COMICS JOURNAL 10: Understanding Comics (Ch 4)
Title: Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
Author: Scott McCloud
Pages 94-117: Chapter 4 Time Frames
On page 9, McCloud stated that comics is juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer. In chapter 4, McCloud further extended the comics convention that it does not contains only static images, but also information about sound, motion, space, and time.
For example, comics artists use "WAAH", "BOOM", "KRAK", and etc to illustrate sound; use multiple images and lines to represent motions or moving objects, and a continuous background to show an object moving from one spot to another to illustrate the space change.
Time is more complicated in comics. The events happening within one panel may happen at the same or different time. So, comics artist may use word bubbles to show different conversations are taking place. Readers either use common sense to determine which conversation takes place prior to the other, or follow the eye movement from left to right to check what events are happening inside the panel in order to tell the time. Therefore, the content of panels will give information about time.
Second, the number of panels can also tells the readers the time because more panels allocated for a motion means that motion takes longer time to finish. Third, the missing parts between panels will require readers to use their common sense, knowledge, and experience to link the panels together to make sense of a motion. This is the closure that McCloud emphasized. Connecting the panels with closure to form a sequence of events provide clues of time.
Finally, the shape of panels will also provide information of time visually. Readers' eyes normally move from left to right and top to bottom when reading comics. When audience reads a longer panel next to a shorter panel, due to requiring longer time for reading the longer one, readers may unconsciously assume that the events inside the longer panel takes longer time.
Author: Scott McCloud
Pages 94-117: Chapter 4 Time Frames
On page 9, McCloud stated that comics is juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer. In chapter 4, McCloud further extended the comics convention that it does not contains only static images, but also information about sound, motion, space, and time.
For example, comics artists use "WAAH", "BOOM", "KRAK", and etc to illustrate sound; use multiple images and lines to represent motions or moving objects, and a continuous background to show an object moving from one spot to another to illustrate the space change.
Time is more complicated in comics. The events happening within one panel may happen at the same or different time. So, comics artist may use word bubbles to show different conversations are taking place. Readers either use common sense to determine which conversation takes place prior to the other, or follow the eye movement from left to right to check what events are happening inside the panel in order to tell the time. Therefore, the content of panels will give information about time.
Second, the number of panels can also tells the readers the time because more panels allocated for a motion means that motion takes longer time to finish. Third, the missing parts between panels will require readers to use their common sense, knowledge, and experience to link the panels together to make sense of a motion. This is the closure that McCloud emphasized. Connecting the panels with closure to form a sequence of events provide clues of time.
Finally, the shape of panels will also provide information of time visually. Readers' eyes normally move from left to right and top to bottom when reading comics. When audience reads a longer panel next to a shorter panel, due to requiring longer time for reading the longer one, readers may unconsciously assume that the events inside the longer panel takes longer time.
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