Differential–Surface: Deleuze and Superhero Comics

Gilles Deleuze’s explicit and self-conscious entanglements with the arts are well-known, especially his particular obsession with cinema. And as multiple theorists of the emerging interdisciplinary field of comics studies have observed, there is a close connection between comics and the cinema. More specifically, it is often argued that the comics, as an artform consisting of a sequence of (textual and pictorial) images, is actually both a literal and conceptual precursor of the cinema—in that cinema merely takes the individual panels of the comic book and then animates them using the camera. Consequently, it would seem that Deleuze and comics would almost of necessity have at least something to say to each other. There is of course a tremendous variety within the medium of comic books, but I will focus on the classic comic book as it has developed in the U.S., in part because the superhero genre has been most popular and widespread there, and I will argue that there is something special about this genre in relation to Deleuze’s thought. In short, it is in its resonances with comic books that Deleuze’s philosophy most vividly shows itself to be a form of literature