What does breaking the fourth wall mean to comics?

Question

"Breaking the fourth wall" is when a character in a comic book is aware of his place as a comic book character, and speaks to the audience. A few examples of this are Deadpool's frequent metafictional references, or some of Sonic the Hedgehog's jokes referring to his video games. While breaking the fourth wall is a technique that has been around since the Greek tragedies, few have really put thought into what it actually means to the world of comics when a character breaks the fourth wall. Are the characters trying to validate their own world by linking it to ours? Are the authors and artists trying to make their characters more approachable? What does it mean when you admit that you're only a comic character in a book, and not even real? Is it even possible to acknowledge your own non-existence? Or does this very acknowledgment of non-existence verify existence? I understand what breaking the fourth wall *is*, but now, what does it *mean*?

Answer 1

One important detail you left out of your description of the fourth wall is the fact that it has it's origins in theater where the characters on stage were surrounded by a set made up of three solid real walls and a fourth invisible wall that separted them from the audience.

They say that any time the author decides to have the characters break the fourth wall, it breaks that magic spell of voyerism. The audience is no longer spying on the characters, but rather, they are a part of the story in some way. The charcters have included the audience in on a secret in some way.

The fact that we talk about this technique as if the charcters were doing it is a funny kind of mind game. When in fact what is really happening is not that the character on stage, or in the comic panel has turned to you the audience member, but rather, the writer has instructed the actor to talk to the audience, and the audience goes along with it. Talk about your suspension of disbelief!

Answer 2

The 4th wall refers to the TV or movie screen. It's when the actors in a play, movie or TV show address the audience as if they know they're just actors on a stage, and you're out there watching them. For instance, at the end of Ferris Beuller's Day Off, after the credits and everything, Ferris walks back on screen, looks out, as if he's looking through the screen back into the audience and says "You're still here? Go home! The movie's over!" (The other 3 walls are stage-left, stage-right, and stage-rear.)

Answer 3

It is simply a literary device; it doesn't inherently "mean" anything per se.

A writer can use this device, however, to comment on various themes and ideas. For example, in Animal Man, Grant Morrison uses this device to demonstrate the fragility of perception; the characters discuss the missing pieces of their lives that are never presented on the page.

Also, there is the comparison of a writer as a "creator" and the observation that not only is there a deity-like relationship between the writer and his characters, but also there are artificial constraints to the freedom of the creative process (action, pacing, continuity) that are imposed by the very medium itself in order for it to be commercially successful. These constraints affect the universe that the characters themselves inhabit.

What does it mean that they are self-aware? Like I said, nothing, inherently. But, the perspective obtained by the reader from the writing gives it meaning.

Answer 4

"Breaking the Fourth Wall" is when the asker of a question inadvertently answers the question before posting said question, thus canceling out the affect of the answer of the previous question.