The Rhizome of Comic Book Culture

Abstract

In his study of comic book readers, Comic Book Culture: Fanboys and True Believers,¹ Matthew J. Pustz describes comic book culture as being possessed of its own distinctive knowledges, practices and language; its own canons and special form of literacy. In this sense, building upon the ideas introduced in the last chapter, comic book culture can be considered as a rhizome formation, emerging from the interactions between a multiplicity of reader-assemblages, comic book-assemblages, creator-assemblages, corporate-assemblages and critical-assemblages. The following chapter introduces this concept in more detail, illustrating it with specific examples from comic book culture. In particular, this chapter demonstrates how many of the recurring debates within the critical study of superheroes can best be reconfigured through the use of Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the rhizome and assemblages. This is highlighted in three main ways. Firstly, how the rhizome can be used as a model of comic book continuity; secondly, how a “rhizo-analysis” moves the analysis of comics away from the binary of criticism/legitimation; and thirdly (and related to the second point), how the rhizome allows us to reconceptualise the relationship between readers and texts. In doing so, this chapter lays the groundwork for the more detailed investigation of the posthuman body in superhero comic books (and its readers) that will follow.