Cut-Up and Redrawn. Reading Charles Burns’s Swipe Files

A term ubiquitous in the comic book industry, swiping has garnered few critical attention in comics theory: yet, the concept is one that strongly shapes the comics world by giving a medium-specific term to its own issues of copying, imitation and borrowing. After recounting two where swiping was at stake (Jules Feiffer’s description and the Muñoz/Giffen controversy), this article sets out to examine the practice more closely by focusing on the example of Charles Burns, who has repeatedly professed to swiping while accumulating swipe files. This article reads Burns’s swipe files to examine the formal and narrative stakes of redrawing other comics, while replacing this cultural practice within a longer history.A term ubiquitous in the comic book industry, swiping has garnered few critical attention in comics theory: yet, the concept is one that strongly shapes the comics world by giving a medium-specific term to its own issues of copying, imitation and borrowing. After recounting two where swiping was at stake (Jules Feiffer’s description and the Muñoz/Giffen controversy), this article sets out to examine the practice more closely by focusing on the example of Charles Burns, who has repeatedly professed to swiping while accumulating swipe files. This article reads Burns’s swipe files to examine the formal and narrative stakes of redrawing other comics, while replacing this cultural practice within a longer history.