The term “fourth wall” comes from theater and television, where an interior set would literally only have three walls. To break the fourth (i.e. the “missing”) wall is to speak to the audience or camera. To extend the metaphor to comics, perhaps looking behind the back of the panel would be a third-wall breach. But if you consider that a comic panel has four borders (top, bottom, left, right), perhaps the back would be considered a fifth wall (making a comic character who speaks to the audience guilty of a sixth-wall violation)…
On a related topic, the effect of Hamlet’s soliloquies can be vastly different if they are played as “Hamlet talking to the audience” as opposed to “Hamlet talking to himself.” Most seem to do the latter, but Jacobi did the former, and in my own production I’d have Hamlet speaking to the audience. I wouldn’t necessarily make that choice for ALL Shakespearean soliloquies, but Hamlet in many ways anticipates metatheater.
Like Vonnegut’s Kilgore Trout, Hamlet is the rare fictional character astute enough to intuit that he’s fictional…
lewisbower over 14 years ago
I”m predestined. I’m going to die. Why work, go to school. or pay my bills? Move over Clyde, I’m claiming half this bench.
runar over 14 years ago
”Like genitals to the gods are we…they play with us for their sport.”
– Unknown
fritzoid Premium Member over 14 years ago
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will –
In the name of Weingarten, Weingarten, and Clark - a trinity?
This comment brought to you by Divinity (TM) countour undergarments – “”We shape your ends!”
jpozenel over 14 years ago
Ho boy! Is he ever full of it, or what?
Motivemagus over 14 years ago
Whoa! Seven weeks and it’s already gone “meta.”
fritzoid Premium Member over 14 years ago
“Full of it?” Clyde’s observations are often florid, but generally well-thought-out and to the point.
Dirty Dragon over 14 years ago
So who are these puppeteers, and what is their agenda?
Coming this week on Glenn Beck.
fritzoid Premium Member over 14 years ago
The term “fourth wall” comes from theater and television, where an interior set would literally only have three walls. To break the fourth (i.e. the “missing”) wall is to speak to the audience or camera. To extend the metaphor to comics, perhaps looking behind the back of the panel would be a third-wall breach. But if you consider that a comic panel has four borders (top, bottom, left, right), perhaps the back would be considered a fifth wall (making a comic character who speaks to the audience guilty of a sixth-wall violation)…
fritzoid Premium Member over 14 years ago
On a related topic, the effect of Hamlet’s soliloquies can be vastly different if they are played as “Hamlet talking to the audience” as opposed to “Hamlet talking to himself.” Most seem to do the latter, but Jacobi did the former, and in my own production I’d have Hamlet speaking to the audience. I wouldn’t necessarily make that choice for ALL Shakespearean soliloquies, but Hamlet in many ways anticipates metatheater.
Like Vonnegut’s Kilgore Trout, Hamlet is the rare fictional character astute enough to intuit that he’s fictional…