Dr. Travis Kurowski speaks of meaning behind comics

By Michaela May ‘20, staff writer

A York College English professor made his way to Lebanon Valley College’s campus to speak about the personal-public art of comics.

Dr. Travis Kurowski, an assistant professor of English at the aforementioned institution, came to LVC on Sept. 27 as a part of a series of events offered by the Suzanne H. Arnold Art Gallery. This lecture was in conjunction with the Gallery’s “Comics Unstripped” exhibition.

Kurowski has offered classes on comics since 2010 such as comic book theory, history of comics as a whole, creating comics and what draws an audience to superheroes.

“I feel that most institutions are lacking in terms of how they view comics,” Kurowski said. “It’s confusing to me that comics aren’t everywhere despite how much of an empowering medium they are in the same way that film is. They can reach such a diverse audience.”

Throughout his presentation, Kurowski frequently returned to the ideas brought about by his favorite graphic novel, “Fun Home” by Alison Bechdel. The novel brings up difficult topics which include the strange alienation around growing up, coming to terms with yourself and finding your truth. Kurowski claimed that the medium of graphic novels was able to allow Bechdel’s vision to come alive in a way that no other medium could have, deeming it to be a unique kind of magic for the reader.

“To me, comics feel both personal and public,” Kurowski said. “When you read the panels, the work comes alive. You can slow down, reread, resee, flip back and forth, look at the whole page, etcetera. It offers the reader many types of experiences that a regular novel usually cannot give them.”

Why are comics more of an experience than mere visual consumption? Kurowski explained that we experience ourselves like a cartoon mask, simplified and sketched out. With comics, we are able to view ourselves as this same mindset, easily slipping into the shoes of the cartoon characters we are reading about and seeing the events unfold in the same way they are.

“We pull everything into our own sense as readers,” Kurowski said. “The symbolic and the real come together in our minds to make the whole picture.”

The Comics Unstripped exhibition will run in the Suzanne H. Arnold Art Gallery until Oct. 21. Sponsored events and lectures take place in its neighboring Zimmerman Recital Hall.