Groensteen (7.2) Comics and Narration, “The Cadence of the Waffle-Iron Grid”

by Corry Shores

[Search Blog Here. Index tabs are found at the bottom of the left column.]

[Central Entry Directory]
[Literature, Drama, and Poetry, Entry Directory]
[Graphic Literature, Entry Directory]
[Thierry Groensteen, Entry Directory]
[Groensteen, Comics and Narration, entry directory]

 

[The following is summary. Boldface and bracketed commentary are my own.]

 

Thierry Groensteen

Comics and Narration

Chapter 7:
The Rhythm of Comics

7.2
The Cadence of the Waffle-Iron Grid

 

 

Brief summary:

There is a regularized panelization with a grid-like appearance, called the “waffle-iron grid” layout. It was standard long ago, and although it had been largely replaced for a long time by non-conventional panel layouts, it has seen a resurgence more recently. In autobiographical works, the waffle-iron grid creates a rhythm of time’s gradual passing in everyday life. In other graphic novels, the steady pace of the rhythm gives the sense of an inevitable march toward destiny.

 

 

 

Summary

[We previously discussed the “beat” of comics’ rhythm, deriving from the pattern of its panels.] Comics’ rhythmic beat comes largely from the layout. One standard pattern Groensteen identifies is the “waffle-iron” grid, where there is a fixed pattern of similar shaped panels arranged evenly on the page. He does not think this limits the comics artist’s creativity, because by means of it the artist might establish a certain rhythm, then break from that feeling to great effect.

The beat emitted by the multiframe is closely dependent on page layout, that is to say the arrangement of the panel frames. In The System of Comics, I devoted three pages to a “defense and illustration of regular layout,” the pattern that has become known as the “waffle-iron,” in which all the panels are identical in size and shape. I argued the opposing case to theoreticians who have criticized its “mechanical aspect” or who consider it a constraint on creativity.²³ I could see several advantages in it (the slightest variation from one image to the next becomes significant, any braiding effects can more easily be positioned on the page ...) and most notably “the potential for setting up spectacular and violent breaks with the norm initially established.” This particular quality is highly important in relation to rhythm.
(138)
[Footnote 23 on p.192: Système 1, pp. 112–14, System 1, pp. 96–97.]

 

A regular layout produces a regular beat. This sort of rhythmic pattern is good to produce a stable flow of development.

When the layout is regular, so is the beat. The progression from one panel to the next is smoothed out in compliance with an immutable cadence. The “waffle-iron” is remarkably well suited to any narrative (or section of a narrative) that itself relies on the stability of some element, or in which a phased process unfolds. It is also ideal for materializing the inexorable flow of time. More generally, and with reference to the work of Fraisse, Isabelle Guaïtella argues that a | regular page layout and, hence, a regular rhythm, have the effect of “inducing a state of receptiveness in the reader” and so promote “a more immediate integration of meaning.”
(138)

Groensteen illustrates the rhythm created by the waffle-iron grid by  analyzing Robert Crumb’s Mr Natural’s 719th Meditation.

  

As we can see, except for the opening panel, all the frames are nearly identical rectangles.

 

Groensteen notes that not only is the panel structure regular, but so too are the contents to a large degree. Nearly every panel has Mr Natural seen from the same perspective, sitting in the same pose.

The cadence is all the more strongly marked by the correspondence between the repetition of the frame and the reiteration of the motif (a point to which I shall return). The combination of these two factors confers a very expressive ostinato rhythm on the reading process.
(139)

 

Groensteen’s next observation is that the rhythm of the comics bears no temporal relation to the time that passes in the story: “two images juxtaposed in space, even with more or less identical content, correspond not to immediately consecutive moments, but to moments that are chronologically spaced out” (139).

Even though we see a sun moving through the sky and also a moon in one panel, we know that it is more than one day’s time (143).

 

In fact, we know that the duration of the story events is quite long. But Crumb chose a panel pattern that makes the rhythm very quick.

We are, then, faced with an extended diegetic time frame conveyed by a narrative tempo that gives the impression of a brisk rhythm. By opting for marked regularity of the panel frame and the motif, Crumb has compressed the passage of time, producing an accelerated scrolling effect.
(143)

While we cannot measure the flow of time absolutely in this comic, we can at least measure variations in how the temporality is presented. [[So we do not get an extensive measure of the duration, but we do get intensive variations where less time is presented in more space. This has the effect of slowing down time’s passage.]]

If we cannot precisely measure the speed at which the narrative unfolds, we can at least observe the variations that it undergoes. We can see, for example, that the second and third strips of the second page deploy six panels in order to subdivide a very brief moment, that of the confrontation between Mr Natural and the traffic cop, up to the point where the cop backs off. The dialogue and the breakdown make it clear that it takes no more than a few seconds to enact the scene. Six images to cover a few seconds, when something of the order of days or weeks elapses between the others. This remarkable change in the pace of events is expressed visually by a break in the scale of the images, a zoom in on Mr Natural who, for the duration of these six images, is blown up to three times the size of his previous and subsequent manifestations. Thus, within the temporal progression of the story, a brief fragment has been dilated and scrutinized in more detail, as if under a magnifying glass. And this effect, even as it slows down the action, enlarges the central motif.
(143)

 

In the past, the grid format was very popular. But gradually comic art moved away from this standard format so to further differentiate itself from cinema, which is stuck with a fixed frame shape. [For some discussion on this topic of frames in comics vs. cinema, and on possible objections, see section 1.7.1 of The System of Comics.] However, many comics artists are returning to regularity in their paneling patterns. Groensteen says that some artists who deal with highly personal subject matters are using regular panel patterns, and he mentions Julie Doucet, Joe Matt, Jeffrey Brown, and Ivan Brunetti. [This image below is a page from Doucet’s Dirty Plot #10.]

[Here is a page from Joe Matt’s Peepshow #1.]

[This is a page from Jeffrey Brown’s Clumsy.] 

[And here is a page from Ivan Brunetti’s Schizo #3.]

And Groensteen also mentions Ron Regé Jr. and Sammy Harkham. [Here is a page from Ron Regé Jr’s Skibber Bee Bye.]

[And here is a page from Sammy Harkham’s Crickets #1.]

 

And finally Groensteen mentions some graphic novels, namely Chester Brown’s Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography and Alan Moore’s Watchmen and From Hell. [Here is a page from Brown’s Louis Riel.]

[Here is a page from Moore, Gibbons, and Higgins Watchmen #4.]

[And here is a page from Moore’s, Campbell’s, and Mulllin’s From Hell.]

 

The regularity of the waffle-iron grid takes on different “tonalities” depending on the subject matter. For the autobiographical comics, “it connotes the rooting of the story in daily life (the regularity of passing days and hours) and the relative insignificance of the events recounted” (144). The regular succession of the panels is like “the clock of life as it ticks by” (144). However, in the other graphic novels we just noted [Louis Riel, Watchmen, and From Hell], “this regularity takes on another meaning, that of the inexorable march of destiny” (144).

Groensteen continues this idea in the next paragraph:

The rebellion of the mixed-race Louis Riel results in a death sentence, the countdown of the masked crime fighters ends in a massacre, and Jack the Ripper executes, one by one, all the women implicated in the conspiracy against the royal household. All three stories are inescapably drawn towards a tragic ending, and the regularity of the cadence fixed by the waffle-iron grid makes the reader feel that every step (every panel) brings them nearer to this ineluctable ending. The magnetic attraction of the apparatus (the series of multiframes) is heightened by the metronomic regularity with which the action unfolds.
(144)

 

 

Works Cited:

Thierry Groensteen. Comics and Narration. Translated by Ann Miller. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2013. Originally published as Système de la bande dessinée 2. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2011.

 

Image credits:

 

Robert Crumb. Mr Natural #1. August 1970. Copyright Robert Crumb. Apex Novelties, 1970.

 

Julie Doucet. Dirty Plotte [Purity Plotte] #10. December 1996. Copyright Julie Doucet. Drawn & Guarterly.

 

Joe Matt. Peepshow #1. February 1992. Copyright Joe Matt. Drawn & Quarterly.

 

Jeffrey Brown. Clumsy. Copyright 2002 by Jeffrey Brown.

 

Ivan Brunetti. Schizo #2. March 1998. Copyright 1998 Ivan Brunetti. Fantagraphics Books.

Ron Regé Jr. Skibber Bee Bye. Drawn & Quarterly, 2006. Obtained gratefully from The Comics Art Collective
http://www.comicartcollective.com
http://www.comicartcollective.com/detail.cfm?page=AF0A64DE-3048-77F0-11EE4F5BABE614A3

 

Sammy Harkham. Crickets #1. Copyright 2006 by Sammy Harkham. Drawn & Quarterly.

 

Alan Moore (Writer), Dave Gibbons (Illustrator/Letterer), & John Mullins (Colorist). Watchmen #4. December 1986. Copyright DC Comics, 1986.

 

Alan Moore (Writer), Eddie Cambpell (Artist), and Pete Mullins (Contributing Artist). From Hell. Copyright 2006 [1989] Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. Top Shelf Productions.

 

Chester Brown. Louis Riel. A Comic-Strip Biography. Copyright 2006 Chester Brown. Drawn & Quarterly.

 

This post’s URL:

http://piratesandrevolutionaries.blogspot.com/2016/01/groensteen-72-comics-and-narration.html

Groensteen (7.1) Comics and Narration, “The Multiframe as Beat”

by Corry Shores

[Search Blog Here. Index tabs are found at the bottom of the left column.]

[Central Entry Directory]
[Literature, Drama, and Poetry, Entry Directory]
[Graphic Literature, Entry Directory]
[Thierry Groensteen, Entry Directory]
[Groensteen, Comics and Narration, entry directory]

[Bracketed commentary and boldface are my own.]

Thierry Groensteen

Comics and Narration

Chapter 7:
The Rhythm of Comics

7.1
The Multiframe as Beat

 

 

Brief summary:

Comics have panels that we read through progressively. The panels are discontinuous, because they have temporalized breaks between them. Comics will have an underlying basic pattern of repetition of their panels, which establishes a rhythmic beat.

 

 

 

Summary

[Here Groensteen defines the multiframe it seems as the system of panels on a page. I had the impression from his System of Comics that the multiframe could include panels from other pages. When we look at the comics page, just its panel structure tells us that the story is told as a series of moments given as still images, with breaks in between them.]

The emblematic apparatus of the medium, the multiframe, that is to say the page divided up into a certain number of framed subspaces, is a very powerful solidarity operator—within it, successive images do not just make up a string, they com- | prise, from the outset, a totality. Readers approach the page both as a fraction of a story and as a visual unit. They notice immediately that the page they are about to read is composed of numerous panels, and thus has moments of stasis, pauses programmed into the narrative.
(135-136)

 

When we first see the page, even before we know the content of the panels, we see how many of them there are and how full they are with information. By seeing the density, we can instantaneously judge how long it will take to read the page and also we can see already “the rhythm that will govern the phased, disjointed reading process” (136).

The number of panels comprising the whole-page multiframe determines the density of the page. Experienced readers take this in at a glance, just as they can see whether the images are high or low in information. This instantaneous perception enables them to calculate two things: the (approximate) reading time (they see whether it is a page that can be skimmed or whether it needs to be lingered over) and the rhythm that will govern the phased, disjointed reading process.
(136)

Groensteen says that comics have different levels of rhythm, and the first one we encounter is the most basic beat serving as the rhythm underlying all the others. [Groensteen seems to regard this beat as being very basic, as if it were an overall structural element, as his examples seem to suggest.]

The first rhythm that we encounter, the underlying rhythm, which provides the background for all the others, i.e., the beat, is precisely indicated by the number of panels, and, as a function of this, their size. On a page consisting of two large images one above the other, the beat is slow and steady (the first two albums by Anthony Pastor, Ice Cream and Hotel Koral, for example, use this duple time); in a page containing numerous rows of small panels, it is faster.
(136)

[Below is a page from Pastor’s Ice Cream. All the pages have this structure of two panels.]

[And here is one from Pastor’s Hotel Koral. Again, all the pages have this pattern.]

 

Groensteen then notes another rhythmic factor, which is the force of forward moving attraction. We are pulled forward as we pass through the frames. [Using Husserlian terms, we might say that our protentional awareness creates curiosities and excited expectations that motivate our gaze to proceed to the next panel in the sequence.]

Once the reading process is under way, the multiframe displays another of its powers, the power of attraction that entices the reader forward. Reading could be said to deconstruct the page, in the sense that it gives direction to the succession of panels, unfurls them, and arranges them in single file (each one will have its moment) within the “imaginary ribbon” that I evoked in System 1.¹³ The multiframe lures the reader ever onwards, it designates in advance the images still to come; the reader therefore feels summoned by them and rushes headlong after the forthcoming narrative segments, as if running down a flight of stairs. Eager to discover the surprises in store, but also, in some way, to exhaust the apparatus itself, to get to the end of it, to miss nothing.
(136)
[Footnote 13: Système 1, pp. 70–71, System 1, pp. 58–59.]

Groensteen sees this force of attraction being there even at the early stages of creation when perhaps the artist has only made an empty grid of panels. “A string of empty frames drawn on a piece of paper provides a matrix whose content cannot be other than sequential. As Henri Van Lier noted, frames are not just filled with images, they actively call them into being” (136).

[So one element of the rhythm is the beat, and we saw one example being the duple beat. Groensteen seems to say now that it is the pattern of moving from each comics panel to the next that establishes the beat, perhaps further making the same point. But we note that the discontinuity is important for the rhythm of comics.]

The act of filling in one little square, then another, then another, obviously recalls the way in which children tell a story, using the “and then . . . and then | . . . and then . . .” method. But the process of reading a comic also follows this cumulative logic: readers extricate themselves from one panel only to plunge into the next one, and so on. It is this discontinuous and rhythmic operation that sets up a beat at the heart of the reading process.
(137)

 

[I am not sure I follow the next point, but it seems to be that because our eyes blink, we have in our consciousness breaks in the visual stream. But it also seems “blinks” is metaphorically used to suggest breaks in our mental life and not just our visual perception. In that case, I am not sure what the blinks are. The main idea will be that phenomenologically we have ellipses in our temporalized consciousness. Likewise we have them in film editing and comics sequences. The important notion is that our conscious experience of comics is one of breaks in our experiences, making the process “disjointed and jerky”.]

In Naissances de la bande dessinée, Thierry Smolderen quotes an essay written by the film editor Walter Murch, who worked with Coppola, among others. According to Murch:

We are permanently “editing” the film of our lives, and the blinks that so often punctuate our utterances and our thoughts represent one of the most obvious symptoms of this editing process.”¹⁶

And Smolderen goes on to suggest:

If Murch is right, if these micro-cuts really do explain our readiness to accept the discontinuities in an edited film, then that also means that reading a comic comes much closer to the experience of watching a film than we had thought, because in this case, our brain certainly works in the same way—through brief cuts—in order to move from one panel to the next.¹⁷

I do not know how it would be possible to provide scientific proof of this daring hypothesis, according to which crossing between frames would coincide with a micro-blackout, equivalent to a blink. If it could be proven, it would confirm the view that the reading process is fundamentally disjointed and jerky.
(137)
[Footnote 16 from p.191: Walter Murch, In the Blink of an Eye (New York: Silman-James Press, 2001).]
[Footnote 17 from p.191: Naissances de la bande dessinée, op. cit., pp. 132–33.]
[Footnote 3 (of the Introduction) from p.177: Thierry Smolderen, Naissances de la bande dessinée (Brussels: Les Impressions nouvelles, 2009). To be published in English translation under the title The Birth of Comics, from William Hogarth to Winsor McCay, trans. Bart Beaty and Nick Nguyen (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2013 forthcoming).]

Groensteen says that humans possess all sorts of biological rhythms, not just blinking (137).

When we listen to music, we can hear the beat (which are “the regularities of tempo”) that underlies the melody. Similarly, when reading comics, we are “aware of the underlying beat engendered by the multiframe, which gives rhythmic pattern to the narrative that s/he is embarking on, even if an irregular arrangement of frames and a profusion of content seem to screen out and disrupt it” (137).

Groensteen thinks that “Of all the different human rhythms mentioned above, the one that most closely approximates the comics apparatus is walking” (137).

Thus rhythm is essential to comics, and it is spatialized.

The multiframe is, then, an instrument for converting space into time, into duration. It is entirely appropriate to describe it in terms of rhythm.

Émile Benveniste has shown that in Greek ‘rhuthmos’ originally means “characteristic arrangement of parts within a whole.” The spatial connotation becomes temporal in Plato, who extends the notion of rhythm to the movements of the body in gymnastics and dance.²¹

For the Greeks, rhythm is, in Pierre Sauvanet’s formula, a kind of “temporalized spatial form.”²² It is precisely at the intersection of these two dimensions, space and time, that comic art has developed its own rhythmic practice.
(138)
{Footnote 21 on p.191: Claude Lévi-Strauss, Regarder écouter lire [Look, Listen, Read], (Paris: Plon, 1993) p. 157. Lévi-Strauss is referring to Émile Benveniste’s article “Le rythme dans son acception linguistique” [Rhythm in the Linguistic Sense], reprinted in Problèmes de linguistique générale [Problems in General Linguistics] vol. 1, (Paris: Gallimard, 1966) pp. 327–35.}
{Footnote 22 on p.192: Le Rythme grec, d’Héraclite à Aristote [Greek Rhythm, from Heraclitus to Aristotle], (Paris: PUF, 1999).}

 

 

Thierry Groensteen. Comics and Narration. Translated by Ann Miller. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2013. Originally published as Système de la bande dessinée 2. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2011.

 

Image credits:

 

Anthony Pastor. Hotel Koral. Copyright Actes Sud/l'An, 2008.

Anthony Pastor. Ice Cream. Copyright Éditions l'An, 2005

Groensteen (7.0) Comics and Narration, “The Rhythm of Comics [introductory material]”

by Corry Shores

[Search Blog Here. Index tabs are found at the bottom of the left column.]

[Central Entry Directory]
[Literature, Drama, and Poetry, Entry Directory]
[Graphic Literature, Entry Directory]
[Thierry Groensteen, Entry Directory]
[Groensteen, Comics and Narration, entry directory]

 

[The following is summary. Boldface and bracketed commentary are my own.]

 

Thierry Groensteen

Comics and Narration

Chapter 7:
The Rhythm of Comics

7.0
[introductory material]

 

 

Brief summary:

Since abstract comics do not have narrational or representative content, their rhythmic elements become more obvious and important. Classic representational and narrative comics also can have rhythmic elements, although they are often less pronounced or apparent. If those rhythmic components happen merely on the level of the page layout, then it is smooth narration. But if they happen on larger and/or smaller scales in a more elaborate way, then it is accentuated narration.

 

 

 

Summary

[Since the stories and the reading of comics involves duration, they can have such musical properties as rhythm. Furthermore, since comics convert time into space, that means their rhythmic properties will manifest spatially.]

Everything that has duration contains music, just as everything that is visible contains graphic design and everything that moves contains dance.

Duration, whether short (a three- or four-panel strip) or long (a 300-page graphic novel), is a natural dimension of comics narrative, as it is of any other narrative.

Consequently, so is “music.” And since comic art is distinguished by its capacity for converting time into space,¹ the rhythmic scansion of the narrative necessarily implies certain ways of occupying space.
(133)

[Footnote 1 from p.191: Cf. Understanding Comics op. cit., pp. 99–100.]
[Footnote 16 (of Ch.1) from p.178: Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (New York: Harper Collins, 1993), pp. 70–72.]

Groensteen then reminds us that he already discussed the rhythmic function in The System of Comics [see section 1.7.3] where he “described the process of reading comic art as a ‘rhythmic operation of crossing from one frame to the next’³” (133). [Footnote 3 cites: Système 1, p. 55, System 1, p. 45.]

Yet, since he wants to move from a general theory of the language in comics to a poetics of comics, he will need “to develop a more comprehensive theory of rhythm” (133).

Groensteen notes that although comics artists are often preoccupied with rhythm in their works, comics theorists pay little attention to it.

Eisner, in his Comics and Sequential Art, devotes a substantial part to rhythm. [See Chapter 3, and especially section 3.3 where Eisner gives a part-by-part analysis of one of his complete Spirit stories, here noted by Groensteen.] 

Groensteen then mentions Molotiu’s Abstract Comics. Because these abstract comics works do not have much along the lines of story or representation, their rhythmic elements come more to light.

In the anthology Abstract Comics (2009), the short shrift given to the story and, almost always, to mimesis and representationalism, has the effect of increasing the salience of rhythm as one of the inherent characteristics of the multiframe, the sequential apparatus peculiar to comic art. Indeed, the text on the back cover emphasizes this:

Panel rhythm, page layout, the sequential potential of color and the panel-to-panel play of abstract shapes have all been exploited to create potent formal dramas and narrative arcs, bringing the art of comics the closest that it, or any other visual art, has yet come to the condition of instrumental music.

And most reviewers of the volume put together by Molotiu have also pointed to the musical dimension of the formal dynamic at work on the page, whether this is a matter of harmony, dissonance, or progressive transformation. Charles Hatfield has gone so far as to suggest that the entire book could be thought of as a long musical piece, with each artist’s contribution representing a movement.⁸
[Footnote 8 of p.191: See his comments on the blog http://www.thoughtballoonists.com/2010/02/abstract comics.html. Consulted 11 March 2010.]

 

So for abstract comics, rhythm is very important. Likewise,

as far back as the 1920s, “art cinema,” sometimes called “abstract cinema” or “cinema without a screenplay,” was already giving priority to the exploration of its own potential for “rhythmic actions.”
(134)

But comics come a bit late in comparison to film when it comes to experimentation with rhythm (135).

 

In figurative and narrative comics (classic comics), we might not find as strong of a rhythmic factor as in abstract comics. Groensteen gives two reasons for this. {1} Instead of prioritizing the rhythmic element, it is more concerned with “the organization of a melodic dialogue among formal elements” (135), and {2} readers will be paying more attention to the plot and panel content than to the rhythmic features, even if there is a strong rhythmic development (135).

 

[I might not get the next point well. I think Groensteen is saying that in abstract comics, rhythm is a basic element in the presentation of the content. But in narrative comics, rhythm is something that is bound up with how the story is told. Let me quote:]

In narrative comic art, rhythm is no longer part of the content in itself (as it may be on some pages of abstract comic art) but merely a mode of narration. To summarize, we can, with Isabelle Guaïtella, say that we are most often confronted with an “intersecting play of iconicity and rhythm,” which can be analyzed in aesthetic terms but also in terms of meaning production.¹²
(135)
{Footnote 12 from p.191: See Isabelle Guaïtella, “Au rythme des images: multimodalité et multilinéarité de la bande dessinée” [In rhythm with images: the multimodality and multilinearity of comic art] Semiotica vol. 146 nos. 1/4 (2003), 519–26.}

[I am also not very sure what the next idea is. Perhaps it is this. There are two ways that classic narrative comics may present rhythm. {1} It may merely use visual features of the layout, perhaps including things like panel size, as we saw in Eisner’s analysis. For some reason, Groensteen calls this “smooth narration.” Or {2} it may make use of other variables (but I am not sure which yet) which allow for more elaborate rhythms operating on larger and smaller scales. This is called “accentuated narrative”.]

This “intersecting play” opens up several possibilities. Classic comics may go no further than using the apparatus itself by following the rhythm intrinsic to the preconfigured multiframe (a rhythm that will be more or less marked depending on the organization of the page layout, as we will see below); alternatively it can mobilize other parameters to produce “more elaborate rhythmic effects,” either at the level of the page as a whole, or over a smaller area. In the first case, the narration can be described as smooth, and in the second as accentuated.
(135)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thierry Groensteen. Comics and Narration. Translated by Ann Miller. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2013. Originally published as Système de la bande dessinée 2. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2011.

[Labels continuation for entry: Groensteen (7.2) Comics and Narration, “The Cadence of the Waffle-Iron Grid”]

by Corry Shores

[Search Blog Here. Index tabs are found at the bottom of the left column.]

[Central Entry Directory]
[Literature, Drama, and Poetry, Entry Directory]
[Graphic Literature, Entry Directory]
[Thierry Groensteen, Entry Directory]
[Groensteen, Comics and Narration, entry directory]

 

This entry continues the list of labels for the entry: Groensteen (7.2) Comics and Narration, “The Cadence of the Waffle-Iron Grid”

 

http://piratesandrevolutionaries.blogspot.com/2016/01/groensteen-72-comics-and-narration.html

Thierry Groensteen. Comics and Narration. Entry Directory

by Corry Shores

[Search Blog Here. Index tabs are found at the bottom of the left column.]

[Central Entry Directory]
[Literature, Drama, and Poetry, Entry Directory]
[Graphic Literature, Entry Directory]
[Thierry Groensteen, Entry Directory]

Entry Directory for

Thierry Groensteen

Comics and Narration

Chapter 7:
The Rhythm of Comics

7.0
[introductory material]

 

7.1
The Multiframe as Beat

 

7.2
The Cadence of the Waffle-Iron Grid

 

7.3
Three Types of Emphasis

 

7.4
The Awareness of Rhythm

 

7.5
Accentuation and Polyrhythm

 

 

 

 

Thierry Groensteen. Comics and Narration. Translated by Ann Miller. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2013. Originally published as Système de la bande dessinée 2. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2011.

Groensteen (1.7.3) The System of Comics, ‘The Rhythmic Function'

 

by Corry Shores

[Search Blog Here. Index tabs are found at the bottom of the left column.]

[Central Entry Director]
[Literature, Drama, and Poetry, Entry Directory]
[Graphic Literature, Entry Directory]
[Thierry Groensteen, Entry Directory]
[Groensteen’s The System of Comics, entry directory]

[The following is summary. My own comments are in brackets. Boldface is mine.]

 

 

Summary of

 

Thierry Groensteen

 

The System of Comics

Chapter 1:
The Spatio-Topical System

1.7.3
The Rhythmic Function

 

Brief summary:
On account of the temporal breaks between comics panels, there are a series of jumps that have the same sort of rhythmic properties that we find in the patterning of cuts between shots in an edited film. This is the rhythmic function of the panel.

 

Summary

 

[I do not understand the terminology in the first sentence, so I will quote it. It might be a reference to creating a rhythmic meter in writing, but I am not sure.] “To cut up a text is to scan it” (45). [We previously discussed the separative function of the frame. It creates breaks in the flow of reading. These breaks then produce a repetition of experience as we read comics, and this repetition of experience can be said to have a rhythm, like the repeating patterns or beats in music. The rhythm of comics can be modified using other visual elements that affect the way we move through the images and text.]

To cut up a text is to scan it. The “text” of comics obeys a rhythm that is imposed on it by the succession of frames—a basic heartbeat that, as is seen in music, can be developed, nuanced, and recovered by more elaborate rhythmic effects stressed by other “instruments” (parameters), like those of the distribution of word balloons, the opposition of colors, or even the play of the graphic forms.
(45)

To further characterize the rhythmic function of the comics frame, Groensteen quotes Jean-Luc Godard’s definition of the cinema as “the art of making music with painting” (qtd in Groensteen 45). Groensteen says that comics share many affinities with painting [in that they both produce still, visual, two-dimensional images often using mostly similar tools and materials], and as well comics share much in common with cinema [perhaps because they both have similar story-telling devices, including mise-en-scène, “cinematography” (in the sense of angles and other elements of perspective and focus in the comics), editing, pacing, and so on]. The other similarity is that both comics and cinema tell their story rhythmically.  He writes: “comics, in displaying intervals (in the same way as persistence of vision erases the discretization of the cinematic medium) rhythmically distributes the tale that is entrusted to it” (45). [The persistence of vision – or, as it is understood in more recent accounts of the cinematic illusion,  the  phi phenomenon – is what makes the discrete units of still imagery on the film strip appear as continuous motion when viewed at a rapid frame rate. However, films are normally not made of one continuous sequence of frames meant to seem like one solid duration from one viewer’s point of view. (Some notable exceptions are Hitchcock’s The Rope and Iñárritu’s Birdman.) Rather, they are made of smaller fragments containing continuous footage (normally seconds or so long, but sometimes much longer or very brief) each with their own distinct cinematographic properties (like different angles, lenses, and so on), and all these independent fragments are edited together to make the film. Those breaks can be meant to go unperceived, as in continuity style editing (and even The Rope and Birdman have cuts edited so to produce the illusion of unbroken continuity), or these breaks can be more apparent, as in discontinuity styles like Soviet montage, jump-cut editing in French New Wave (Godard), or more recently in  chaos editing. Nonetheless, whether the editing is continuity-style or not, it in both cases still presents breaks or punctuations in the viewing experience, and the patterns of these breaks produces rhythmic effects. See for example the snappy, perhaps “upbeat,” musical rhythm of Orson Welles’ editing in F for Fake. Comics of course do not use the persistence of vision (or the phi phenomenon) (except in flip book applications, see the examples from section 1.6). Nonetheless, each panel takes on a block of continuous duration. It is not constituted using a perceptual illusion, but is rather projected onto the image by the imagination of the reader. (See the prior section, especially Scott McCloud’s demonstration). (Note also, that Eisner considers the experienced temporality in the comics panel to be an illusion. It is illusory, in that it is not physically there. But it is not a perceptual illusion, because it is not the product of our perceptual apparatus; rather it results from the activity of our imagination). So the succession of comics panels (that is, of continuous blocks of story duration with experiential jumps between them) can have very similar rhythmic features to the succession of shots in film.] The motion in the act of reading comics, then, is “intermittent, elliptical, and jerky”:

To ignore speed — its images are immobile and no voice imprints a delivery on the dialogue — does not suggest any less of a cadenced reading, or an operation given rhythm by the crossing of the frames. Its speech in this particularity is intermittent, elliptical, jerky. Each new panel hastens the story and, simultaneously, holds it back. The frame is the agent of this double maneuver of progression/retention.
(45)

Groensteen’s next point is that when we use his own methodology,  we cannot identify standard parameters that determine the rhythmic function of the panel to be applied to any and every comic book. Thus specifically we cannot say that any time a panel is longer it encompasses a longer duration of action. [Perhaps Eisner was making such point that Groensteen is against in his Comics and Sequential Art, especially section 3.3. Recall for example this analysis where Eisner said the narrower panels accelerate the pace and the longer ones create pauses or portray longer moments of story duration.

] For Groensteen, the rhythmic function is something that depends more on the actual contextual factors rather than on universalizable ones.

At this time, I want to register myself against a false temptation to which, in the past, more than one specialist has succumbed: that of establishing an automatic | correspondence between the form and the dimensions of the frame and the length of the supposed action that it enframes. One finds, notably in Pierre Masson, several indications along these lines: thus “a frame stretched in height . . . suggests a suspension of rhythm, the discovery of a high point,” while the “juxtaposition of several panels of the same format” will translate into “a rapid succession of actions or of replies.”²⁹ The same author has also written that “the greater the number of panels, the stronger the impression of rapidity.” All normative propositions do not do justice to the diversity of the expressive techniques and to the aesthetics of the authors, and it would be easy to oppose a quantity of counter-examples (beginning with the pages by Gabrion, Baudoin, and Del Barrio reproduced above). Against the dogmatism that has sullied too many theoretical structures, the comics system that is outlined here is meant to contrast a resolutely pragmatic approach, summarizable in these terms: the function of a parameter, of a unit or a figure is not prejudiced to its usage and to its signification in a given context (narrative, artistic, editorial).
(45-46)
[Footnote 29: Lire la bande dessinée, op. cit., p. 21. (“Notes” 171)]
[From p.27: Pierre Masson, who divides his Lire la bande dessinée (Presses Universitaires de Lyon 1985) into two parts respectively entitled “Morphology” (on the “material of the image” and the “reading ofa panel”) and “Syntax” on the page, the continuity, and the scenario). (27)]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From:
Thierry Groensteen. The System of Comics. Translated from French to English by Bart Beaty and Nick Nguyen. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2007. Originally published as Systém de la bande desinée. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1999.

Image Credits:

Will Eisner. Comics & Sequential Art. Copyright Will Eisner. Tamarac, Florida: Poorhouse Press, 1985.

Eisner (Ch3.3) Comics and Sequential Art, ‘Framing Time’

 

by Corry Shores

[Search Blog Here. Index tabs are found at the bottom of the left column.]

[Central Entry Director]
[Literature, Drama, and Poetry, Entry Directory]
[Graphic Literature, Entry Directory]
[Will Eisner, Entry Directory]
[Eisner, Comics & Sequential Art, entry directory]

[The following is summary. My commentary is in brackets, and boldface is my own.]

 

 

 

Will Eisner

Comics & Sequential Art

 

Ch.3
Timing

3.3
Framing Time

Brief summary: 
The events of a comics story take place within the story’s own fictional temporality. Reading the comics takes place within the reader’s actual conscious temporality. Comics present their events in small time-blocks with temporal gaps left out between the panels. These temporal jumps produce a pattern to the story time’s exposition, and as well they generate a rhythm to the reader’s experience of that story temporality. The flow of time in the story can be modulated so that it seems to accelerate or decelerate, pause, become choppy or smooth, become dense and frantic or rarefied and calm, and so on. These effects are accomplished in part by visual modifications to the panel frame itself. For example, a series of square frames sets a metered pace, and when followed by a long panel, creates the feeling of a pause in that flow. Or, by inserting a series of tall narrow panels, the pace of the story’s time will seem to accelerate and condense. The comics artist makes these choices to modulate not only the temporal experience in the reader but also to bring about the desired emotional responses to the story events.

Summary

[The diagram below was found in the prior section, but it seems to refer to a point made now in this section too.]

 

[Eisner’s first point is a bit hard to decipher, because it draws an analogy between Einstein’s Special Relativity theory and the temporality involved in comics stories and our experiences of them. (By the way, my best simplified explanation and understanding of the theory is found at this post, which contains animated diagrams). His point will be that somehow on account of the comics panel, time (in the story) is relative to the position of the reader. I will only be able to give wrong guesses as to what he means. Judging from the rest of the paragraph, he might be saying that were we to live inside the comic story world, we could only live within each panel. We would not be able to see the page layout of many panels and their respective sizes and shapes. And since each panel is a still image, were we a character in one such image, we would not experience or be able to measure the passage of time between panels. The reader, however, takes up a spatial position outside all the panels, and can judge one panel being beside another. So relative to the viewer’s spatial location, the panels’ spatial features and organization serve as temporal indicators in the story development. But hopefully the analogy with relativity is not essential to the main ideas here. The other points are also a little hard for me to grasp. He seems to be saying that we judge the time in a panel not merely from the frame itself. For, if we look at a blank enframed panel, we cannot judge the temporality inside it just from its size and shape. Instead, there is a cooperation of the visual contents, the dialogue, and the panel frame to indicate to us the duration of the panel. And although the images are frozen, we perceive them as expressing a block of continuous duration, which is the illusion of time in comics. The frame serves to punctuate the temporality, as it separates the panels temporally. Thus we obtain the illusion of time by making judgements regarding the duration implied by the boxes in their sequence. I probably have this wrong, so let me quote.]

Albert Einstein in his Special Theory (Relativity) states that time is not absolute but relative to the position of the observer. In essence the panel (or box) makes that postulate a reality for the comic book reader. The act of paneling or boxing the action not only defines its perimeters but establishes the position of the reader in relation to the scene and indicates the duration of the event. Indeed, it ‘tells’ time. The magnitude of time elapsed is not expressed by the panel per se, as an examination of blank boxes in a series quickly reveals. The imposition of the imagery within the frame of the panels acts as the catalyst. The fusing of symbols, images and balloons makes the statement. Indeed, in some applications of the frame, the outline of the box is eliminated entirely with equal effect. The act of framing separates the scenes and acts as a punctuator. Once established and set in sequence the box or panel becomes the criterion by which to judge the illusion of time.
(28)

[I also am not sure I completely understand the analogy laid out in the figure illustrations that follow. But it seems he is saying that Morse code requires a passage of time, and certain durational properties of the code sounds are inherent to their meaning. Also, music is something whose parts can vary temporally, and they require the continuous passage of time to unfold. Likewise, comics, although entirely occupying space, carry with them a temporal passage through which their development unfolds.]


[Recall from section 3.1 that timing is the manipulation of the visual imagery and of its panelization so to alter the temporal features of the story and of the reader’s emotional experience of the story. He now says that the main feature of the modern comic for transmitting its timing is the frame or box. Presumably this is because it creates segments of duration blocks that imply durations transpiring between them. Here we note Eisner’s emphasis on the separative function in creating temporality. He includes speech balloons, which further section-off the panel’s imagery into other internal duration blocks. (Normally one speech balloon ((or balloon subsection)) is experienced as occurring not during but after another one beside it.) Other visual clues which indicate movement or other temporally-extended occurrences serve as “symbols” for the passage of time in the panel.]

In the modern comic strip or comic book, the device most fundamental to the transmission of timing is the panel or frame or box. These lines drawn around the depiction of a scene, which act as a containment of the action of segment of action, have as one of their functions the task of separating or parsing the total statement. Balloons, another containment device used for the entrapment of the representation of speech and sound, are also useful in the delineation of time. The other natural phenomena, movement or transitory occurences [sic] deployed within the perimeter of these borders and depicted by recognizable symbols, become part of the vocabulary used in the expression of time. They are indispensable to the story teller, particularly when he is seeking to involve the reader. Where narrative art seeks to go beyond simple decoration, where it presumes to imitate reality in a meaningful chain of events and consequences and thereby evoke empathy, the dimension of time is an inescapable ingredient.
(28)

Eisner then illustrates how these variables work in practice to produce the comic’s timing. Along the right side he shows a clock, which measures the time that we ascribe to the series of events. The contents include the image (or idea) of papers burning. Our knowledge of how long it takes for papers to burn informs us of how the time is progressing in and between the panels. [Using Eisner’s terminology, the burning paper might then become a “symbol” for time, but I am not sure. He also says that the shape of the panels contributes to the rhythm. He does not say more here about that. But perhaps we might make some guesses. The first panel when he crashes through the window is a narrow panel. As well, the time seems sudden and brief there, even though the word balloon takes a little time to read. The next longer and squatter panels seem to involve a little more time passing within each of them. In the next row, again, a crashing through the window moment occupies a narrow panel and does seem to have a briefer duration than the surrounding panels. In the third row there are no frames around the panels. They also seem like a rapid succession of instants. Then, the final row of panels has more space between them. That perhaps lends to a sense of a dramatic pause and suspense as we are made to wait anxiously to see what the result of the situation is.]

Thus

Both of these critical devices, panel and balloon, when enclosing natural phenomena, support the recognition of time. J. B. Priestley, writing in Man and Time, summed it up most succinctly: “. . . it is from the sequence of events that we derive our idea of time.”
(30)

[Eisner then shows an illustration where we gauge the pacing by the dripping of a faucet. We know already how fast faucets drip, so we know it is a matter of a few seconds before the bomb explodes. Thus we do not even need to see the fuse burn, although it confirms our temporal assumptions. This is an especially good illustration for the “illusion” of time in comics, since we can feel the thickness of time, which is enriched and phenomenalized by the suspense of the situation.]

Eisner finishes this chapter by analyzing the timing and pacing of one of his complete Spirit stories, “Foul Play,” from 27-March-1949. He selected it because “time is critical to the emotional elements in the plot.” For the story to work as he intended, he needed to “frame a period of time that would encompass the plot” (30). [I am not entirely sure what that means, but I think he is saying that the story has a certain duration that he wants the reader to feel.] But if he merely just tells the reader the duration by having a narrator make statements about the time, then it would be too formal and specific, which would “mitigate the reader’s involvement. A ‘time rhythm’ that is very believable had to be employed” (30).

In order to get the reader be aware of how the time is passing, he depicts certain actions that the reader is familiar with, so they can measure the depicted time on the basis of their own past experiences of these activities. In this case, Eisner will depict faucet drips, a match strike, teeth brushing, and the usage of a staircase to create the impressions of duration (30).

Eisner will also comment on how his changes to the frequency, shape, and size of the panels “contribute to the story rhythm and passage of time” (30). So in some cases, he will need to “compress” time [that is, fill the duration with more event-content], and to do so, he will increase the number of panels used to depict the segments of the event. Were he instead to put a lot of event material into one panel, that would make the time seem like it is stretching out. But, by increasing the proximity of the panels [and by increasing their frequency], he increases the speed of time’s pace.

The number and size of the panels also contribute to the story rhythm and passage of time. For example, when there is a need to compress time, a greater number of panels are used. The action then becomes more segmented, unlike the action that occurs in the larger, more conventional panels. By placing the panels closer together, we deal with the 'rate' of elapsed time in its narrowest sense.
(30)

Eisner then comments on how the panel sizes influence the pacing. When he wants an even or “metered” pace of the action, to make the events seem deliberate and mechanical, he uses perfectly square panel frames. Then, to create a suspenseful and more elongated moment, he will suddenly use a longer panel coming after many smaller ones [as if hitting the brakes on the movement of time].

The shapes of the panels are also a factor. On a page where the need is to display a 'deliberate' meter of action, the boxes are shaped as perfect squares. Where the ringing of the telephone needs time (as well as space) to evoke a sense of suspense and threat, the entire tier is given over to the action of the ringing preceded by a compression of smaller (narrower) panels.

In comics, timing and rhythm are interlocked.
(30)

[Eisner’s part-by-part analysis of his own entire story gives us a privileged glimpse into not only his own thinking as a visual still-image story teller, but as well it will equip us with analytical tools for studying other comics. For that reason, forgive me for walking through his entire, wonderful analysis.]

We begin with the first page of the story. The plot revolves around what seems like a man falling to his death upon the sidewalk, having fallen from somewhere out of the building above. Eisner’s first observation is that he wanted that central plot element to be presented as a surprise. So he begins with two expository panels that contain little event material and thus have a calm pace. This makes the sudden arrival of the fallen body come as a shock. It as well has a comic effect [perhaps because it is such a terrible thing that happens just as a matter of course in the life of the main character who seemingly gives the shocking event no significance.]

At the top of the next page, the faucet dripping serves to set the pace and length of the duration. Two rows down we get an illustration of what he meant before by “In comics, timing and rhythm are interlocked.” He writes, “the sudden introduction of a large number of small panels brings into play a new ‘beat’” (32). [I am not exactly sure yet how the rhythm and the time are interlocked. It could be that the accelerated rhythm tells us that less or maybe more time is passing, but I am not sure.]

The character then begins to worry that the fallen figure’s death might be blamed on him. [When something makes us panic, it is as if time is speeding up, since we become frantic.] To create the “rising tempo of panic,” he used tall, narrower panels. [This makes the time itself seem crowded and dense].

 

At the top of the next page, Eisner creates a “staccato” rhythm by placing a series of narrow panels that for some reason read like a series of small sudden jumps. Then, we have the long panel he mentioned before, which extends the duration.

Eisner then increases the pace, since the man is panicking again, and Eisner does so by creating a series of narrow panels. At the bottom panels, it seems as if the “camera” angle changes to low and high angle “shots”. Eisner says that the changes in perspective “add time lapse without altering rhythm”. [I do not understand this point. Perhaps the idea is that the pace retains a hastened rhythm on account of the panel shapes. But since the perspectives change, that might give us the impression that it is like us being viewers who must move great distances to attain those different angles, and thus to consume more time in making the movements. I am just guessing. My impression while reading those parts is that it is a little disorienting, and so that confusion might add the impression of more time is passing.]

At the top of the next page, he uses again a series of narrow tall panels to maintain the quickened rhythm. In the middle of the series is a wider panel which causes the sequence of beats to pause briefly.

‘

After the man jumps out the window, there is no longer the need for suspense and excitement. So Eisner slows the pace down by using larger panels.

      

 

Works cited:

Will Eisner. Comics & Sequential Art. Tamarac, Florida: Poorhouse Press, 1985.

 

 

Image Credits:

Will Eisner. Comics & Sequential Art. Copyright Will Eisner. Tamarac, Florida: Poorhouse Press, 1985.

This entry’s URL: 
http://piratesandrevolutionaries.blogspot.com/2016/01/eisner-ch3-comics-and-sequential-art.html

Eisner (Ch3.2) Comics and Sequential Art, ‘Framing Speech’

 

by Corry Shores

[Search Blog Here. Index tabs are found at the bottom of the left column.]

[Central Entry Director]
[Literature, Drama, and Poetry, Entry Directory]
[Graphic Literature, Entry Directory]
[Will Eisner, Entry Directory]
[Eisner, Comics & Sequential Art, entry directory]

 

 

 

Will Eisner

Comics & Sequential Art

 

Ch.3
Timing

3.2
Framing Speech

Brief summary: 
To show speech and its sonic qualities, comics artists use speech balloons, which may take on different shapes and lettering types to indicate different things about the nature and sonic qualities of the speech. As speech requires time to be spoken, speech balloons add a dimension of temporal duration to the comics panel.

Summary

Eisner will discuss the function of speech balloons in comics timing (see the prior section, section 3.1, on timing). [He calls speech balloons a “desperation device,” but I am not sure what he means with that term. Perhaps he means that the cartoonist would prefer some better way to communicate dialogue, but they have little other recourse than to use balloons. Perhaps they are problematic because they confuse the visual imagery with imaginary or artificial looking elements.] “The balloon is a desperation device. It attempts to capture and make visible an ethereal element: sound.” [And since these sounds can only occur through an enduring duration,] “The arrangement of balloons which surround speech – their position in relation to each other, or to the action, or their position with respect to the speaker, contribute to the measurement of time” (26). [He also says that word balloons are “disciplinary” but I again do not know exactly the meaning of the term in this usage. I suppose it means that the word balloons in a way command the reader to read the contents exactly as they are written in the balloon, to read the balloons in the proper order, and to hear the sounds in their head, rather than I suppose how the rest of the visual imagery invites the reader to explore it at one’s own leisure. Also, it seems he is saying that we have an implicit understanding of how speech fills temporal duration, which we then project onto the visual imagery, as if the still image were occupying a block of time during which activity is taking place.] “They are disciplinary in that they demand cooperation from the reader. A major requirement is that they be read in a prescribed sequence in order to know who speaks first. They address our subliminal understanding of the duration of speech” (26).

[Eisner then shows some cartoon illustrations, but he seems to make a point through them that is not made in the rest of his text. (Of course, as a cartoonist, the visual components are not supposed to do nothing more than visualize the text, but rather image and text cooperate or take turns in conveying the information, in comics) This is a fascinating speculation to explain how word balloons are not entirely an arbitrary form but rather have some origin in actual physical experience. We might think of how when outside on a cold winter day we can see our breath while speaking. A cloud of mist literally billows out of our mouths as we speak. Word balloons, then, can be thought of as the breath clouds that normally go unnoticed when people talk to each other.]

Eisner then notes two important ways that word balloons in comics are read: {1} in the same order across the page as text (thus for Westerners, left-to-right while top-to-bottom), and {2} “in relation to the position of the speaker” (26) [... by which I think he means that we read each balloon as being the speech of the figure it seems to be emanating from, and perhaps the position of the speakers in relation to one another indicates who is speaking first, but I am not sure. In the Little Nemo example we examined before in section 1.7.2 of Groensteen’s System of Comics, it seemed like there was background dialogue that is to be read first, and then foreground dialogue second, after the sonic atmosphere is established.

]

Eisner notes that the earlier known word balloons were ribbons emanating from the mouth of the speaker. [I think of very ribbonlike ones from Medieval works. Here is a detail from Bernhard Strigel's The Annunciation to Saint Anne (ca. 1505-1510). (Full image can be seen here.).

[From Wikimedia Commons]

The Wikipedia page for “Speech Scroll” shows some other examples. Here for instance is a  “Teotihuacan stick-ball player with a bi-color speech scroll”.

[From wikipedia]

] Eisner even draws an ancient Mayan frieze to show how brackets served as speech indicators (see the curly-brackets pointing out from the figures’ mouths).

He explains that as the word balloon evolved, it came to take on more sophisticated roles in the story telling.

As his illustrations demonstrate [although it is not stated in the text], the shape of the balloon tells us whether the dialogue is normal speech, thinking, or sound coming from a technological device.

Eisner then discusses the lettering inside the balloons. Although its style indicates something of the personality and artistic style of the creator, they also can have stylized features which tell us something about the character who is speaking and the way they sound while speaking making those utterances. For example, by using foreign lettering styles we might “hear” their foreign accent (27). Comics might also “provide dignity” by using type-set lettering. Yet, while “Typesetting does have a kind of inherent authority” to it, it also “has a ‘mechanical’ effect that intrudes on the personality of free-hand art.” Thus “Its use must be carefully considered because of its effect on the ‘message’ as well” (27).

 

Works cited:

Will Eisner. Comics & Sequential Art. Tamarac, Florida: Poorhouse Press, 1985.

 

 

Image Credits:

Will Eisner. Comics & Sequential Art. Copyright Will Eisner. Tamarac, Florida: Poorhouse Press, 1985.

Bernhard Strigel. The Annunciation to Saint Anne (ca. 1505-1510). Cropped from this detail on wikimedia commons:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Annunciation_to_Saint_Anne_by_Bernhard_Strigel,_detail,_c._1505-1510_AD,_oil_on_wood_-_Museo_Nacional_Centro_de_Arte_Reina_Sof%C3%ADa_-_DSC08588.JPG

The full painting can be viewed here:
http://www.museothyssen.org/en/thyssen/zoom_obra/112

Winsor McCay. Little Nemo in Slumberland. 1906-07-01. Obtained gratefully from the Comic Strip Library.
http://www.comicstriplibrary.org/images/comics/little-nemo/little-nemo-19060701-l.jpeg

 

Teotihuacan stick-ball player. Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Two_Teotihuacan_Stick-ball_players_Tepantitla_1.svg

This entry’s URL: 
http://piratesandrevolutionaries.blogspot.com/2016/01/eisner-ch3-comics-and-sequential-art.html

Eisner (Ch3.1) Comics and Sequential Art, ‘Timing [introductory material]’

 

by Corry Shores

[Search Blog Here. Index tabs are found at the bottom of the left column.]

[Central Entry Director]
[Literature, Drama, and Poetry, Entry Directory]
[Graphic Literature, Entry Directory]
[Will Eisner, Entry Directory]
[Eisner, Comics & Sequential Art, entry directory]

 

 

 

Will Eisner

Comics & Sequential Art

 

Ch.3
Timing

3.1
[Introductory section of the chapter]

Brief summary:
Comics need the element of temporality within the story itself, so that events can unfold, and also it is needed in the reader’s experience of the story, so that the reader’s emotional reactions can develop along with the dramatic unfolding. To produce these two sorts of temporality, comics use the visual space of the page. A panel in the next spatial location in the reading succession also takes (normally) another block of time in the story. Time in comics is that space-created temporal dimension. Timing is the manipulation of the visual imagery and of its panelization so to alter the temporal features of the story and of the reader’s emotional experience of the story.

Summary

Eisner is discussing sequential art, which includes primarily comics media. He now will deal with the element of timing. Eisner understands the experience of time as involving its mixture with space and sound.

The phenomenon of duration and its experience – commonly referred to as ‘time’ – is a dimension integral to sequential art. In the universe of human consciousness time combines with space and sound in a setting of interdependence wherein conceptions, actions, motions and movement have a meaning and are measured by our perception of their relationship to each other.
(25)

Eisner says that because we live our lives “immersed [...] in a sea of space-time,” we must at a younger age have spent much of our development coming to grips with these dimensions (25). Space is something we perceive directly through our vision. But “Time is more illusory,” because its experiential parts are not immediately given but rather only mediately so through retentions: “we measure and perceive it through the memory of experience” (25). Earlier peoples measured time through natural cycles, like those of the sun’s and moon’s rotations in the sky and the cycles of the seasons. But with the invention of the mechanical clock, time came to be measured more visually [and thus spatially]. Eisner thinks that this change is significant for two reasons: 1) the visual way we measure time affects our psychological experience of it [thus perhaps we have come to experience time in a more spatial way], and 2) “it enables us to deal with the real business of living. In modern society one might even say that it is instrumental to survival” (25)  [I am not sure I have that point exactly. The mechanical measure of time allows society to function more efficiently. I am not sure what he means by the “real business of living”.] But in comics, the visual measure of time is “an essential structural element” (25).

A visual narrative must convey time if it is to be successful. For, we need the element of time in order “to recognize and be empathetic to surprise, humor, terror and the whole range of human experience” (26). [Perhaps the idea is that all the types of human experience necessarily involves temporal variation. Surprise needs at least two moments: the one creating an expectation and the one defying it. Also, humor needs shifts in meanings and expectations, which requires time, as do many other emotions. Thus, if comics wants to incorporate these emotional elements of human experience into the story experience, they need to create the temporality required for these emotions to unfold within the reader theirself.] [His next point seems to be is that this temporality that unfolds in the comics experience is a product of the workings of the perceptual apparatus that is found in common in all of us. But I am not exactly sure what that would mean, and in fact, I am probably misreading this sentence:] “At the heart of the sequential deployment of images intending to convey time is the commonality of its perception” (26). [He then distinguishes time and timing. Time is this dimension through and by which emotions unfold and develop. Timing is the manipulation of visual elements so to modify that temporality and affect the desired emotional outcome in the reader. In his visual demonstration, displayed below, we compare time and timing in comics. The “time” figure just shows the moments of the event. One man raises his knife to stab another. The other man shoots him before the knife lands. And we then see the first man lie shot-dead on the ground. Here, we have a couple seconds of time of the story event. It is mostly just information, with little emotional impact. In the second figure, “timing,” we have those three panel parts still, but with the addition of the shot man’s agonized collapse into death. These added panels are expressive of the torment of that dying man. Without other story experience, we might just simply be shocked by the raw agony of dying, whose only relief is the non-existence that is sure to come. It is perhaps like watching an animal die and to reflect on the mortal limitations of life. However, were we to have previously come to regard this dying as man a morally reprehensible villain, then seeing his agony and death might make us feel relief as if justice were rendered. Or if we came to identify previously with that dying man and to see him as a heroic and moral character, his death would seem like a tragic and sad misfortune to us. Whatever that emotion is, because of the additional panels playing out dramatically the agony of his death, we have a much richer emotional experience of the event.]

to convey ‘timing,’ which is the manipulation of the elements of time to achieve a specific message or emotion, panels become a critical element.
(26)

Eisner then says that comics obtain their “reality” through their time and timing. [Perhaps by this he means that without the temporal element, they cannot portray events and thus they cannot exist as stories.] He then says that in other auditory art forms like music, time is created using actual durations of time. But in comics, temporality is achieved through illusions and symbols. [We learn more of this in the next sections.]

A comic becomes 'real' when time and timing is factored into the creation. In music or the other forms of auditory communication where rhythm or 'beat' is achieved, this is done with actual lengths of time. In graphics the experience is conveyed by the use of illusions and symbols and their arrangement.
(26)

 

 

Will Eisner. Comics & Sequential Art. Tamarac, Florida: Poorhouse Press, 1985.

This entry’s URL:
http://piratesandrevolutionaries.blogspot.com/2016/01/eisner-ch3-comics-and-sequential-art.html