iZombie: Dead to the World
While color itself can carry meanings, lack of color can be just as important. On page 73, the main character Gwen Dylan experiences a flashback. This change in time and space is indicated to the reader through a sudden shift into balck and white. This sudden departure from the color of the rest of the book sets the flashback visually apart from the rest of the narrative. Like a photograph, the muted panels suggest that the action they hold occurred in the past instead of concurrently with the rest of the story.
Roberson, Chris, Michael Allred, and Laura Allred.
VCU Libraries, James Branch Cabell Library, Special Collections and Archives
DC/Vertigo
2011
<em>Real Heroes</em><em>, No. 1, Sept. 1941</em>
The Parents' Magazine Press, Inc.
M 313 Dr. William E. Blake Collection of True Life 1940s Era Comics
VCU Libraries, James Branch Cabell Library, Special Collections and Archives
1941
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Alpha Flight
Pages 13 and 14. This page which features the hero Snowbird fighting the weather controlling beast Kolomaq in whiteout conditions is the comic version of drawing a polar bear in a snowstorm. There are no images to follow, instead the text serves to carry the action both visually and narratively. Because the reader cannot see the characters, the creators of this comic had to come up with some way for the two to be distinct from one another, and had to find a way to simulate a battle between them with words alone. To distinguish between the two characters, the creators altered the shape of the text balloons, with thought bubbles and smooth lines for the hero, and jagged balloons for the villian. For the action, the words themselves became both onomatopoeic and dynamic. With KRACK, WHUD, and whist, the creators of this story enlarged certain words to represent louder noises, slanted others to create the illusion of movement towards different parts of the page, and even broke the gutter between panels in one case to show a particularly strong blow. In this comic, the text becomes the image.
Byrne, John, Michael Higgins, and Andy Yanchus
VCU Libraries, James Branch Cabell Library, Special Collections and Archives
Marvel Comics Group
1984
Archie
Time is a hard concept to represent. With comics, the gutter between panels can represent anywhere from a second passing to several million years. Typically, we approach comics with the assumption that the time between the panels amounts to a few seconds unless there are drastic changes between one panel and the next. Such as a character that was a child in one panel is shown as an adult in the following one. The larger the amount of time that passes, the easier it is for the reader to follow because the visual differences will be greater.
But what if the comic wants to show the passage of say, an hour? This is where the pause panel comes into play. A pause panel is exactly what it sounds like, a panel in which the action pauses. Bounded by action on both sides, the pause panel is a typically devoid of movement, or text. It is a visual “rest”.
Take this Archie sequence for example. On page 9 of Archie No. 613 Jughead drinks a mad doctor’s zombie formula in order to identify its contents against the advice of Archie. Between drinking the formula and his revelation that chicken soup can counteract it, there is a pause panel where all of the characters wait to see if the formula will turn Jughead or if the risk of tasting it pays off. As readers, there is no way to tell precisely how much time passes between the panels, but because of the pause panel it is clear that the action before and the action after occurred separately instead of in a continuous chain. To put it another way, think of a pause panel as a visual period. It ends the first action and begins the second.
Defalco, Tom, Fernando Ruiz, Rich Koslowski, Jack Morelli, and Tom Chu.
VCU Libraries, James Branch Cabell Library, Special Collections and Archives
Archie Comic Publications
2010 November
Batman: Hush Unwrapped Deluxe Edition
This trade paperback collects the complete 12-issue run of the HUSH storyline. But instead of simply reproducing the polished and colored pages that appear in the original comic books, this volume features the raws for each one. A “raw” is a page for a comic that has not yet been inked or colored. Often, the penciler will jot down notes for the inker or the colorer to follow, and these notes are erased for the final version. Page 178 is a great example of the sort of notes a penciler would write. In the middle panel, there are small “X”s across Batman’s chest and a caption saying that a blood splatter should go there. And in the bottom panel just visible underneath the refined text balloon is the wavy, hand drawn original. Details like these, along with the faint dotted grid lines across the bottom of the page, the eraser marks in Gordon’s hair, and the lines that don’t quite fit within the panels would all be cleaned up later by the inker or colorer.
Loeb, Jeph, and Jim Lee
VCU Libraries, James Branch Cabell Library, Special Collections and Archives
DC Comics
2011
Doctor Strange
This book is an example of a typical comic book. Measuring 6 ? x 10 ? inches, it is saddle-stitch bound and runs for 25 pages including advertisements. The two staples placed roughly three inches from the top and bottom are clearly visible on the book’s spine, and the back cover features an ad instead of information about the comic itself. In 2002 it was bound into a trade paperback with several other single issue comics, and the new book was titled Dr. Strange, A Separate Reality.
Englehart, Steve, and Frank Brunner
VCU Libraries, James Branch Cabell Library, Special Collections and Archives
Marvel Comics Group
1974, June
Dr. Strange: A Separate Reality
This trade paperback compiles Marvel Premier #9-10, #12-14 and Doctor Strange #1-2, #4-5. Unlike the individual comics that it draws from, this volume is perfect bound, features a descriptive back cover, and contains no advertisements. The cover image is derived from Doctor Strange, Vol. 1, No. 1, and when comparing these two side by side, the changes between them are apparent. The comic cover is printed on matte paper and so lacks the shine of the novel, and because of the different quality of printing, the comic cover colors are more muted. The novel cover added depth to the colors on its cover with an increase in shading, but fails to create as dynatic of an image. While the comic’s cover extends the action to the ends of the page with the pile of books in one corner and part of a monstrous arm disappearing around one side, the graphic novel bounds the image with a boarder, blocking it off visually.
Englehart, Steve, and Frank Brunner
VCU Libraries, James Branch Cabell Library, Special Collections and Archives
Marvel Comics
2002
Elements: Fire
Story, Firelilly, Page 50. Story, Starfall, Page 87. All of the stories within this anthology only use red alongside black and white to create visual effects. Both the page from Firelilly and from Starfall are examples of monochrome, also called pantone comic coloration, though the creators of each have chosen to use the colors in different ways. Firelilly in this example uses the red as a background, highlight, and accent color all at once, while Starfall chooses only to use the red as an accent. The single color used by monochromatic works can also be used for shading and as the main line color instead of black. It’s all up to the artist.
Stotts, Taneka, Myisha Haynes, and Ash G.
VCU Libraries, James Branch Cabell Library, Special Collections and Archives
Beyond Press
2017
Famous Funnies: a Carnival of Comics
This volume is often lauded as the progenitor of the American comic book. A very important historical artifact in its own right, it contains both newspaper strips and new content bound together in the form of a book. In the context of this discussion, Famous Funnies is a particularly good example of the changes that occur between printing on one form of paper versus another. The first page of the story is printed on the back of the cover, and the second page is printed on the first interior page. The interior pages are newsprint, while the exterior cover is a thicker paper with a gloss finish, which lead to the strong visual differences between the two first pages. The first page that was printed onto the thicker gloss paper of the cover has bolder colors, as the whiter surface makes the variances in the ink easily visible. Additionally, the surface of the cover paper is less porous, so the ink has not absorbed as far into the page. This is not the case for the second page that was printed on a newsprint sheet. The ink colors here have a noticeably duller appearance, as the newsprint absorbed more of the pigment, and the darker tone of the paper dulled the image further since the lighter colors rely on the color of the paper for their appearance.
Alexander, F.O., J. P. McEvoy, J. H. Striebel, Gene Byrnes, Ham Fisher, Al Capp, Al Smith, Clare Victor Dwiggins, Pop Mormand, A. E. Hayward, John Hix, Harry J. Tuthill, Sol Hess, Wallace A. Carlson, Charles M. Payne and Frank Godwin.
VCU Libraries, James Branch Cabell Library, Special Collections and Archives
Eastern Color Printing
1933
Jack Tales, Page 5
While the paper choices talked about above are highly important to the final quality and appearance of the finished comic, this is not how the pages often begin. The printed version on the paper that we as readers handle is compiled from artists’ drawings, and digital sketches. In the case of the former, heavy stocks like Bristol board, watercolor paper and charcoal sheets can be used for the base of the original drawings. In this example by Charles Vess, each individual panel has been cut out from drawing paper and glued onto a thicker board. This 15 x 20 inches finished work is far too large to fit nicely into the typical comic book, so when it was printed the piece would have been scaled down.
Vess, Charles
VCU Libraries, James Branch Cabell Library, Special Collections and Archives, Charles Vess Papers M374.
1980
Kabuki
This comic is actually representative of so many different categories, it was hard choosing just one to put it into. With the nonlinear imagery, collage arrangement of panels, and watercolor color application, it could easily be the subject of a more thorough study. But the way the text breaks traditional rules is perhaps the most fascinating aspect. Instead of being confined to bubbles, captions, and balloons, the text in this comic follows the same nonlinear format as the images. To clarify, nonlinear here is used to mean, “is not easily followed in a straight line”. Instead of clearly marching from one panel to another, the words like the images flow across the page, escaping their boundaries here and there.
Page 16 is a great example. Text on this page is bound in places by caption boxes shaped like cut strips of paper, and features an inked speech balloon. But the text does not stop there, instead the creator writes in the margins. Little onomatopoeic words over a wing, a block of handwritten text with an arrow pointing towards one of the panels, animal anatomy diagrams with parts labeled, the words on a wooden ruler. All of these words are story relevant, but unlike the more traditionally bound text, they are much harder to place within a certain order within the narrative.
Making text harder to follow disrupts a reader’s flow across the story, and forces them to slow down. It is a strategy that can make a reader linger over a certain part of the page as they try to piece things together. Used to frequently, the reader may become frustrated and give up, but used with care, it can be a valuable tool for highlighting important moments within a narrative.
Mack, David
VCU Libraries, James Branch Cabell Library, Special Collections and Archives
Marvel/Icon
2004 September
Low
In this exhibition’s section about layouts, it was mentioned that color can be a powerful tool for creating emphasis. The cover of this comic paints all of the image except for the central figure in a wash of red. This contrasts strongly with the blue and white of the figure, which results in drawing the viewer’s eye to that figure. Like the light of the sun, the brighter an object is in a work, the more our attention will be drawn there. This is why in a lot of four-color printing, heroes are in white, red and yellow.
With the technology that comic artist now have, it is possible to print more varied art styles and colors than ever before. Low uses the same sort of color palette on its cover that a four-color printed comic might have, but the way the color is applied is different. Fitting for a comic about underwater denizens, the cover artist used watercolor paints for the image, which was then digitally printed for the final book.
Remender, Rick, Greg Tocchini, and Dave McCaig
VCU Libraries, James Branch Cabell Library, Special Collections and Archives
Image Comics
2016 February
Madame Xanadu, No. 6
Pages 18 and 19. This two page spread uses jagged, stained glass inspired panels in a spiral pattern to draw the reader’s attention towards the woman curled in the lower section of the left page who is the focal point of the image. Visually this is accomplished in two ways, first by tapering the edges of the panels towards the woman, and then by decreasing the size of each panel the closer to the focal point they are placed. Because the focal point rests off center, the creators of this comic placed the text captions in a descending curve from the top left to the bottom right. This half-circle arrangement allows the reader’s eye to flow the length of the image while staying anchored from beginning to end at the focal.
Wagner, Matt, Amy Reeder Hadley, and Richard Friend
VCU Libraries, James Branch Cabell Library, Special Collections and Archives
DC/Vertigo
2009
Paper Girls
With the four main characters sketched in black against a yellow field, bold pink lettering, and a single smoke trail of white, The cover of Paper Girls was made to be eye-catching. Yellow is the most reflective of all the colors, meaning that it is one of the first to be noticed by passerby. By choosing yellow as the background of this first issue, the comic creators co-opted this property to their advantage. Since yellow is the most noticeable of the colors, a yellow comic on a shelf will draw the attention of potential readers better.
Yellow and red when used together can be referred to as analogous colors. Analogous colors have adjacent placements on the color wheel, and as a result have similar effects. This means that the pink lettering also works to the comic’s notoriety since red is one of the “warm” colors, and attracts the eye in a similar manner to yellow. But the pink lettering also has a secondary task. Pink in the United States is often associated with femininity, and so the pink of the letters reinforces the “Girls” in the title.
The cover of the comic may appear simplistic, but it is a highly effective promotion for the content within. Yellow coloration draws attention, the sketch of the main characters shows the reader who the comic will be about, while the pink of the lettering supports the job of the yellow backdrop while reinforcing the rendering of the title. Paper Girls communicates all of these messages to a viewer in a single glance.
Vaughan, Brian K., Cliff Chiang, Jared K. Fletcher and Matt Wilson
VCU Libraries, James Branch Cabell Library, Special Collections and Archives
Image Comics
2015 October
Rose and Thorn
The world we live in creates a certain set of expectations. We expect the sun to be bright, and things blocked from its light to be dark. We look outside and we expect the sky to be blue, or the grass to be green. Subverting these expectations can be a powerful tool for any artist. If someone wants to show that their story takes place on an alien planet for example, or a parallel dimension, then one of the easiest ways to do this is to take something like the sky and change it to a different color. We know that the sky on earth is blue, so when an artist colors it red, it is easy to accept that the setting for this red sky is somewhere other than earth. A subversion doesn’t have to be as dramatic changing the sky though. Simply changing one thing in an image can make the viewer question their assumptions about that image. A fair number of comics and TV shows have done this when they change a character’s eye color. For example in Rose and Thorn, the change from blue to green eyes signals the change of the main character’s duel personality from Rose to that of Thorn. It’s a small thing, but the difference alerts the viewer that something important has happened, and as a result captures their attention.
Simone, Gail, Adriana Melo, and Dan Green
VCU Libraries, James Branch Cabell Library, Special Collections and Archives
DC Comics
2004
Scotland Yard Detective, Page 1-A
This piece is an excellent example of dynamic composition. In this scene a group of people with clubs and torches startle the horses drawing a coach, and the coach begins to overturn. Each part of the image, from the buildings to the characters, works to draw visual attention to the center of the piece where the main action occurs.
In the bottom of the work, three figures with their backs turned to the viewer appear to rush forward towards the coach. Visually the three are stacked into a pyramid shape, as one man is placed a bit above and before the others. This pyramid shape leads the viewer’s attention to the coach that the three are facing with its “point”, i.e. the head of the man in front. These figures occupy the lower half of the work, buildings and a smoke cloud occupy the upper. From the top right corner, diagonal hatching (shading accomplished through the use of straight lines) descends towards the coach. This downward motion is echoed by the peaked rooftops of the buildings and the vertical lines of their windows, all of which end at the coach.
The coach is the center of the work, and also functions as the center of the action. The tossing head of the horse on the left and the way its body is positioned draws the viewer’s eye up from the head of the lead figure in the bottom of the piece. From there the viewer’s eye travels along the horse’s body to the tip of its nose, which is parallel to the coach driver. The coach driver in his bid to stay seated has thrown out one foot towards the horse, and planted one down on the bench by the lead figure’s shoulder. These lines of sight together create a circular composition that joins the lead figure, the left horse, and the driver. Each one motions in some way to the other two, which effectively traps the viewer’s gaze in that spot.
The goal of any effective composition is to direct the viewer’s attention to the places that are most important in an image, and to keep that attention focused there. The way that this piece was arranged compositionally is not the only way it can be done, and the choice of method is up to the artist. But no matter how one decides to layout a page, it is important to always keep in mind how the parts of that page function together in order to communicate the narrative.
Vess, Charles
VCU Libraries, James Branch Cabell Library, Special Collections and Archives, Charles Vess Papers M374.
Concept art for the book Time Machine #17: Scotland Yard Detective, that was published by Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group.
1987
Scotland Yard Detective, Page 37
There are roughly eight different types of shading that are often used by artists, hatching, cross-hatching, contour-hatching, contour cross-hatching, diverse hatching, stippling, scribbling, and ink wash. This work is an amazing example of the variety of these line applications that can be found in a single piece.
The first and most obvious of this is the diverse hatching that is found all over the surface of the central building. Diverse hatching is where short lines are drawn one over another in irregular patterns. This differs from regular hatching, found in the straight beams over the door and in the rooftops, which is simply a series of straight parallel lines. Normal cross-hatching appears over the lamp post in the middle left, where the tiny regular grid-like squares grow so close together it is hard to distinguish individual marks. Contour hatching, best seen in the cut ends of the building’s beams, is characterized by curving lines that follow the contour of the object they represent. On the jacket of the man walking into the building, the little dots that shade the garment are examples of stippling. Finally, the stones in the foreground, the sky above and the edge of the building on the right hand side are all ink washed to appear as a completely solid contrast to the activity of the rest of the page. The only types of shading not used in this work are contour cross-hatching and scribbling. Contour cross-hatching is when the grid-like arrangement of lines flows along the contour of a drawn form, while scribbling is a random unbroken line that loops over and around itself.
Which shading techniques an artist choses is often due to personal preference. An entire piece could be shaded in ink wash for example, or you could have a work like this Charles Vess where nearly all are used.
Vess, Charles
VCU Libraries, James Branch Cabell Library, Special Collections and Archives, Charles Vess Papers M374.
Concept art for the book Time Machine #17: Scotland Yard Detective, that was published by Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group.
1987
The Complete Calvin and Hobbes: Book One
Third cartoon strip, page 80. Time is a hard concept to represent. With comics, the gutter between panels can represent anywhere from a second passing to several million years. Typically, we approach comics with the assumption that the time between the panels amounts to a few seconds unless there are drastic changes between one panel and the next. Such as a character that was a child in one panel is shown as an adult in the following one. The larger the amount of time that passes, the easier it is for the reader to follow because the visual differences will be greater.
Time is a hard concept to represent. With comics, the gutter between panels can represent anywhere from a second passing to several million years. Typically, we approach comics with the assumption that the time between the panels amounts to a few seconds unless there are drastic changes between one panel and the next. Such as a character that was a child in one panel is shown as an adult in the following one. The larger the amount of time that passes, the easier it is for the reader to follow because the visual differences will be greater.
But what if the comic wants to show the passage of say, an hour? This is where the pause panel comes into play. A pause panel is exactly what it sounds like, a panel in which the action pauses. Bounded by action on both sides, the pause panel is a typically devoid of movement, or text. It is a visual “rest”.
Take this Calvin and Hobbes sequence for example. Inside the tent, Calvin and Hobbes tuck themselves into their sleeping bags and say goodnight to one another. The next panel is an exterior view of the tent they are sleeping in. We as readers assume that they are sleeping because of the lack of text, and because of our familiarity with the “real” pause that occurs when we go to bed ourselves.
This short comic also features a long transition of time, between the panel where someone asks “Do you believe in ghosts?”, and the one where Calvin and Hobbes are sitting outside their tent shaking with fear. The transition of time is signaled to the reader through the dark sky in one panel, and the sun rising in the other. There is no need here for a pause, because the reader can easily assume that there was a passage of time from the change of night to day.
Watterson, Bill
VCU Libraries, James Branch Cabell Library, Special Collections and Archives
Lionheart Books Ltd.
2005
The Sandman: Overture, The Deluxe Edition
Pages 39 and 40 of this book stand as a great example for the sheer variety of ways text balloons can be manipulated as characterization devices. Gaiman’s Eternals are identifiable through their balloons alone. Each “speaks” in a different font, which is then backed by a related color within the balloons. For example, the main character of the story, the Sandman (also called Dream or Morphous), has white text on a black background. His power is over dreams, so his color scheme is tied to night imagery. This differentiation allows readers to easily relate text to characters despite the chaotic layouts that appear within the book.
Gaiman, Neil, J.H. Williams III and Dave Stewart
VCU Libraries, James Branch Cabell Library, Special Collections and Archives
DC Comics
2015
The Tea Dragon Society
This book is a print adaptation of a webcomic by the same name that was first published on September 1, 2016. While it exists in both formats, the reading experience is quite different. The print version exists as a physical object, and thus has weight, and tactility in addition to its visual aspects. A reader has to physically turn each page to read the next, which is a different feeling than clicking with a mouse. Additionally the print version features extra drawings on the back of the chapter title pages that are not found in the web version.
The web version has its own set of advantages too. In the web version it is possible to zoom in on the pages by increasing the magnification of the browser window so that text and images can become easier to read. The webcomic can also function as a shared experience. Below each page of the webcomic there are comment sections where other readers can post their feelings and thoughts about the story. Both the zooming ability and the comments are lost in the transition from digital to print.
This of course does not mean that one version is necessarily superior over the other. It is just important to keep in mind that even with the same content, different forms of media are experienced in different ways by readers.
O’Neill, Katie
VCU Libraries, James Branch Cabell Library, Special Collections and Archives
Oni Press
2017