You Got Metafiction in My Comic Books!!!

Before we move too much further into the metafictional world of Grant Morrison, I want to make sure we’re firm on a few definitions.  “Metafiction,” being a term that will get tossed around a lot on this blog, deserves first consideration for a definition. In the book Metafiction:  The Theory and Practise of Self-Conscious Fiction, Patricia Waugh identifies metafiction as “a term given to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artefact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality” (2). More importantly, Waugh asserts that in all metafiction there is a “complex implicit interdependence of levels… The fictional content of the story is continually reflected by its formal existence as text, and the existence of that text within a world viewed in terms of ‘textuality’” (15).

Let’s parse that chunk of text a bit, shall we?  First, metafiction is aware of itself as fiction, and draws attention to this status, supposedly for the purpose of inducing philosophicizing about the true nature of reality.  So metafiction is a great topic of discussion at stoner parties.  And anytime you read a story involving characters who are in some way aware of their status as characters in a story, you have metafiction.  In comic books, characters like Deadpool, Ambush Bug, She-Hulk, and Animal Man have all been associated with metafiction.

So at its most basic, metafiction involves fiction that is self-aware.  Deadpool referencing comic book issue numbers fits this basic definition.  But metafiction also strives to question the nature of reality by presenting multiple layers of reality; this is why issue #5 of Animal Man is metafiction.  When multiple layers of reality are revealed, with framing that suggests the construction of fiction, that is also metafiction.  Crafty’s creator assuming the guise of an artist, who is then shown affecting Animal Man’s world by painting in Crafty’s blood, is almost as shocking a moment as when Neo first wakes up in the Matrix (which is also metafictional, on many levels).

It’s my belief that superhero comics are especially suited for metafiction, for a few reasons.  First, most superhero universes already accept and utilize the concept of multiple dimensions/universes/realities.  Superhero fans typically have no problem wrapping their minds around the concept of different versions of the same character.  Second, superhero comics already have a long history of utilizing metafiction, with the Silver Age Flash being featured in a number of metafictional situations and covers.  Finally, as a medium that’s made up of text and pictures, comic books can be metafictional with very little effort.  Text alone requires a certain amount of set-up to insert metafiction, while pictures alone might have trouble being seen as metafictional (although pictures, I think, are more easily adapted to metafiction than text).  But utilizing both together allows the creator to seamlessly insert metafictional characters and concepts without much if any disturbance to the narrative.

So that’s it for this week.  More Animal Man next week.  What are some of your favorite examples of comic book metafiction?  Hell, it doesn’t even have to be comic book based; Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is to some extent metafictional because Ferris speaks to the audience!