The Power of the Cartoon

Everyone can draw a face, right?

Yup, that's clearly a face.
Even though it most definitely isn't.

Five years ago my kids pulled an April Fools prank on me. During the night they got up quietly and stuck googly eyes on every goddamn thing in the house.

That toilet sign still haunts my dreams.

Turns out we don't need much in order to see faces where none exist. Something vaguely resembling the eyes and a mouth will suffice. It's called pareidolia - our brains have a natural tendency for pattern recognition, and since faces are so central to our social interactions, it's no wonder we tend to see them everywhere we look.

But there's more. In his wonderful book, "Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art", author Scott McCloud presents another explanation for why the simplified face - the cartoon - is so appealing to us.

When we converse with other people, we see their faces in vivid detail. At the same time, we maintain a mental image of how we appear to them.

But that image is different to what other people see. Thankfully, not every wrinkle and pimple on our face is something we're constantly aware of. All we have is a much more rudimental concept of how we look.

Something like a cartoon.

So whenever we see a cartoon face, we don't see it as another person - we see ourselves. It becomes a vessel for our own identity.

Comics and animations rely on this effect. However, unlike the characters, the environment may be represented in a very realistic and detailed manner - just like in our (so called) real world, where we see our surroundings in full detail.

"Made in Abyss" by Akihito Tsukushi.

The Japanese are absolute masters of playing with cartoons: A manga character may suddenly change its appearance completely and turn into a chibi - an even more cartoony and childlike version of itself. Most often that happens when a character gets very emotional.

Edward doesn't take remarks of his height lightly (Full Metal Alchemist).

It works the other way around, too. For example, villains are often drawn in much more detail compared to the heroes in order to objectify them - to make them feel more distant to the protagonists (and the audience).

Luffy vs. Doflamingo (One Piece).

Cartoons come in all styles and levels of abstraction. In comics and animation, this can serve various purposes. The simpler the cartoon, the more it places itself in the realm of icons - the world of concepts, emotions and ideas. But a simple art style doesn't have to indicate a simple story.

Art Spiegelman's graphic novel "Maus" is a harrowing biography of his father's experiences in Nazi Germany. The Jews are depicted as mice and the Nazis as cats. To this day it's the only comic book ever to win the Pulitzer prize.

A simple art style is often more befitting for a complex story, because it leaves more room for the narrative. Delving into the whole subject of simplicity versus complexity in various forms of art would deserve its own article, but the cartoon certainly holds its own special place within that larger topic.

But it's not just about comics and animation - video games are a great example of how we can turn very simple graphics into a world of fantasy and wonder. What is true for comics and animation, is also largely true for games: Strategy games, fantasy rpg's and various puzzle games are often more concerned about clarity and functionality in their graphic appearance. Older games with coarse graphics also still hold their charm - we have no problems whatsoever seeing a mustachioed plumber in a bunch of pixels.

Perhaps the most notable way we use cartoons today however is the emoji, which has become an integral part of our lives. We use emojis in conversations to replace our facial expressions, body language and tone of voice, and they can be used to implement delicate nuances in our messages. Emojis have become such an important paralanguage with their own cultures, subcultures and even dialects, that linguists today spend a lot of time studying them.

So, the next time you see a face in a stain of bird poop on your window, take a moment to appreciate it, for it represents an integral element of our modern culture.

(All copyrighted images used here were stolen via Google. If either one of my readers is going to sue me, I'm going to appeal to the fair use reasonale for educational purposes).