“I do love the smell of that old newsprint”: Smell and Nostalgia in Comics

The medium of comics has long been associated, rightly or wrongly, with childhood. Thierry Groensteen, one of the medium’s foremost theorists has argued, for example, that: ‘Comics have a privileged relationship with childhood because it is in childhood that each of us discovered them and learnt to love them’ (11). While this type of generalisation is somewhat problematic, comic readers do frequently report on the importance of comics in their childhoods. Interestingly, it is not only the titles, characters and narratives of those comics that draw attention, with ‘physical aspects of the texts, including paper quality, feel, scent and size’ also being important factors in recollection (Gibson 152).

In this paper I will consider some of these aspects, paying particular attention to the sense of smell. I will discuss two examples: Prion’s republications of the British girl’s comic Jackie (1964-1993) in the 2000s, and the 1993 Image Comics series 1963 by Alan Moore et al. In the former, the publishers offer modern day facsimile editions of the older Jackie annuals, employing physical format as a marketing tool to entice readers to ‘travel back in time’ through the books (Carlton Publishing Group website). In the latter, the writer encourages readers to engage with the comic through their sense of smell and ‘enjoy the laser-accurate HOLOGRAPHICALLY REPRODUCED odor of yesteryear!!’ (Moore, Veitch and Bissette #3, 14).

Fan comments on this series indicate that they did just that, and that in doing so they found themselves confronted with their own pasts: ‘The scent brought back fond memories of my pre-adolescence and biking to the comic book store to spend my allowance’ wrote one reader, ‘Kyle’ on an internet message board (Reed website). Yet Moore’s project in 1963 is more complex than a simple recollection of the pleasures of the past, and he uses the series not only to evoke memories, but to intervene in them by marking up some of the darker elements of comics production that lay behind those memories. The Jackie reprints work similarly, seeking to offer readers the opportunity to not only relive their childhoods, but to critically re-evaluate them. This presentation will consider the ways in which these two publications employ physical format to manipulate readers’ sense of nostalgia, and to what ends.

Works Cited

Carlton Publishing Group. "The Best of Jackie." n.d. Carlton Publishing Group Website. July 25 2011. <http://www.carltonbooks.co.uk/display.asp?K=9781853758010&sf1=title%5Findex&st1=jackie&y=0&sort=sort%5Fdate%2Fd&x=0&m=1&dc=6>.

Gibson, Mel. "What you read and where you read it, how you get it, how you keep it: Children, comics and historical cultural practice." Popular Narrative Media 1.2 (2008): 151-167.

Groensteen, Thierry. "Why Are Comics Still in Search of Cultural Legitimization?" A Comics Studies Reader. Ed. Jeet Heer and Kent Worcester. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009. 3-11.

Moore, Alan, Rick Veitch and Steve Bissette. 1963. 6 vols. Fullerton, CA: Image Comics, 1993.

Reed, Bill. "365 Reasons to Love Comics #342 [The Smell]." 8 December 2007. Comic Book Resources. 25 July 2011. <http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2007/12/08/365-reasons-to-love-comics-342/>.