. (Click here to read Qiana’s post and click here to read Aaron’s.) Specifically, they engage Scott McCloud’s claim that readers identify with drawn images of human beings. To quote McCloud, “when you look at a photo or realistic drawing of a face–you see it as the face of another. But when you enter the world of the cartoon–you see yourself” (36). My question in this post has not to do with images but rather with narrative. When we read comics, to what degree to we see ourselves in the narratives we’re reading? Or perhaps more accurately, to what degree do we see our lives represented therein? Do we identify more with those stories that are less realistic than we do with those stories that are more realistic? Although I don’t think that the terms quotidian and realistic are equivalents necessarily, I do think they provide a rich starting point for a discussion