Pattern of Appeals in Comics

Killingsworth relates metonymy to symbols, icons, and logos in his discussion of tropes being a pattern of appeals.  Scott McCloud also discusses symbols and icons, but would he see an icon as a trope?  And, to go further, would McCloud view the icon in comics as functioning as metonymy does with appeals?

Killingsworth explains metonymy as “substituting a thing for a closely associated (contiguous) thing” (Killingsworth 127).  Metonymy “can be reductive, functioning much as a stereotype does, reducing a whole person to an object” (Killingsworth 128).  A clear example that Killingsworth uses is the use of symbols, icons, and logos.  “Metonymy also often gives rise to the kinds of symbols, icons, and logos used as cultural indicators in everything from literature and psychology to advertising, sign-making, and brand names” (Killingsworth 129). 

McCloud defines an icon as “any image used to represent a person, place, thing or idea” (McCloud 27).  McCloud introduces the idea of “amplification through simplification” which happens as “we abstract an image through cartooning, we’re not so much eliminating details as we are focusing on specific details” (McCloud 30).  McCloud explains that cartoons’ imagery (icons) have a “universality” that allows the image to describe more people (McCloud 31).  This universality may be the same thing that Killingsworth is referring to when he says “cultural indicators” (Killingsworth 129).   A “universal identification” happens when we are able to see ourselves in “an empty shell” of an abstract image which allows us to “become” the cartoon” (McCloud 36).  We may see ourselves in Killingsworth’s example of “the icon of a knife and fork used to indicate restaurants” (Killingsworth 129).  However McCloud might describe it as an “extension” of ourselves (McCloud 38).  The knife and fork may “become hands” thus appealing to a mass audience aka hungry traveler’s on the highway (McCloud 39).

I think McCloud would see icons in comics as functioning as a trope as defined by Killingsworth.  The pictures that are being presented in a comic are abstracted to be more universal in order to appeal to a more universal crowd.  Icons in comics are seen as tropes, because they are creating a turn in language.  The picture is representing something more than what’s on the surface, and in doing so it is reducing the larger meaning to a simple picture.