Dark night of the soul: Applicability of theory in comics and radio through the scripted podcast drama

Abstract

Abstract This article responds to McCloud's theoretical framework for comics and applies this framework to audio drama, which I argue is, like comics, a mono-sensory medium (one can only be seen in static image and the other can only be heard); both require a great degree of closure from the audience to frame together sequential narratives (of visual art and sound, respectively). To do this, it uses the case study of Marvel and Stitcher's Wolverine: The Long Night (2018), a 'scripted podcast' (audio drama). While comics are escaping from decades of critical disregard due to their status as a popular or lowbrow medium, radio and by extension audio drama still suffer from critical neglect. It is, therefore, one of the aims of the article to release audio drama theory from torpor by applying theory from comics. W:TLN has been chosen as a case study due to its status as a made-for-podcast story rather than an adaptation from an existing comic book; it also responds to trends within audio drama towards a non-fiction/fiction amalgamation influenced by true crime podcast conventions. This article argues that W:TLN's understanding of audio/radio as a mono-sensory medium is overdetermined in its use of blindness, darkness and radiogenics. It also discusses the ways in which comics and audio drama use time and space. The article also examines the reasons why the podcast medium has been deemed acceptable within the wider Marvel Comics Universe and the ways in which W:TLN responds to implied continuity through a transmedia conception of character attributes (e.g., how the continuity of the X-Men films influences the story and characters in W:TLN).