Some Medium-Specific Qualities of Graphic Sequences

Pascal Lefvre

SubStance, Volume 40, Number 1, 2011 (Issue 124), pp. 14-33 (Article)

Published by University of Wisconsin Press

DOI: 10.1353/sub.2011.0007

For additional information about this article

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/sub/summary/v040/40.1.lefevre.html

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Some Medium-Specific Qualities

of Graphic Sequences
Pascal Lefvre

The role of the chosen medium in the creation and reception of a

work has been explored by various disciplines, including aesthetics, communication, and narratology. While some scholars defend a doctrine of
medium purity (Greenberg), even arguing that the medium is the message (McLuhan), others deny the influence of a particular medium, like
the structuralist narratologists who consider fabula or story as a mental
construct that is completely independent of the medium used. In contrast
to these rather extreme positions, and like some other scholars (Herman,
Davies, Ryan), I would argue for a position that acknowledges variable
degrees of influence of media on the process of telling a story. In other
words, though stories told in various media may use a common stock of
narrative design principles, they exploit them in different, media-specific
ways (Herman 51).
In what follows I shall focus on some narrative opportunities and
constraints in the medium of comics, as compared to those of other narrative media such as printed texts and cinema. Graphic narratives, a
term that in my usage encompasses the comic book, bande dessine [comic
strip], and Japanese manga, constitute a spatio-temporal medium that can
combine two channels, a visual and a verbal one. Further, this medium is
associated with well known narrative traditions and publication formats,
such as American superhero comics, Japanese shojo manga, graphic novels and many others.1 As a hybrid medium, the graphic narrative shares
many features with other media, but uses those features in unique ways;
think of drawing styles, the mise en scne in panels, the way verbal and
visual elements are combined (e.g., in speech or thought balloons), the
breakdown (or dcoupage) of story elements into distinct panels, and
the interaction between individual panels and page layouts. It will not
be feasible for me to analyze here all these aspects of comics as a medium
for storytelling. Hence I will limit myself to just three aspects of graphic
narration: drawing styles, the temporal dimensions of individual panels,
and the interpretation of sequences of panels.
Board of Regents, University of Wisconsin System, 2011

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Graphic Narrative Style

I will approach issues of graphic narration via the broader phenomenon of style, which involves in the case of the comics medium the
graphic style, as well as the composition (mise en scne, framing) and
sequencing of panels. Style is for the Russian Formalists (and for theorists like Bordwell [see Narration]) the readers gateway to the fabula and
the sjuzhetthat is, the chronological sequence of events recounted in a
narrative, on the one hand, and the sequentially arranged discourse cues
that allow the reader to construct a time-line for those events, on the other
hand. These termsstyle, sjuzhet, and fabulaprovide an entry point for
the study of the influence of a medium on narration, because they allow
the analyst to differentiate between three levels or aspects of the interface
between narrative and medium. Only the first levelstylecan be directly
perceived by the reader of graphic narratives; this level encompasses the
lines and colors that form images and the letters that form words and
sentences. In turn, the level of style provides access to the sjuzhet, or the
actual composition or emplotment of events in the work. Via the sjuzhet
the reader/spectator then constructs the fabula or storythe chronological
sequence of events as they are supposed to have occurred in the time-space
universe of the narrative being interpreted.
But though this theoretical framework is widely shared among narratologists, film scholar Torben Grodal (The PECMA Flow 6) questions
its applicability to cinema, thereby shedding light on the medium-specific
qualities of graphic narratives. For Grodal, watching a film does not foreground the process of reconstructing an independently existing fabula,
because The viewer primarily experiences the film as a simulation of real
life events that come into evidence as the film progresses. Thus Grodal
considers discourse elements not as ways of presenting a story or fabula,
but as modifications to the canonical story form that create different
emotional modes. To differentiate between story and plot is, for Grodal,
only useful when the narrative presents a very scrambled temporal order.
Hence Grodal stresses that film viewers use interpretive procedures that
are similaror even identicalto the ones they use to build models of
reality from their real-world perceptions (Moving Pictures 29).2 But
storyworlds can be physically or logically impossible (Alber, Iversen,
Nielsen, and Richardson speak of unnatural narratives), and there are
some striking differences between cinematic and drawn images. In contrast to the photorealistic images of live-action film that deliver a realistic
impression, drawings in comics are static and strongly stylized, so that the
spectator becomes aware of their handmade quality.3 In drawings, unlike
in real life or in photographic images, lines are almost always clearly present. Furthermore, efficient handmade pictures will leave out unnecessary

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details and capture salient characteristics of represented objects in ways

that reflect general perceptual mechanisms and processese.g., through
simplicity of shape, orderly grouping, clear overlapping, distinction between figure and ground, and strategic deformations of objects (Arnheim
149). Stylized images may be less visually analogous to reality than filmed
images, but they can very effectively capture the essence of an object or
a person. Each image delivers a specific view on reality, in the process
expressing a philosophy or visual ontology (Rawson 19).
In the course of their evolution, comics have developed some dominant graphic styles, such as the round, simplified cartoon style (Disney,
Tezuka, Peyo), the stylized clear line style (McManus, Kabashima, Herg),
or the more realistic approach that respects proportions (Foster, Raymond,
Otomo, Taniguchi, Bellamy, Kresse). All these popular styles in comics
have something in common, because to varying degrees they are all meant
to be communicative, to tell a story visually. Traditionally comics are
designed to be read quickly, which explains the preference for stereotypical
elements that are easily recognized. Thus the main characters are usually
dressed in a typical, familiar outfit, and are rendered with typified body
and facial features: think of Superman and Batman in superhero comics,
Mickey Mouse in animal comics, Tintin in classic bande dessine, and
Astro Boy in shonen manga. The ease of identification is not limited to
the main characters, for the complete design of a canonical comic must
be clear and accessible, especially those for young children. Only in a
minority of comicsfor example, in graphic novelsdo artists deviate
from these strict standards.
A graphic style creates the fictive world, giving a certain perspective on the diegesis.4 Unlike an average photographic image, a drawing is literally and figuratively signed (Groensteen, linventaire des
singularits 23; Marion 101). The artist not only depicts something, but
expresses at the same time a visual interpretation of the world, with every
drawing style implying an ontology of the representable or visualizable.
The viewer is obliged to share this figurative view of the maker (Peters
14), since he or she cannot look at the object in the picture from any other
point of view. Nevertheless, the reader is not just a passive agent: he or
she looks at images with prior knowledge, and uses that context to make
sense of visual styles. The contextual knowledge the reader can draw
on, including his or her familiarity with the range of visual styles used
in comics, is thus important when it comes to studying drawing styles.
Indeed, how a particular reader reacts to a particular style may be quite
personal, since it will be influenced by previous experiences with similar
styles (Lefvre, Recovering Sensuality). An average reader has seen
thousands of images and has learned to associate a cartoon style with

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humorous content. Thanks to the rounded, simplified, and gentle style

of Tom and Jerry cartoons, for example, the depicted violence becomes
bearable and acceptable, for the cartoon style signals that it should not be
taken literally. Research has shown that even young children make such
associations and are very consistent in linking photographs with real
things, while connecting the cartoon style to pretend things (Ramsey).
To further examine the role of drawing styles in graphic storytelling, we can compare different renderings of the same plot. It should be
easier to study the influence of one variable (such as drawing style) if
other variables (mise en scne, decoupage or parceling out of the action
in panels, page layout, etc.) remain constant. Unlike in cinema, however,
remakes of comics are unfortunately quite rare (with the exception of
short homages, as in the catalogue of the recent Angoulme Cent pour cent,
bande dessine exhibition). It seems that plot and style form a more intricate
knot in comics than in films, and certainly more than in theatre or opera.
There are nevertheless two practices that are relevant for a comparative
analysis of this sort: first, the redesign of older comics (think of Hergs
Tintin, or Tezukas New Treasure Island), and second, the various graphic
adaptations of classic novels such as Frankenstein or Moby Dick.
Comics scholars have already engaged in comparisons of different
versions of graphic sequences, as when Witek (103-107) discusses the
various visual tryouts created by Spiegelman in preparation for Maus
or when Groensteen (Le cadavre) compares Crandalls and Breccias
adaptations of Poes The Tell-Tale Heart. I shall come back to graphic
adaptations of Poes story in a moment, but first I want to focus on an
example of redesign: specifically, the tribute paid by the German artist
Andreas (see figure 1) to a 1950s classic Belgian animal comic, Macherots
Chlorophylle (see figure 2). Though both versions tell the same events in
the same amount of space (a page), the formal differences between the
two are considerable. For instance, Macherot uses thick contour lines and
flat coloring, and his characters are a simplified, stylizeddeformed versions of real animals with human-like traits. His rat has hands that are
more like a human ones than a rats claw, whereas Andreass rat is more
realistic, although the long, sharp nails are exaggerated to make it more
threatening. Further, in comparison with Macherot, Andreas renders the
animals by using more, but thinner, lines. Granted, in a verbal paraphrase
of the two texts, we would get a similar summary of both versions, since
the characters actions do indeed look quite similar. However, from the
moment a summarizer tries to give a more detailed account of these contrasting versions (an account using adjectives, not just nouns and verbs),
he or she would be compelled to describe rather different diegetic worlds.
Unquestionably, images do a lot more than represent a scene; they also

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Figure 1: This is Andreas early 1980s homage to a 1950s classic Belgian comic, Chlorophylle
contre les rats noirs, by Macherot. In contrast with the original version, the Andreas rat is
more analogous to a real rat. (Andreas, Chlorophylle contre les rats noirs. (tribute page). Tintin,
Special 35th Anniversary Issue. 29 September 1981.) Courtesy of the author, Andreas Martens.

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Figure 2: The original version of the Chlorophylle contre les rats noirs comic dates from the
1950s. With the artist using thick contour lines and flat coloring, Macherot simplifies, stylizes, and thereby deforms the look of real animals, to which he also gives human-like traits.
(Macherot, Raymond. Chlorophylle contre les rats noirs. Brussels: Lombard, 1956.) Courtesy
of the widow of the author, Macherot.

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offer an interpretation of the storyworld, as picture book researcher J. H.

Schwarcz concluded in his comparison of various visualizations of the
same fairy tale. In a picture book, the style of illustration gives the fairy
tale a specific feeling, reflecting a particular interpretation of the text.
Here I have already begun to address the issue of adaptation. I would
like to briefly consider the contrasting adaptations of Edgar Allan Poes
short story The Tell-Tale Heart by Argentine artist Alberto Breccia (1974,
see figure 3) and by American artist Rick Geary (2001, see figure 4). Both
adaptations, which were published in black and white, remain quite close
to the original Poe story, and do not add completely new plot events (as
another comic adaptation by Crandall has done). But there are many differences between Breccias and Gearys versions. Paradoxically Gearys
version has more pages (18 to Breccias 11) but fewer panels in total (59
to Breccias 108). This can be partially explained by the constraints of
publication format: Breccia worked in a typical European album format,
while Geary was published in the smaller North American comic book
format. But beyond this, each artist has a distinctive visual approach. For
example, Geary presents far more details about the setting of the story,
while Breccia de-emphasizes the setting by creating an almost abstract
contrast between whites and blacks in the background. Breccia visualizes the narrators cautiousness in opening the door of the old mans
bedroom by segmenting that act into eight panels with only minimal
variations: the point of view remains unchanged across these panels, but
a thin vertical line of white (representing the opening of the door) slowly
becomes larger as the head of the narrator-protagonist appears. Unlike
Breccia, Geary never repeats the same framing and point of view; every
move to another panel involves a change in perspective or framing, and
mostly both. Geary is clearly more in line with the classic doctrine of a
dynamic breakdown of scenesa doctrine that has informed the design
of American comic books since Jack Kirbys Captain America (Harvey 3335). According to this doctrine, the reader should be stimulated by being
offered shifting perspectives and changing ways of framing events, even
as the storytelling itself remains legible throughout.5
In Poes account, this scene is located in complete darkness: his narrator tell us about a dark lantern closed so that no light shone out, such
that when finallyafter an hourhe had placed his whole head in the
door opening, he undid the lantern only so much that a single thin ray
fell upon the vulture eye of the old man (Poe 244). To be sure, a scene in
complete darkness is not an ideal starting point for a graphic adaptation.
A visual artist needs some contrast between white and black to show
something. By using a grey screen tone Geary can both signal the darkness
of the room and keep the black contour lines of his characters and objects

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Figure 3: Breccia exploits the contrasts between white and black for narrative
purposes in his 1970s adaptation of Poes short story The Tell-Tale Heart. (Breccia,
Alberto. Le Cur rvlateur et autres histories extraordinaires dEdgar Poe. Paris: Les
Humanodes Associs, 1995.)

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Figure 4: Rick Geary undercuts Poes horror by using a somewhat cartoony touch.
(Geary, Rick. The Tell-tale Heart. Graphic Classics: Edgar Allan Poe. Mount Horeb,
WI: Eureka Productions, 2001: 21.) Courtesy of the author, Rick Geary.

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visible. In Breccias version, the strong contrast between the whites and
blacks may not refer at all to a contrast between light and darknessexcept for the white that represents the ray of light from the lantern. While
the vertical white line may suggest that a light source is located behind
the narrator-protagonist (probably in the hall), the handle on the inside
of the dark room also lights up. This is of course not a realistic use of
light; rather, Breccia exploits the contrasts between white and black for
narrative purposes: the vertical light and the slanted white handle both
indicate the slow opening of the door. If there were no white, the reader
would not see the black door opening; nor would one see the handle. In
turn, these elements are crucial for highlighting the narrators extremely
(perhaps obsessively) careful and slow opening of the door. The black and
white zones of the image thus do not necessary coincide with presence or
absence of light; instead the artist uses them as expressive and narrative
tools. Furthermore, breaking down the narrators actions into a series of
almost identical panels, Breccia uses the repeated individual images to
suggest the repetition of this action for seven nights.
Beyond this, there is a remarkable difference in the way Breccia and
Geary have drawn the characters. The narrator in Poes version does not
describe the physical attributes of the characters, beyond mentioning that
his master is an old man with a pale blue eye, which he compares to that
of a vulture. So the two artists had a considerable amount of freedom to
visualize the characters. Except for the age difference between the servant
and the old man (in both versions the master is bald), the characters look
quite different in the two versions. While both artists use broadly realist techniques, Breccia exploits expressionist elements and Geary draws
in a more humorous, cartoon style. In fact, Geary deforms not only the
characters, but also their surroundings: all lines that trace furniture or
architecture are bent, giving the objects a look of elasticity. Gearys cartoon
approach seems to take the horror of the story less seriously than do Poe
or Breccia. Furthermore, not only do the characters and the backgrounds
differ in the two adaptations, but so does the rhythm of the action, in its
breakdown into panels.
Temporal Aspects of Individual Panels
Another crucial aspect of graphic narratives is the way it handles
time, and how this influences the narration process. Panels reduce the
chronological timeline of the fabula to selected and fragmented units.
However, each panel can comprise not only a moment (a very brief period
of time), but also a longer temporal stretch. And panels can even combine
multiple distinct moments. While the shutter speed of a photo can tell us
the precise time period recorded by the camera, there is no objective way

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to determine the time period encapsulated by a handmade picture. Though

thick contour lines seem to fixate objects and characters at a particular
moment of the diegetic time, other visual devices (patterns of oscillation
or pictorial runes like speed lines) can suggest the passing of time over a
longer period than just a split second. In addition, verbal elements such
as speech balloons also imply a short period of timejust enough time
for the words in the balloon to be uttered by the characters. An individual
panel can even include a short dialogue between two characters (A and
B), where the text in balloon B is a response to what A has said in balloon
A. Since these dialogue balloons are combined with a static representation of characters A and B in a particular position, various interpretations
are possible: does the panel focus on a precise moment of time, which
corresponds to a precise moment during the speech of A or B? Is it being
used to represent the entire period of the dialogue (balloon A plus B)? Or
is the panel meant to evoke several distinct moments of time, such as a
precise moment during which A is speaking, plus a precise, later moment
during which B is speaking?
Though this temporal ambiguity and flexibility seems complex
on a theoretical level, in practice readers will seldom linger over such
questions about the temporal dimensions of individual panels. As long
as the reader has no problem in understanding the temporal order of a
series of panels, questions like the ones just raised are not likely to give
the reader pause. Only exceptionally will the temporal flexibility, or multitemporality, of an individual panel demand the readers explicit attention.
For instance in the French comic strip Le Caf de la Plage, by Rgis Franc
(see figure 5), one sequence includes panels featuring a character as both
an adult in the present and as a child in the past; moreover, the decor
shown in the panels combines elements of the present with elements
of the past. The purpose of this mixing of two time periods within the
confines of a single panel is to offer an ironic contrast between what the
adult says he remembers and how his past really was. The child is much
more negative about what happens than the adult seems to remember.
Arguably, an effect of this sort would be much more difficult to achieve in
cinema, because the viewer would have to follow different focus points at
the same moment. In a graphic narrative this multi-tracking of time does
not cause major problems, because the reader can spend all the time he
needs on one picture. He can linger on a panel, scan the complete page, or
return to panels or whole sequences at will. A film projection, by contrast,
obliges the viewer to follow its constant forward movement. Whereas in
film the shots are arranged in a linear time sequence, in comics the panels
are placed not only in a linear sequence, but also in a larger space, namely
the page. In this sense, comics are much more a spatial medium than film,

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Figure 5: In these panels various time periods are fluidly combined: the same
character is shown both as an adult in the present and as a child in past. Fragment from the album Le Caf de la Plage (1989: 94) by Rgis Franc, Casterman,
courtesy of the author and Editions Casterman.

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with the different spatial relationships between elements in and across

panels cueing readers to trace out the multiple time-lines at work in a
given narrative.
Panel Sequences
Narration in comics, then, is based on the interaction among the various panels of the workan interaction that tells stories differently than
the way novels or films narrate. From the moment various pictures are
grouped together in a series or sequence, the viewer or reader is prompted
to look for relations among them. Those relations can be of quite different kinds, including purely formal aspects, such as graphic or abstract
qualities pertaining to the form of the pictures, as well as content-related
aspects, which can range from how objects are grouped into categories to
all kinds of logical, rhetorical, and symbolic relations among the portrayed
objects and events. Of course not all groups of pictures are constructed as
narratives, but interpreters will almost automatically look for some minimal coherence or narrative, especially if the various pictures are presented
in the typical form of a comicas in this short, wordless comic from the
late nineteenth century by Swiss author Auguste Godefroy, titled Azors
Masterpiece (1891, see figure 6).
Elsewhere (Narration in Comics) I have already dealt with the
schemata, assumptions, inferences, and hypotheses that readers rely
on to impute narrative meanings to a sequence of images. Since we are
already familiar with sequences of events in daily life, we can still make
sense of fragmented or partial sequencesas long as some crucial elements are present and the spatio-temporal relations among them can be
parsed.6 Indeed, comics typically suggest a whole sequence of events
by representing only a subset of significant actions. Unlike the novel or
cinema, the art of comics exists partly in the breakdown of an action into
unmoving phases: the artist has to decide how many panels he will need
to show an event. If the artist uses many panels and a slow rhythm (with
not much variation from one panel to another), the result could be quite
boringthough the example of Breccias adaptation of Poe proves that
this technique can also be powerfully effective, if used in an appropriate
narrative context.
In any case, most actions portrayed in comics are limited to the essential phases; and true to form, in Azors Masterpiece Godefroy uses six
fragments to tell his story. The first panel introduces the most important
elements of the scene: a painting on an easel, a painter, and a dog. The
mise en scne suggests that a painter has just finished some kind of portrait. Other elements, such as the decor, are absent. In later panels, a few
sparse elements of the setting do start to appear (a table, a picture on the

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Figure 6: A typical silent comic from late 19th century. (Godefroy, Auguste Viollier. Het meesterstuk van Azor. [Azors Masterpiece]. De Vlaamsche Patriot 4.24 (13
December 1891): 284.).

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wall, a door frame), but they do not play a prominent role; instead, they
remain literally and figuratively background elements. Every panel shows
clearly essential phases of or kernel events in the story, as when the dog
takes the canvas from the easel when the painter dozes off in his chair.
Godefroy does not provide explicit reasons for the characters actions (the
reader may infer that the painter is tired after completing the portrait, but
the actions of the dog, in taking the painting from the easel and licking
it, at first seem unmotivated). However, the elements that are included
provide enough of a skeleton for the reader to flesh out.
This wordless comic is thus an example of a canonical story, featuring
unmoving events arranged in a chronological order that enables inferences
about the logical and temporal (and in some cases causal) relationships
among those events.7 Verbally one could summarize this as story about
a painter who has finished a realistic portrait, and whose dog takes the
canvas and starts licking the wet paint when the artist takes a nap. When
the artist awakes, he finds a completely changed painting on the floor.
Later, when another man comes to the workshop and pays a lot of money
for the painting, we see the irony: the dog has made the painting more
valuable by deranging the artists original design.8 A filmic or animated
adaptation might show the same events in one long unbroken shot of, say,
twenty minutes, or the adaptation might be broken down into six short
shots that show the most important phases (more or less like the comic
did) in the time span of just two minutes. While verbal summaries of
the long, unedited and the short, edited filmic version might be similar,
the viewing experience would be quite different, not least because the
viewer would have different temporal experiences. Moreover, the edited
filmic version with six short shots would offer a somewhat different experience to the spectator than to the reader of the graphic narrative. For
instance, a conventional film would treat space in a completely different
way: elements of the setting (such as the table or door frame) would not
suddenly appear or disappear as they do in the comic. And while a film
obliges the viewer to follow the rhythm of the sequences, in a comic the
reader sets the pacelingering on a panel, scanning the complete page,
or returning to particular panels as desired (Lefvre, Incompatible Visual
Ontologies? 5).
In contrast to Godefroys short silent comic, in a longer graphic
narrative the link between the panels can be quite complex. For instance,
in a work like Here, by Richard McGuire, where events are narrated in a
massively scrambled order, every fragment is nonetheless explicitly linked
to a particular year by a date. Only rarely is the temporal organization
of a comic so complicated that not even academic study can solve all the
mysteries or paradoxesas in the case of Andreass Cyrrus, explored by
Sohet, Lacroix, and Ratier. A shorter example is Dave McKeans wordless
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and untitled sequence (see figure 7) about the lunar cycle. At first glance
this sequence looks like an ordinary comic strip. Eight of the nine panels
use the same palette (black, white, grey, soft yellow), the style of drawing
is quite consistent, and the same two characters are shown in various situations. Yet interpreting the sequence is challenging, since the comic does
not offer many links among the panels other than the repetition of the
characters actions (carrying two bags), and the repetition in the first and
last panels of the same character and decor (a door). The only obvious link
binding together the sequence is the evolution of the lunar cycle (which is
also given as a pictorial title above the panels): from crescent to full moon
and back to crescent. Each individual panel seems inspired by a particular
shape of the moon. Further, though the color palette is consistent, there is
one prominent break: the red colored panel in the middle of the sequence.
This panel can be interpreted as the center not only of the page, but also
of the sequence. Thus, instead of trying to read the comic from the upper
left panel to the lower right panel, one could interpret this central panel as
the junction between the surrounding panels, and see eight short parallel
sequences instead of one linear sequence. In this central panel the reader
is also confronted with the only complete circle, which he or she can see
as another argument for the circular concept of this comic strip. But again,
one can also interpret the sequence as a dream, or a surrealist story. Due
to the formal characteristics of this graphic, various complementary or
even competing interpretations are possible. The specificity of the medium, namely that the whole sequence is at once present for the reader, is
important: again, unlike the movie spectator, the comics reader can scan
the images at his or her own speed to make sense of the whole. Indeed, a
sequence like this page by McKean invites the reader to take more time
than usual to figure out the links between the panels.
In general, the more distinct the content of adjacent panels, the more
difficult it will be for readers to make sense of a panel sequence. Some
creators and theorists, such as Molotiu, argue that comics do not need
to be confined to illustrating stories, but that a certain story component
is inherent in the mediums most basic structure of sequential narration.
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 (Molotiu, back cover). Practices
like McKeans, however, remain on the fringes of the world of graphic
narratives, which by and large seldom full utilize the medium-specific
opportunities of comics. For the French comics scholar Pierre FresnaultDeruelle, the comics medium is an art of suggestion, not of mimesis (31).
Hence he prefers the old, humorous, self-reflexive comic strips (McCay,
Herriman) to the adventure comics of a few decades later, which, in his
view, were trying to imitate cinema, and thus denying their own specificity.
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Figure 7: A complex sequence by the British artist Dave McKean.

McKean, Dave. Silkscreen without title. Leuven: Beeld Beeld, 2003.
Courtesy of the publisher, Beeld Beeld.

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The Constraints of the Medium

As David Davies has noted, in appreciating a work, we must always
attend to how an artistic statement has been articulated in a particular
artistic medium, and how the articulation exploits the qualities of the vehicle that realizes that artistic medium (190). An artist has to make many
choices within the framework of a given medium, and in this article I have
sketched out just some of the more salient choices facing the comic artist..
The comics formal options are constrained and constructed by design
principles, practices of production and consumption, and other aspects
of the social context. As I have demonstrated, the choice of a graphic style
implies a particular visual ontology, and consequently will suggest to the
reader a particular way of interpreting the storyworld. (Unfortunately, few
studies explore just how readers are affected by factors such as drawing
style; exceptions to this include Ramsey and Wang; see also Jared Gardners contribution to this special issue). Another constitutive element and
constraint of the comics medium is the use of a series of drawn panels.
As we have seen, it is possible to convey complicated temporal relationships even at the level of the individual panel. A sequence of panels offers
even more possibilities, as in the case of Rgis Francs Le Caf de la Plage
or McGuires Here. Thus graphic narratives feature complex interactions
among all these formal aspects (drawing style, mise en scne, framing,
typography, page layout) that together constitute an overall style. And
style is crucial since it is the readers only gateway, in a first phase, to the
sjuzhet/plot (actual emplotment of events), and in a subsequent phase,
to the fabula or story (hypothetical chronological sequence of events as
constructed by the reader). Paraphrasing film scholar David Bordwell,
one could say that the form of a comic consists of materialssubject matter, themesshaped and transformed by the overall composition (plot
structure) and stylistic patterning (Ozu 1).
In conclusion, I would like to simply reiterate that when it comes
to comics, we must bear in mind how the medium itself offers unique
possibilities for storytelling, even as it imposes limitations on how the
story can be told.
University of Leuven, Belgium
Notes

1. For more on issues of publication format, see Lefvre, The Importance of Being Published.
2. Cognitive psychologists Cutting and Massironi (163) likewise stress the similarity between looking at images and online perception of the world.
3. For further discussion, see Jared Gardners contribution to this special issue.
4. Arnheim (143) makes the connection between drawing in a certain style and evoking a particular
musical theme in a composition.
5. Joe Kubert, a comic book artist and director of a school for comic book artists, explains:
In fact, point of view is a device used to pull the reader into the story. If you can do

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that then the story becomes effective [....] What the artist is trying to do, consciously or
subconsciously, is create still images which will give the impression of movement and
validity. And if the reader loses track of the story, then hes looking at pretty pictures,
and thats only a small part of the cartoonists job. Drawing is the easy part. The tough
part is putting those drawings in a fascinating, exciting and, most importantly, legible
context. Storytelling is the most important aspect (31; 29).
6. However we have to keep in mind that unnatural features are a constituent, important,
and challenging feature of most narratives, and that the synthetic and the mimetic, or
the unnatural and the natural, often dovetail (Alber, Iversen, Nielsen, and Richardson
130).
7. As in this early comic, most creators of contemporary graphic narratives still arrange
their panels in a chronological, linear order. Usually if a work interrupts the main timeline with jumps to the past or to the future (as in Watchmen or Jimmy Corrigan), such
jumps are signaled by visual or verbal indications. When a reader opens a comic, he or
she expects that there is not only a dominant chronological order for the main story line,
but also an orienting chronological sequence in every flashback or flashforward.
8. Of course not all these actions are literally shown; for example, we dont see the man
paying the artist, but in the final panel several elements suggest that the painting has
been sold: in the background we see the man leaving with the canvas, while in the
foreground the easel is empty and the artist is smiling with a lot of money in his hands,
and is petting his dog. Hence we can reasonably conclude that a sale has taken place.
The painters nonverbal expressions (smiling and petting the dog) evoke his interior
emotional state as well as the inferences he has drawn (he understands that it is thanks
to his dog that he has acquired a lot of money). The point of this comic is nevertheless
not this bare series of actions, but rather what Godefroy wanted to communicatethat
the new artistic currents and tastes of the late nineteenth century deviated from former,
realistic traditions, but not necessarily in ways that merited praise or respect. Implicitly,
the author hopes that readers share his ironic view, or else the humor will not be very
effective. So, a reader of the comic not only has to understand the story, but also must
come to a conclusion about its intent.

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