Alive but not real: Gestural lines and the ambiguous bodies of modern manga

Considering character drawings as images that can be addressed not only in terms of representation of reality but also in terms of vitality and life, this paper aims to place them in a broader visual studies context to debate over the following question: Why do we experience these pictorial devices, this collection of lines, as being something more than just that? In other words, how can we develop a framework to understand these experiences taking into account not only character drawing’s relation with meaning and reality but also concepts such as sentience and agency? Making a case for character drawings’ paradoxical placement within western modernity as pictures that reappropriate drawing, from an act of explanation and argumentation to one of creation, it will follow and his account of the drawing activity in order to comprehend how its affordances may fuel the particular type of reception fostered by character drawings and defined by E. H. Gombrich (1984) in terms of life. Then, as an example of a particular tradition of drawing that indulges in this paradoxical nature, the paper will look to early modern manga artists such as Osamu Tezuka and how they engage with this illusion of life by employing gestural lines, allowing characters to exist as what defines as bodies that are both iconic and mortal. Finally, this paper aims to contribute to the visual studies field by highlighting possible approaches to this non-indexical image within a visual media context.