Under Construction @ Keele 2017 Under Construction @ Keele Vol. III (3) | Page 56

IKEA’s MALM: A Comic?
George Blake | MRes in Humanities
As the field of comics studies has continued to develop, the search for a
coherent definition of comics has intensified. A range of critics have built on
the work of Scott McCloud, Thierry Groensteen and others to further this
debate. But in doing so, they may have limited the scope of comics’ potential
reach. Within this context, this essay will interrogate one text, a graphic
instruction manual by IKEA titled MALM, with the express purpose of
establishing its potential to be classified as a comic. To do this, MALM will be
subjected to current definitions of comics to judge the extent to which it can
be categorised as such. MALM shares many obvious features with comics,
from its situation of sequential images to its more esoteric arthrological
elements, but it is being read in what appears to be a fundamentally different
context. I will conclude that MALM’s status as a comic is indeterminate and
that we must be careful in over-extrapolating from the conclusions MALM can
provide. MALM is clearly constitutionally different from the majority of texts
currently defined as comics, primarily due to its para-textual elements, and its
contributions to comics theory, whilst interesting, are thus limited.
Keywords | comics • sequential art • para-text • IKEA • manual • MALM
Since the turn of the decade, there has been a dramatic expansion in comics
criticism with an ever-increasing breadth of texts being considered comics. The
boundaries of comics study are looking increasingly fragile as texts previously
beyond consideration are now being tested for their validity. Within this context this
essay will look at the IKEA instruction manual MALM and investigate the extent to
which it can be considered a comic. 1,2 MALM provides assembly instructions for an
IKEA Chest of Six Drawers. Considering such a text as a comic might sound
1
IKEA, MALM: Chest W/ 6Drawers W/ Mirror (Inter IKEA Systems, 2014).
If you are reading this article in our online edition, please click HERE for access to MALM. The link
will take you to the pdf version made available by IKEA online: IKEA, MALM (Inter IKEA Systems,
2012), accessed May 18, 2017, ht