speech balloon graphic novel definition

Graphic Novels & Comics

What is a graphic novel.

• Finding Graphic Novels
• Finding Research on Graphic Novels
• Comics Research Libraries and Online Resources

Titles on Comic Book History

Librarian for English Language and Literature, Linguistics, Psychology, and Arabic/Persian Studies

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a graphic novel is “a full-length (esp. science fiction or fantasy) story published as a book in comic-strip format.” Many resources, the above citation included, originate the term with the publication of Will Eisner’s A Contract with God: And Other Tenement Stories . . . a graphic novel (1978). When seeking a publisher for the work, Eisner called it a graphic novel, though in fact it was a collection of stories, not a novel. Though at the time Eisner believed he created the term, he later discovered he was not the first to use it. However, not until Eisner, with this new creation that on the outside did not look like comic book, did the term get much traction.

Since the term’s introduction, it has been subject to much debate. In Scott McCloud’s graphic novel exploration of the medium, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art , he states that comics are "juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence." Is a graphic novel more than just a mere comic? Is it merely a "big comic book that needed a bookmark," as Art Spiegelman, the writer of the only Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus , once said? Were the two essential elements that defined it "speech balloons and narrative breakdown," as comic scholar Robert C. Harvey declares?

Stephen Weiner, author of Faster Than a Speeding Bullet: The Rise of the Graphic Novel , has an umbrella definition for all the formats graphic novels have taken over the years: "book-length comic books that are meant to be read as one story, including collections of stories in genres such as mystery, superhero or supernatural that are meant to be read apart from their corresponding ongoing comic book storyline."

While this term seems to cover it all, the graphic novel as it is known today is better served by the exploration in Michael Schumacher’s Will Eisner biography:

book-length works of sequential art expanded in scope [beyond science fiction and fantasy] to include biography, memoir, history, and other types of non-fiction.

However, even Eisner considered the term very limited, preferring "graphic literature" or "graphic story". As it is a continually evolving medium, especially in the digital age, the term is still subject to much criticism and debate.

Graphic novel. (n.d.) In Oxford English Dictionary online. Retrieved from www.oed.com .

McCloud, S. (1993). Understanding comics: The invisible art. New York, NY: Harper Collins.

Schumacher, M.(2010). Will eisner: A dreamer’s life in comics. New York, NY: Bloomsbury USA.

Featured Titles

• Next: Finding Graphic Novels >>
• Last Updated: Mar 28, 2024 3:04 PM
• URL: https://lib.guides.umd.edu/comics

•   Search
• Descriptive Cataloging
• Subject Cataloging
• Frequently Asked Questions

Related Resources

• CYAC Cataloging Manual
• Children's Literature Center
• Center for the Book
• Cataloging in Publication (CIP) Program
• Dewey Program

Cataloging Graphic Novels Descriptive Cataloging | Children’s and Young Adults’ Cataloging Program (CYAC)

What is a graphic novel.

Graphic novels, despite the name, can be for any age level and include some picture books as well as true novels.  They are narratives in which the text and illustrations are equally important to the conveyance of the story.  Many graphic novels resemble comic books in style, but they are generally hard-bound or in soft bindings that are sturdier than comic book covers.  Speech balloons usually show when a character is speaking, and that is one clue that a book for early readers is a graphic novel rather than a simple picture book.

Another way in which the name is misleading is that the stories in graphic novels can be fiction, nonfiction, or a combination of the two.  The CYAC Program at LC catalogs only fictional graphic novels, intended for young people from preschool through age fifteen or ninth grade.

Does the Library of Congress collect graphic novels?

Yes, LC has collected and cataloged graphic novels since their first appearance on the literary scene.  Until recently, all fictional graphic novels were classified in the Library of Congress Classification schedules in the span PN6700-6790 with comic books, strips, etc.  When the CYAC Program began to catalog them, a new classification number, PZ7.7, was established for children’s graphic novels.

What subject headings are used for juvenile graphic novels?

Each graphic novel cataloged by the CYAC Program will have, as its first subject heading, Graphic novels.  Following that, there may be topical headings.  The final heading will be the genre/form heading, Graphic novels.  So the subject heading array for a graphic novel in which a cat and mouse share an adventure might be:

Are there other differences in cataloging graphic novels?

Illustrators and artists are very important for all juvenile materials, but especially for graphic novels, as detailed in the Illustrator Additional Access Points document .  CYAC catalogers always include in the title field the complete statement of responsibility which lists all authors, illustrators, inkers, letterers, and colorists that appear on the title page (considering each of the above-listed tasks as separate functions).

Similarly, we make additional access points for authors and illustrators, including cover artists, but rarely more than three for any one category—up to three authors, three illustrators, etc. Some contributors listed in the title field, such as inkers and letterers, may not receive an access point but are still retrievable through key word searching.

Last Updated: 6/19/2014

Stay Connected with the Library All ways to connect »

Subscribe & comment.

• RSS & E-Mail

Download & Play

• iTunes U  

Comics Forum

• News Review Correspondents
• Previous Team Members
• Comics Forum 2009
• Comics Forum 2010
• Comics Forum 2011
• Comics Forum 2012
• Comics Forum 2013
• Comics Forum 2014
• Comics Forum 2015
• Comics Forum 2016
• Comics Forum 2017
• Comics Forum 2018
• Comics Forum 2019
• Comics Forum 2020
• Comics Forum 2023
• Comics and Philosophy: From Maus to She-Hulk
• Death and the Superhero: Strikeforce: Morituri
• Comics and Cultural Work
• Comics Forum Online: Annual Review and Conference Call for Papers
• Comics Forum Reviews
• Graphic Medicine
• Image [&] Narrative
• Manga Studies
• Rummaging Around in Alan Moore’s Shorts
• Sculpture and Comic Art
• The Bi-Monthly/Trimonthly/Intermittent ComFor Update
• The International Bande Dessinée Society
• Comics & Conflicts (2011): Podcasts
• Comics & Medicine: The Sequential Art of Illness (2011)
• CRAS (Colloque de recherche en arts séquentiels)
• Dundee Comics Day
• First International Conference on Comics and Graphic Novels: Sites of Visual and Textual Innovation (2011)
• Frames: Jewish Culture and the Comic Book
• Gesellschaft für Comicforschung (ComFor) Conferences
• Graphic Details Symposium: Talking About Jewish Women and Comics (2012)
• Nordic Network for Comics Research (NNCORE) Conferences
• The International Comics Conference
• Transitions: New Directions in Comics Studies
• Women in Comics (2009)
• Digital Texts
• Andrew Edwards
• Anna Madill
• Annick Pellegrin
• Beth Davies-Stofka
• Brenna Clarke Gray
• Charlotte Pylyser
• Chris Murray
• Christopher O’Neill
• David Beard
• David N. Wright
• Deborah Shamoon
• Elisabeth El Refaie
• Emily Laycock
• Ernesto Priego
• Guillaume de Syon
• Harriet Earle
• Joe Sutliff Sanders
• Joseph Michael Sommers
• Julia Round
• Kent Worcester
• Laurence Grove
• Laurike in ‘t Veld
• Leorita Groenewald
• Lise Tannahill
• Maggie Gray
• Martha Kuhlman
• Matthew J. Smith
• Meral Birinci
• Michael Harrison
• MK Czerwiec
• Pablo Turnes
• Paul Williams
• Peter Wilkins
• Rik Spanjers
• Roger Sabin
• Shari Sabeti
• Simon Grennan
• Tahneer Oksman
• Thomas Giddens
• William Grady

List of Terms for Comics Studies by Andrei Molotiu

I put together the following list of terms, for the use of my students at Indiana University, Bloomington and at the University of Louisville, over the more than a decade that I have been teaching courses on comics. An earlier, shorter version of it was published in 2006 on the website of the National Association of Comic Art Educators (nacae.org; no longer extant) as part of the syllabus for my course at IU, Art History H 150, “The History of Comic-Book Art.” The list is not intended to be exhaustive: I compiled it primarily to be used in connection to my courses, and its emphases (and possible exclusions) reflect my own pedagogical interests. There is a simple explanation for the bold lettering on some of the terms: it indicated to my students the notions for which they were responsible on their exams.

The list was put together mostly from notions in common use in the comics industry, terms in Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics (which I used as a textbook), terms adapted from film and literary studies, and new terms I have introduced myself for notions that seemed particularly important in my teaching. In a couple of further instances, the sources of terms are credited in the body of the entry. To the best of my knowledge, the formulations of all definitions, as written, are my own. For this publication, I have also incorporated into some of the definitions more detailed discussions based on my lecture notes.

I teach in an art history department, and have also used in discussing the art of comics many art-historical terms such as “chiaroscuro,” “baroque,” “idealization,” etc. As these are not specific to comics, I have not included them in the list.

Not in the list but probably worth noting is a more general term I find myself using, especially, in exam questions: “visual-narrative device.” I tend to employ it to encompass most of the concepts below, referring to the artistic choices made by comics creators in transforming a bare-bones plot into a finished comic-strip or comic-book. (So an exam question might ask: “Analyze formally the storytelling in this comic strip. What are the most important visual-narrative devices used by the artist?” And the students might be expected to identify and discuss the usage of held-framing sequences, word/image irony, sequential dynamism, or what have you.

I. BASIC TERMS

Writer , penciller , inker , colorist , letterer , editor

Panel , border , gutter , caption , speech balloon , thought balloon , balloon tail , tier of panels, sound effects

II. GRAPHIC STYLE, RENDERING, AND VISUAL SYMBOLISM

Cartooning . The simplification of shapes, for purposes of communication, humor, etc., in comic-strip and comic-book visual language. According to McCloud, cartooning tends toward generalization and helps identification. Can be contrasted with more naturalist rendering styles, the most extreme of which are often dubbed photorealist (not to be confused with Photorealism in the visual arts). Note: the level of simplification need not be homogenous within a cartoon. This can be seen in McCloud’s notion of the masking effect (cartoony characters in more naturalist settings), but the degree of cartooning can also vary from character to character, and between different renderings of the same character, which might be placed at different points in McCloud’s triangle . More simplified, “cartoony” styles also allow for the easier inclusion of (non-diegetic) symbols, such as emanata, within the image. Doing so is more difficult when working in a photorealist style.

Caricature . In the graphic arts, the exaggeration of specific traits in the depiction of an individual, a social or ethnic type, etc., in order to facilitate recognition and to convey character or the artist’s (often ideologically-influenced) perception of the depicted figure.

Inflected (brush or pen) line . Line that changes in thickness depending on how much pressure was applied to the drawing tool.

Ligne Claire . Rendering style associated with the Belgian school of comics, and more specifically with the work of Hergé and his followers, defined by the use of homogenous (uninflected) line weights for the outlines of all figures and objects depicted; other characteristics usually include the clarity and easy readability of the panel compositions, and a relatively homogenous degree of cartooning in the figures.

Feathering . A means of suggesting grey areas within a black-and-white drawing with the help of parallel inflected strokes, forming a comb-like or saw-tooth effect.

Types of visual signs (from Charles Sanders Peirce):

Icon . Visual sign that functions by resemblance. The rendering of most figures and objects visible within the diegesis is iconic. Icons can be said to have a “natural” connection to the things they stand for, and therefore are “motivated signs.”

Symbol . Visual sign that functions by convention. Letters are symbols for the signs they stand for, just as most words (other than, say, onomatopoeia) are symbols for the objects and concepts they represent. The connection between symbolic signs and the things they denote is purely conventional, therefore arbitrary (not “motivated”). In comics, most elements rendered within the space of the panel that would not be visible in a snapshot of the diegesis tend to be symbolic: for example text and emanata.

Index . Visual sign that functions by physical connection or contiguity. Plural: indices . Examples of indices are fingerprints or shoeprints (traces), or arrows pointing in a direction or toward a destination (indicators). In comics, indices include: brushstrokes (i.e., traces of the artist’s hand); arrows that guide the direction of reading; and even, arguably, word balloon tails indicating which character is speaking.

Icons, symbols and indices roughly correspond, respectively, to Scott McCloud’s triangular schema of Reality, Meaning, and the Picture Plane (See Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics , ch. 2.)

Emanata . Various graphic signs used in comics to convey information that goes beyond what could be perceived visually in the diegesis: e.g. sweat beads (for fear or anxiety), light bulb (for idea), etc. So named because they usually “emanate” from the head or body of a character. Emanata can suggest psychological or emotional states, sounds, smells, physical impact, etc. Emanata function primarily as symbolic signs added to the iconic signs that denote the visual diegesis. (Term first introduced, in a much more restricted sense, by cartoonist Mort Walker in his Lexicon of Comicana , 1980; the term has gained its wider meaning as it has been used in the comics industry and in academic comics studies.)

Motion lines . Graphic signs that can indicate an object’s or figure’s momentum of movement ( momentum lines ), or the path described ( trajectory lines ). Movement can also be indicated by motion blur.

III. FRAMING AND WORD-IMAGE INTERACTION

Diegesis . The represented (whether fictional or real) world of the story, in narrative comics; adj. diegetic .

Extradiegetic . Adjective applied to elements of the comic that do not belong to the diegesis; for example, the narrator addressing the reader directly, the space of the gutters, etc.

Composition . The distribution of pictorial shapes across the surface of an image; as used here, primarily across the surface of a panel or a page. One can also speak of three-dimensional composition, the distribution of masses within a represented three-dimensional space.

Framing . The set of choices made by the artist in isolating a part of the diegesis to illustrate in one panel. Such choices include, but are not restricted to:

Distance of framing . The implied distance of the represented figures, objects or events from the viewer. Terms for specifying distance of framing include: long shot , medium shot , close-up , extreme close-up , extreme long shot , etc.

Angle of framing . The implied height of the viewing position in relationship to the represented scene. Terms for specifying angle of framing include: straight-on angle (eye-level framing) , high angle (bird’s eye view) , low angle (worm’s eye view) .

Canted framing . Framing in which the horizon (whether visible or not) of the represented diegesis is at an angle to the horizontal of the page. Note: geometric perspective in non-canted framing often results in the tilting of the represented verticals away from the vertical of the page. Such instances do not necessarily constitute canted framing.

Depth of field . The span of distances of framing covered by figures or objects within one panel. Terms for specifying depth of field include: shallow focus (everything shown is at approximately the same distance from the implied viewer); deep focus (elements of the diegesis at varied distances from the implied viewer can all be seen clearly; for this reason, some panels with deep-focus framing may not be easily defined in terms of distance of framing).

Point-of-view framing . Framing that reproduces or approximates what one character sees.

Montage Panel . Panel that combines several iconographic elements that otherwise do not belong together in the same spatial relationship; can represent psychological state or conceptual (extradiegetic) space.

Figures of Substitution . Sometimes, characters in a panel are not represented in full, or their presence is indicated only by objects associated with them. Substitution can usually be judged by comparing the stated (in the caption or balloon text) or implied narrative import of the panel with its visual content. Categories of substitution include: Metonymy (substitution by association; for example, “batarangs” standing in for Batman); Synecdoche (part for whole; for example, only the hand or foot of a character is shown); and Metaphor (by simile; for example, in Lone Wolf and Cub an actual wolf and cub may stand in for the human characters).

Types of word-image juxtaposition (adapted and simplified from McCloud) include: word-dominant (the narrative content of the panel is fully contained in the caption and balloon text; the visuals represent only a part of it); image-dominant (the narrative content of the panel is fully contained in the visuals; the text represents only a part of it); redundant (the text and the visuals contain the same narrative content, which is presented, as it were, twice over); inter-dependent (the text and the visuals contain different pieces of narrative information which add up to the representation of a unified event); disjunctive (the text and the visuals contain different pieces of narrative information referring to two or more parallel events; related to the notion of “polyphony”); and ironic (see below).

Word/image irony . Visual-narrative device whereby the text and the visuals in a panel or sequence of panels contain clearly contradictory information about the same event.

IV. BETWEEN PANELS

McCloud’s different types of panel-to-panel transition:

Moment-to-moment . This category, as named by McCloud, is problematic, inasmuch as it is hard to distinguish, based on name alone, between it and action-to-action transitions in cases where the actions happen to be very close together in time. Based on the examples McCloud gives, it is better to think of this as transition on continuing action . To put it otherwise: panel 1, subject x performs action A; panel 2, subject x continues to perform action A (albeit in panel 2, subject x is usually shown at a later point in the performance of the action, at least if there is to be a difference between panel 1 and panel 2). For example: panel 1: character opens door; door is ajar; panel 2: character keeps opening door; door is more widely open now. Such transitions on continuing action often are associated with held-framing sequences .

Action-to-action . Panel 1: character x performs action A; panel 2: character x performs action B.

Subject-to-subject . Panel 1: character x performs action A; panel 2: character y performs action B. (Note: action B here may be identical to action A.)

Scene-to-scene . Transitions indicating significant changes of location or gaps in time.

Aspect-to-aspect . Transitions between panels that show various views of the same scene, when no actions performed by characters are clearly depicted.

Note: the above categories apply only to narrative, representational comics; using terms such as “moment,” “aspect,” or “scene” automatically implies diegetic time and space. “Action” and “subject” imply characters acting within that space. Many transitions in non-diegetic comics (not just experimental comics, but even educational, expository comics such as McCloud’s Understanding Comics itself) are not covered by these five categories.

The five categories are also insufficient for the accurate description of many transitions in narrative comics. For example, in sequences that feature more than one character, some characters may continue to perform the same action from panel 1 to panel 2, while others perform different actions. Similarly, a transition from a panel featuring two characters to a panel featuring only one of the characters often falls somewhere between “action-to-action” and “subject-to-subject.”

Many sequences in comics show characters delivering monologues that continue across several panels. In such cases, would the transitions qualify as “moment-to-moment” (because the character continues to talk), or as “action-to-action” (because the character, presumably, says something different in panel 2 than in panel 1)? A new category of transition within speech is probably necessary.

Staying within narrative comics, we also encounter transitions from panels representing diegetic space to montage panels (q.v.) representing psychological or conceptual space, as well as transitions in the opposite direction. Such transitions are not covered by the above five categories. Again, a new category, of transition to/from a montage panel , seems necessary.

Non-sequitur . This sixth category proposed by McCloud is defined by him only negatively, and may even seem paradoxical as a category of panel transitions in sequential art, given that “non sequitur” translates from the Latin as “does not follow.” At times it seems to be nothing but a catch-all for any transitions that do not fit the previous five categories. As such, I would counsel against its use as a label. Transitions that, based on McCloud’s examples, might fit this category can be found in experimental and abstract comics. In all those cases, however, it is better to analyze closely the panels and their larger artistic context to understand how the transition actually does function.

Sequence . A series of consecutive panels united by a common narrative thread.

Shot/Reverse-Shot Sequence . In a two-character scene, the alternation of panels focusing first on one character, then on the other.

Crosscutting . The alternation within one sequence of scenes taking place in different locales. These scenes are usually, though not always, simultaneous. “Installments” of each scene may be as short as one panel.

Held-Framing Sequence . A sequence of panels characterized by the same or closely similar framings of the background, in which only the characters change from panel to panel.

Pan Sequence (a.k.a. Panoramic Breakdown) . A sequence of panels that divides an otherwise unified diegetic space, which continues from panel to panel and can be seen “behind” the gutters, as it were; usually occupies one tier of panels.

Following Pan Sequence . Pan sequence in which the same character recurs in every panel, as if traversing the represented diegetic space.

Tilt Sequence , Following Tilt Sequence . Like “pan sequence” and “following pan sequence,” but vertical rather than horizontal.

Montage Sequence . Sequence of panels meant to be read quickly, almost simultaneously, to suggest a unified action or a unified idea or concept. Not to be confused with “montage panel.”

Polyphony . As applied to comics, the inherent ability of the medium to juxtapose two or more simultaneous narrative threads (be they visual, verbal, or both) in one panel or from panel to panel; the artistic exploitation of this potential.

V. LARGER STRUCTURES

Breakdown . The division of the plotline into separate incidents, “moments,” or narrative beats, each of which is to be illustrated in one panel.

Compressed storytelling . Occurs when the plotline is broken down into fewer narrative beats/panels; consequently each panel contains a larger fraction of the narrative.

Decompressed storytelling . Reverse of the above. The plot is broken down into more narrative beats/panels; often shows a higher incidence of moment-to-moment and aspect-to-aspect transitions.

Layout . The formal arrangement of panels within the space of the page. Varieties include Simple Story Layout (grid-shaped, panels arranged in tiers); Complex Story Layout (panels are no longer simply rectangular, some may have irregular shapes; places more emphasis on the formal unity of page, iconostasis); and Poster Layout (layout that moves toward the breakdown of panel borders, presenting the entire page as single image).

Note: the term “layouts” is also used in the industry to indicate rough sketches of a comic’s pages, preliminary to the pencilling stage.

Encrustation . Effect obtained when panels appear to be layered over each other (from Groensteen, The System of Comics ).

Splash Page . A single-panel page. Often the title page (for which, indeed, the terms was originally reserved), in which case it may be used for the depiction of a crucial story moment out of narrative continuity, for a montage panel symbolic of the story’s themes, etc.

Iconic solidarity . Term introduced by Thierry Groensteen (in The System of Comics ) to indicate that comic panels are never read purely by themselves, but in the context of all other contiguous panels in the layout.

Iconostasis . The perception of the layout of a comics page as a unified composition. Prompts us not so much to scan the comics from panel to panel in a linear direction of reading, but to take it in at a glance, the way we might take in an abstract painting. The tendency of a comic to suggest to its readers an iconostatic rather than simply sequential reading can be dubbed iconostatization.

Sequential Dynamism . The formal visual energy, created by compositional and other elements internal to each panel and by the layout, that in a comic propels the reader’s eye from panel to panel and from page to page, and that imparts a sense of sustained or varied visual rhythms, sometimes along the predetermined left-to-right, top-to-bottom path of reading, other ties by creating alternate paths.

Note: breakdown and layout choices, including sequential dynamism and emphasis upon iconic solidarity and iconostatization, influence the panel-to-panel and page-to-page timing of comics reading.

VI. TRADITIONAL SYSTEMS OF COMIC-BOOK PRODUCTION

Note: the following are stereotypical instances of such “systems.” In practice there were numerous small variations upon the basic structure of each. Practices have changed greatly since much of the art production has gone digital, but the traditional systems are still useful to consider as conceptualizations of the creative process in comics.

Early studio system:

Entire finished stories were contracted by the publishing company from one creator or from a writer/artist team. One artist was nominally responsible for everything in the art (other than the color separations, which were done by the publisher in-house or at the printing company). Hired assistants could help, but their tasks were not usually clearly differentiated or defined (and they received no credit for their work).

1) editorial committee (editor, writer, etc.) produces plot

2) based on plot, writer creates detailed, panel-by-panel script ( breakdowns and much of the layout are created at this stage—by the writer )

3) based on script, penciller pencils comic

4) pencilled pages go to letterer, who renders in ink the panel frames, word and thought balloons, caption boxes, all text and sound effects

5) pages now go to inker, who inks rest of the images

6) inked pages are photographed. On photostat of pages, colorist roughs out the colors. Based on that, color separations are created

7) comic is printed in four colors, CMYK. K stands for “key color,” which is usually black, and is based on inked pages. C, M and Y stand for the cyan, magenta and yellow separations.

Marvel system:

1) editorial committee produces plot (note: editor and writer on most ‘sixties Marvel titles was Stan Lee, who invented this system. After a while, artists like Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko would come up with plots without consulting Lee.)

2) based on plot, penciller pencils entire issue. ( breakdowns and layouts are created at this stage—by the artist )

3) pencilled pages go back to writer, who dialogues issue.

4), etc. pages then go to letterer, inker, etc. as at D.C.

EC system (Al Feldstein-edited titles):

1) editor/writer creates detailed, panel-by-panel script ( breakdowns created at this stage )

2) script goes to letterer, who puts in panel frames, balloons, etc., and letters text mechanically ( page layouts created at this stage, based on writer’s indications )

3) pages go to artist (who usually both pencils and inks), who places art within predetermined panel frames

4), etc. on to coloring, etc., as above

EC system (Harvey Kurtzman-edited titles):

1) editor/writer writes script, creates detailed penciled layouts that incorporate full script

2) artist creates comic based on editor’s layouts

3), etc. on to coloring, etc., as above

AFTERWORD: A FEW NOTES ON INDIVIDUAL TERMS

I discussed the terms “sequential dynamism” and “iconostasis” in several scholarly lectures over the years, and published them in the chapter I contributed to Matthew J. Smith and Randy Duncan’s Critical Approaches to Comics: Theory and Methods (New York and London: Routledge, 2012).

I will further explore my take on “cartooning” in my contribution to the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to Comics .

My definition of “polyphony” as it applies to the comics medium, probably borrowed from the 2006 version of this list on nacae.org, was used verbatim, without attribution, in a 2010 monograph. I have since discussed this issue with that monograph’s author and have been assured that, were a second edition of it to be published, the passage in question would be put in quotation marks and attributed to me. (I only mention this to avoid the erroneous perception that it was I who borrowed it from that author without giving due credit.)

As far as I know, the distinction between “momentum motion lines” and “trajectory motion lines” originates with me, as do the following terms and notions proposed here: the additional categories of panel-to-panel transitions; the adaptation and simplification of McCloud’s types of word/image interaction; terms such as “pan sequence” and “following pan sequence” (my adaptations of the notion of “pan” and “following pan” from cinema studies); and the idea of a “held-framing sequence.” More generally, I arrived at the idea to conceptualize such notions in terms of “framing” rather than “camera” after struggling for several years with the difficulty of phrasing comics-specifics parameters in cinema-studies terms. I don’t know if this phrasing was used before I suggested it, but I welcome any references to such earlier usage.

The discussion of the various systems of comic-book production has been put together from numerous pieces of evidence, including but not limited to comics-industry lore, statements by comics creators, letter columns, and the analysis of production materials, including scripts, original art, coloring guides, and color separations.

Click here for images illustrating many of the concepts discussed in this article.

Andrei Molotiu is senior lecturer in art history, Indiana University, Bloomington. He is the author of Fragonard’s Allegories of Love (J. Paul Getty Museum, 2007) and the editor of Abstract Comics: The Anthology (Fantagraphics Books, 2009). He has been active in the field of comics studies for over a decade.

This post is available in the Comics Forum website archive , and the list of terms has also been added to the Comics Forum Scholarly Resources Digital Text archive .

Share this:

Posted by Comics Forum on 2013/07/26 in Comics Forum Archives , Digital Texts , Guest Writers , Scholarly Resources

4 responses to “ List of Terms for Comics Studies by Andrei Molotiu ”

• Pingback: Need To Know… 12.8.13 | no cape no mask
• Pingback: Underground Comics: Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers #1 | Comics Class
• Pingback: A208 2 | BrookValeWriting
• Pingback: Key Terms for Graphic Novel Analysis – Sophia Li – English LAL Learner Portfolio

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Email Subscription

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Email Address:

Sign me up!

• Click here to register online!

Twitter Updates

Contact us:.

• Click here to email the News Editor.
• Click here to email the Manga Studies Editor.
• Alexander Street Press Underground and Independent Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels Archive
• Cartoon Classroom
• Comics Grid
• Dr Mel Comics
• European Comic Art (journal)
• Gesellschaft für Comicforschung
• Graphic Medicine (blog)
• Graphic Medicine (podcast)
• Graphic Medicine (website)
• Henry Moore Institute
• Image & Narrative (journal)
• ImageText (journal)
• Institute for Comics Studies
• International Journal of Comic Art
• Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics
• Laydeez do Comics
• Leeds Art Gallery
• Mechademia (journal)
• Molakoe Graphic Design
• NNCORE, Nordic Network for Comics Research
• Paul Gravett
• SANE Journal: Sequential Art Narratives in Education
• Scandinavian Journal of Comic Art
• Studies in Comics (journal)
• The Graphic Novel (Conference & Linked Resources)
• Thought Bubble
• University of Chichester
• University of Glasgow

Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS)

• Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
• Subscribe Subscribed
• Copy shortlink
• Report this content
• View post in Reader
• Manage subscriptions
• Collapse this bar

Expect Unexpected Engagement When you try Hexagonal Thinking in ELA

Listen to my latest podcast episode:.

When it comes to teaching graphic novels, it’s helpful for students to understand the terminology.

Comics and graphic novels are created in a series of pictures in  panels , enclosed by frames, with  gutters  (white spaces) in between to allow the audience to make transitions between moments (emotional and/or physical transitions).

Illustrations of these concepts by Betsy Potash (that’s me!), with definitions adapted from  this great resource from Penguin

Splashes allow a single image to take over a page. A  bleed  lets the art escape the edges of the page.

Speech balloons and thought balloons make it easy to integrate text into the illustrations.

Angle, composition, and color all play a role in telling the story, just like in a film.

All of these elements allow the artist to represent the whole story in marks on the page, including both writing and drawing to make up the graphic language.

Sometimes the writing and drawing are highly integrated, sometimes not. The layout makes a big difference in how any reader interprets the story.

Helping your students understand this vocabulary will make their writing and discussion around graphic novels far more interesting. Then they can see how any creator is using the options available to weave the visuals and language together.

If you’d like me to send you the slide deck featured on this page, you can sign up below for my Friday idea emails. The first one you get from me will have the link to this slide deck!

Wondering how to get started with your slides? Here are a few ways to use them.

• Run through the concepts at the beginning of the unit with a brief slideshow, inviting students to take sketchnotes as they listen
• Take a few minutes on any day to project one or two slides and have students look for examples in their reading and then share and discuss in partners
• Print slides to create a bulletin board or display on your door during your graphic novel unit
• Project a slide anytime you are doing a related activity

I hope you’ll enjoy this visual language kit, no matter what graphic novel you’re teaching next.

Need some ideas for great graphic novels? Check out my post, 10 Graphic Novels for your Classroom Library , or browse through teacher favorites that were recommended to me on Instagram below.

Let’s hang out on

• PRIVACY POLICY
• TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Privacy Overview

Ethical AI PBL Unit

3 weeks of attendance questions, better discussion toolkit.

Almost there!

• Our Contributors
• For Submissions
• Creative Commons
• | Kashmir 2019 Siege |

C onversation is a basic element in the medium of comics, where much of the narrative appeal is derived from the interplay between dialogue and action. The speech balloon, a favoured visual symbol for voice and utterance in the medium since the mid-­twentieth century, has become a symbol for comics. In Italian, famously, the word fumetto —the word for a speech or thought balloon—also refers to the art form itself, whether in the form of a comic strip or a comic book. In fact, dialogue is such a central feature in the medium that it may sometimes be difficult to think of it as a distinct element. A character who speaks his thoughts aloud when apparently nobody is listening is a much­-used convention, and many comics, for instance, ‘talking heads’ or humoristic comic strips that deliver a verbal gag, focus on speaking. Perhaps paradoxically, dialogue scenes may be more distinguishable when their use is more restricted, for instance, in comics when action is predominant and only occasionally interrupted by a scene of talk or when first­-person verbal narration is predominant, as in autobiographical comics that occasionally lapse into dialogue.

The reason for the popularity of the dialogue form in comics is at least partly related to medium-­specific constraints and affordances that encourage its use and, concomitantly, restrict the employment of more indirect forms of speech and thought representation. In contrast with dialogue, forms of indirect discourse, such as free indirect discourse or the narratorial reporting of a character’s speech, tend to demand more space for words. Conventional strategies for distinguishing between these modes of verbal narration have included their visual form and placement in relation to the images. The dichotomy between narrato­rial voice in caption boxes and dialogue or other forms of direct speech in text balloons is not always clear-­cut, let alone all-­inclusive. Speech in comics can also occur in captions, verbal narration can take place in text balloons, the narrator’s and the character’s voices may intermingle, 1 and neither verbal narration nor direct speech or thought must be placed in boxes or balloons. Moreover, text in comics can occur outside these two categories in the image background or as part of the image. However, the continued assertion of the difference between direct speech and other modes of verbal narration in comics also needs to be taken into consideration as an important convention in the medium.

This chapter focusses on the dialogue form as a key narrative device and technique, and it examines the main compositional principles and narrative functions that characterize conversational scenes in comics. The starting point in this investigation is the multimodal character of speech and conversational exchange in comics. This requires us to focus on the interaction between the utterance and the elements of the image. Thus, on the one hand, I will discuss the ways in which dialogue, in the form of written speech, interacts with what is shown in the image, such as the interlocutors’ facial expressions, gestures, body language, and other visual cues of mental states and participant involvement. Furthermore, this necessitates an investigation of the visual possibilities and expressive functions of typography, the graphic style of writing, onomatopoeia or imitatives, 2 visual symbols, and standalone non­letter marks in the written rendering of conversation. On the other hand, I will discuss the function of speech balloons as metaphors for an utterance—‘utterance’ meaning here a specific piece of dialogue—voice, and turn-­taking, and their narrative role in organising the time of the speech event and the order of its reading. Utterances in comics are characterised by their dual role as both instances of imagined speech in the world of the story and written language to be read. As to their latter function, it must be taken into account that readers of comics need to process the relations between the various utterances both in a single panel, when it includes several utterances, and between the panels in order to create a sense of a continuous conversation. Finally, I will briefly discuss some strategic uses of contrast and emphasis between visual and verbal narration in speech representation in comics.

The ultimate goal of this chapter is to develop a medium-­specific understanding of the dialogue form in comics and outline the basic narrative functions of scenes of talk in comics. In this investigation, different examples will be drawn from innovative uses of dialogue in this medium. The subject is admittedly very broad. Within the bounds of this chapter, I can merely hope to highlight the main features of interest in this crucial and often central form in comics.

The Embodied Speech Situation in Comics

Given the multimodal nature of the medium and the importance of visual showing in comics, the question of dialogue in comics requires us to think of the areas of interaction between the image content, such as the portrayal of the participants in the conversational scene, the utterance that is placed in the image, and the main formal aspects of the composition, such as panel relations and the page layout. First, let us consider the ways in which the participants in such scenes are visually shown to be engaged in the speech situation by means of non­verbal communication. Such means include, especially, facial expression, posture, hand gesture, eye contact (or gaze), and the expressive distortion of the interlocutors’ bodies.

Existing research on the gesture­-utterance connection in comics suggests that the use of gestures as signs of emotion largely follows real­-life models in everyday speech situations (Fein and Kasher 1996; Forceville 2005). Both in everyday real-­life conversation and comics, body language and posture are elemental communicative resources. At the same time, however, research has also suggested that in comics, since they commonly simplify and exaggerate bodily forms through caricature, the speaker’s and the recipient’s gestures often have a more prominent role than in real life (see Forceville 2005, 85; Fein and Kasher 1996, 795). In particular, facial expressions that are based on elemental features, such as eyebrows, eyes, gaze, mouth, furrows, and wrinkles, or the head position, are conventionally exploited as signs of emotion, thought, attitude, and stance. Similarly, speech in comics, while it may seek to be verisimilar and can provide the linguist with useful examples of spoken language, can take on wilfully distorted forms, such as simplification or exaggeration, that are different from uses of spoken language in real­-life speech situations. 3 As dialogue in comics also necessarily has a written form and often an ostentatiously graphic and handwritten quality, the study of speech in comics needs to be sensitive to graphic features and the visual effects of written language.

Rodolphe Töpffer, who many see as the inventor of modern comics, claimed in his essay “Essai de physiognomonie” (1845) that a graphic trace has unique expressive potential, especially in relation to the drawing of a human face. For Töpffer, all faces in drawings, however, naively or poorly completed, even in the form of simple scribbling, possess a fixed expression. He further surmised that the viewer can recognize such expressions without education, knowledge of art, or any experience in drawing a face. 4 Similarly, one of the basic tenets in today’s psychological research in face recognition is that people identify faces from very little information. In such identification, as in recognizing an emotional expression, the eyes and eyebrows are among the most salient regions to pay attention to, followed by the mouth and the nose (Sadrô et al. 2003; Sinha et al. 2005). Töpffer saw, similarly, that in order for the drawing of a face to be effective, one needs to focus only on a limited number of key aspects, such as the eyes, eyebrows, nose, nostril(s), chin, forehead, wrinkles or folds of skin, and the shape of the head. 5 Töpffer also thought that the relation between these facial features and the person’s posture—the form of his or her upper body, gestures, and attitudes— mattered, even though he did not see them as important as the internal features of a face (the eyes, nose, and mouth).

As recent psychological and sociological conversation analysis has shown, facial expressions can enhance or disambiguate the speaker’s and the recipient’s stances towards what is being said in real-­life speech situations (Ruusuvuori and Peräkylä 2009). In comics, likewise, a basic element of speech representation is the relation between verbal utterances, facial expressions, and other features of body language such as eye contact, typically accompanied by the sense of perspective and field of vision that are inscribed in the image. For instance, a way of speaking and listening can be revealed by an exchange of looks in subsequent gaze images, images portraying someone looking at something or someone, or reaction images, that is, images showing someone’s reaction to something that is said. A recipient’s look can, for instance, indicate pensiveness, concentration, or confusion, affiliation with the topic or the speaker, the sharing of an understanding, or the rejection of an idea, or it can reveal what is important and salient in the conversation situation as a whole. 6

Notice, for instance, the significance of facial expression, gaze, body language, and hand gestures in this scene from Abel Lanzac and Christophe Blain’s Quai D’Orsay. Chroniques diplomatiques II ( Weapons of Mass Diplomacy 2012), which depicts a meeting between the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alexandre Taillard de Vorms (inspired by Dominique de Villepin), his speech writer Arthur Vlaminck, and a representative of the logistics department, Gilles Mande (Figure 9.1). In this scene, the furious minister protests to Mande about not being able to have a bigger aeroplane (Airbus) for himself and his advisors on a diplomatic visit to Russia. The intensity of the minister’s gaze and his facial expression, emphasised in the close­up image framed to show only his piercing eyes and part of his gigantic nose, convey the persistence of his stance, as well as his manipulative attitude towards the others. The minister pours forth a tirade of complaints, evidently fuelled by a sense of self­-importance, about the tightness of space in the smaller Falcon aircraft that has been offered to him and his staff. All this is accompanied by expressive and manipulative hand gestures.

Besides facial expressions and gaze, hands, hand gestures, and arm positions can also have a significant function in speech situations in comics, communicating meaning themselves or specifying the words’ meaning. Two likely reasons for the significance of hands in comics are that we can gesture meaningfully and simulate shapes and things much more accurately with our hands than with other body parts, and that they can relatively easily be drawn to demonstrate this. 7 Hand gestures may be used as forms of illustration, specifying a type of action, a spatial relation, or a physical shape of something, or as a form of emphasis, while a hand can also point to an object, place, or the interlocutor. Waving, pointing, and beckoning can have a conversational function, for instance, as an expression of the participant’s emotion, attitude, and personality, and also as a conversational signal. The salience of hand gestures in the image, or facial expressions, for that matter, can be further emphasised by means of layout, perspective, foregrounding, or visual means of emphasis.

Figure 9.1   Abel Lanzac and Christophe Blain Weapons of Mass Diplomac y (2012/2014). Trans. Edward Gauvin © 2014 SelfMadeHero.

The meaning of the participants’ positions in an interaction, and what psychology calls (inter)personal space behaviour or proxemics—how people use the personal space around them as they interact with others— can be effectively portrayed in comics by showing how participants in a scene of talk take their space or relate to each other and the surrounding environment. Focus on a particular person in a close­up image or framing the image close to a participant or his or her field of vision may also suggest a (narratorial) sense of proximity to that participant. 8 This is also common in film narratives. A more medium-­specific aspect of significant body language in comics is the non­realistic manipulation and distortion of body shapes through caricature, that is, the relative malleability of the drawn body. We can observe this, for instance, in the above example from Weapons of Mass Diplomacy where Alexandre Taillard de Vorms’s shoulders and nose change their proportional size from panel to panel. The speaker’s body is thus modified to reflect his speech, attitude, and personality; the body has an expressive function in itself.

Conversational scenes in comics, as in film narration, have an advantage over dialogue scenes in literature in that they may show various non­verbal communication cues, which co­occur with verbal communication and can combine the effect of such cues. All visually observable aspects of non­verbal communication that may be integrated in a face­-to-­face dialogue in real life can also be portrayed in comics: facial expression, posture, gesture, eye contact, touch, adornment, physiological responses, position and spatial relations, personal space, locomotion, and setting. 9 While comics, at least in the traditional forms of printed strips or books, cannot usually represent sounds, they have developed various ways of suggesting auditory signals and vocal behaviour, such as onomatopoeia, sound effects, and symbols. All these cues are potentially relevant in conversational scenes in comics, where they co­occur with the verbal utterance. As they interact with each other and the utterance, these devices help the reader to create a sense of a continuing speech event, or what is meant by what is said; better perceive the participant’s mental state, attitude, and intention; and grasp the nature of the relation between the speakers. Yet, the ways in which cartoonists may take advantage of the rich possibilities of non­verbal communication in the medium vary greatly. For instance, while facial expressions are generally important, from children’s comic strips to adult-­oriented graphic novels, or from superhero comics to nonfiction reportage, some cartoonists also simplify facial expression cues or minimise their use. 10 Thus, the varying aspects of non­verbal communication, and in some cases even facial expressions, can be conceived of as optional tools of visual showing and narration in conversational scenes.

Symbols of the Speaker’s Mental State and Engagement

In much comics storytelling, the use of visual symbols and verbal­-visual signs that emanate from the characters may also contribute significantly to speech representation and dialogue scenes. In the passage of Weapons of Mass Diplomacy above, Mande’s heavy sweating, shown with drops of sweat, his changing facial skin colour, and later also his gradually shrinking head and body clearly point out his submission to the minister’s authority. The visual symbols around his head, which the cartoonist Mort Walker has called ‘emanata’ and John M. Kennedy identified as ‘pictorial runes’ (1982, 600), 11 portray emotions (agony), mental states, and an internal condition (submission). These and similar graphic devices, such as drops of sweat or more symbolic signs such as wiggly lines, starbursts, circles, halos, and clouds, often have little or no relation to the outer signs of emotion and attitude in real­-life speech situations. As conventions that are used in modern narrative drawings from cartoons to comics, emanata are metonymically motivated signs that result from a character’s emotion and thought or some immediate sensory stimuli and effect. Typically, they specify the force of the speech act, a speaker’s enthusiasm or uncertainty, the recipient’s understanding or lack of understanding of what is said, acceptance and disappointment, or, as here, gradual submission to the speaker. Emanata and altered body shapes can also portray types of perception and reactions, including the sense of cold and warmth, smell, newness, light, and brightness or perceptions of speed, reflection, sudden or fast movement (speed lines), the direction of movement, or surprise and suspense. Not all comics employ them, but when they are used, they can contribute significantly to our understanding of the other elements in a scene of talk such as facial expression, gestures, and gaze.

Beyond the emanata, or pictorial runes, conversational scenes in comics can also comprise various other signs, including stand­alone punctuation marks, 12 pictograms, 13 sound effects, imitatives, and onomatopoeia 14 that have similar or related functions. Placed in the space in the image around the characters, or possibly continuing from panel to panel, these signs can equally specify the characters’ emotions, thoughts, and attitudes or a way of acting, behaving, and speaking; clarify what is said; or express movement, sounds, and other sensory stimuli that are relevant in the scene.

Comics imitatives, which are widely used for humorous purposes, approximate non­linguistic sounds and action or contact between the characters, as well as attitude, emotion, sensations, and movement by adapting them to the phonemic system of the language. Onomatopoeia and sound words (or descriptive sound effects), which can be regarded as a specific case of imitatives, represent sound and voice in verbal form and, at the same time, often aim for a visual effect, which in itself can mime some quality of the sound or reflect its source, such as an event causing the sound. Onomatopoeia may also indicate variation in sound effects such as volume, pitch, timbre, and duration. Typically, onomatopoeia fit the phonology of the language in which they are used (‘boom!’, ‘wham!’, and ‘whoosh!’ in English or ‘baoum!’, ‘pff!’, and ‘vlan!’ in French). In comics storytelling, however, it is also common that an onomatopoeic adaptation of a sound does not necessarily have to constitute a word or even be pronounceable. Onomatopoeic expressions in comics are not usually reducible to the sound that they imitate—one reason being that they are given a visual, graphic form that contributes to their meaning and effect. The use of stand­alone descriptive words (or descriptive imitatives) for sensations and emotions is also common (‘snort’, ‘gasp’, ‘tickle’, ‘sigh’, etc.).

Stylistic elements of writing, such as lettering, typography, and fonts, as well as what has been called para­ or quasi-­balloonic phenomena, 15 can be incorporated in a dialogue scene for similar purposes. The graphic style in which speech is written is often meaningful in such scenes in two senses. First, the graphic style of writing can create an effect of continuity between the world of the story, or the speech situation, and the written speech. For instance, written speech can be placed and shaped in the image field so that it reflects the visual contents of the image. 16 The graphic line that depicts the speaking figures can also give the impression of continuity in the writing (or vice versa). Second, the style of writing can in itself express certain aspects of the utterance, such as emphasise the meaning of a word, a phrase, or an utterance through bold lettering, convey humour, add a metaphorical or ironic layer through a stylistic change, imply a way of speaking or type of voice (whispering, singing, a broadcast voice, and so on), the intensity of speaking (by changing the letter size, for instance), and the speaker’s attitude or emotional state. It can also portray differences between the speakers’ register, style, or voice. Not all comics use the rich graphic potential of writing in this regard, but the style of writing and the choice of typography are important features of conversational scenes in many comics. Think, for instance, of Walt Kelly’s Pogo , or Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman , where typographical choices may reflect the characters’ personality or attitude, or René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo’s Asterix , where changes in lettering can indicate important vocal and linguistic differences in the characters’ speech (accent, dialect, stylistic register, language). By these means, written dialogue in comics can overcome some of the limitations that affect the representation of spoken language in conventional literary fiction. 17

All in all, the various visual and verbal­visual signs that have become conventionalised in comics can be metaphorically motivated as indexes of a speaker’s emotions, thoughts, attitudes, and perceptions. All these features may also contribute to the meaning of what is said, and potentially influence the reader’s attribution of mental states to characters. Frequently, such signs work together to identify the speaker’s attitude, complementing the meanings of facial expression and body language, and thus specify or enhance the speaker’s relation to the propositional content of the utterance and the other participants in the scene. 18

Let us take as an example the main components of a scene of talk in Finnish cartoonist Aapo Rapi’s (auto)biographical narrative Meti (2008). This story is based on the cartoonist’s interviews with his 80­year­old grandmother Meeri Rapi, known as Meti, but it also has a strong autobiographical dimension: the cartoonist pictures himself in the story, meeting and conversing with his grandmother, taking notes during the conversation, and relates some other events in his life at the time of the interviews and the storytelling. The narrative perspective of Meti is often ambiguous in that there are clues in the story that let the reader think that it is told and illustrated in the way that Aapo imagines the events have happened—Meti’s story would thus be within the frame of Aapo’s imagination—but there are also passages in the narrative where Aapo’s story and Meti’s memories appear to be in competition. At times, the frame narrative and Meti’s narrative also coalesce, resulting in a kind of intersection of stories.

Figure 9.2 Aapo Rapi. Meti (2008) © Aapo Rapi.

Here, in this scene of five panels, the speaker’s and the recipient’s facial expressions, posture, gaze, exchange of looks, perspective, and emanata play a vital role together (Figure 9.2). We first see the cartoonist meeting with his grandmother. When Meti attempts to formally introduce herself with ‘My name is M–’, the cartoonist, visibly frustrated by this introduction—indicated by drops of sweat springing from his face, accompanied by a few drops of coffee spilled from his cup—interrupts her and insists that she should speak as she ‘normally’ does, that is, not in formal discourse. Consider also the importance of gazes and perspective in this scene. Both speakers are present in all images, but seen from different angles and distances. The alternating perspective of the images allows us to see the scene from behind both characters’ shoulders and thus share their viewpoints to some extent. Notice also that the cartoonist’s face is much more expressive of emotion and mental state—changing from signs of haste and frustration to calm—than that of the stony­-faced main character. Moreover, Meti’s large non­reflective glasses are in stark contrast with the youthful expressiveness of her face in the narrated memories that follow this scene.

The Bond between the Speaker and the Utterance

Speech and thought balloons were successfully incorporated into American newspaper comic strips in the 1890s. In earlier European comics and cartoons, the same device had already been widely used, including British satirical broadsheet prints (1770–1820), but in Töpffer’s and in many other mid­-nineteenth-­century European cartoonists’ works, speech was usually represented in captions that were placed underneath the images. Only by the 1940s and the early 1950s did the representation of speech in speech balloons become a dominant convention in the medium in most Western countries. 19 Since then, other options for representing direct speech, such as speech quoted or summarised in captions, have remained in relatively limited use. Many contemporary cartoonists, however, represent utterances without resorting to speech balloons. For instance, in Brecht Evens’s graphic novels and in much of Claire Bretécher’s work, the utterances are simply placed physically close to the speaker in the space of the image, possibly but not necessarily accompanied by a tail that connects the utterance to the vocalizing source.

Regardless of whether comics use the speech balloon format or not, the general principle that an utterance is tied to a source that is shown in the image or to a source that is situated close to what is shown appears to be a default expectation in comics. The tail emanating from the balloon, or in some cases from the text without a frame, makes this association even more evident as it directly points to the source of the utterance. If the speaker is not shown in the image field, the default expectation is that the balloon and the tail indicate that someone is just outside the visible space or is not yet or no longer in the field of vision, or that the source of the utterance is too small or hidden to be seen (see also Force­ville et al . 2010, 69).

Thus, the speech balloon and its tail, which can take a variety of different visual forms, express the contents of the utterance and, at the same time, are visual symbols of a speech act. In the latter function, we need to underscore their metaphorical function, which has something in common with metonymy: the balloon and its tail stand for a speaking voice (or a sound), the place, time, and duration of speaking, and the act of speaking itself. The relationship between the balloon and the speech act can thus be conceptualised as a structure of contiguity where, with the written utterance representing spoken language, the visual form of the speech balloon stands in a metaphorical relation to the source of the voice and, possibly also, to particular aspects of that voice or sound (intonation, for instance). In contrast, thought balloons represent the speaker’s thoughts and inner state. The distinction between speech and thought balloons is not always unambiguous in comics, or their difference may be irrelevant—does it always matter, for instance, whether a person speaks or thinks aloud to himself?—but in general they are distinguished by various visual markers such as the shape of the balloon and the tail or the background colour.

Being a visual metaphor (or metonymy) for a speech act, the balloon and its tail also perform the function of speech tags. In fact, they can realise the speech tag function much more efficiently and economically than any verbs of saying that traditionally introduce an utterance in literary narratives. The function of the tail, specifically, is to identify the speaker in the image. 20 The balloon and its tail not only point out the turn­-taking, the source of the utterance, and the place of the speaker, but often also tell us how someone is speaking—the intonation, intensity, and volume of speech may be reflected in the shape, size, place, or colour of the balloon and its tail—or reveal the speaker’s attitude towards what is being said (linguistic modality). Balloon frame styles, background colour, and tail shapes regularly depict emotional states and sensory experiences (uncertainty, (dis)approval, ‘warm’, ‘icy’), a type of voice (electronically relayed, distant, shrill, high, low, harsh, broken, and so on), or volume (loud, quiet, shout, whisper). Lettering, typography, and visual signs inside the balloon can have similar functions or can amplify them. If in the Asterix albums typography can be a sign of a different language and dialect; in Brecht Evens’ graphic narratives, the colour of the text identifies the speaker ( The Wrong Place , 2009; The Making Of , 2011; Panthère , 2014).

The expressive uses of the speech balloon are well known to comics readers and scholars, but perhaps less to academics who study the dialogue form across media. Charles Forceville has shown how different visual variables of comics balloons—contour form, colour, fonts, non­verbal contents, and tail use—contribute narratively salient information, for instance, with regard to the manner and topic of speaking or the identity of the speaker (2013, 258, 268). In other words, the visual variables of the balloon, especially in more nonstandard cases, make salient something in what is said, how something is said, or who the speaker is. This, again, requires that we evaluate the relation of the bal­loonic narrative information to the speaker and the speech situation as a whole. The place of the balloon in the scene or the breakdown may also be significant. Thierry Groensteen, who has made a theoretically grounded description of speech balloon functions in comics, has suggested that the place of the balloon is always relative to three different elements in the space of the page: the character who is speaking (the speaker), the frame of the panel, and the neighbouring balloons  (situated in the same panel or a contiguous one) (2007, 75). Groensteen empha­sises, in particular, the interdependence between the characters and the balloons (2007, 75, 83), claiming that their relationship is so strong that they form a sort of functional binomial, a bipolar structure that is a necessary organising device in comics. Moreover, Groensteen presumes that the characters in the panels are the most salient piece of information and, subsequently, echoing Töpffer, that the character’s face and physiognomic expression are the principal focal points of the reader’s attention (2007, 75–76). In reading comics, then, the reader would supposedly first view the character’s face and expression, and then adjust this information, reciprocally, with what is said, that is, the character’s represented speech. 21

The claim about the bipolar structure between an utterance and an utterer seems highly relevant with regard to most comics. The psychological study of face recognition has also proven that the human (biological) visual system starts with a rudimentary preference for face-­like patterns, and that our visual system has unique cognitive and neural mechanisms for face processing (see Sinha et al . 2005). Yet, it seems worth asking whether the functional binomial between the speaker and the utterance is always dominant in guiding the cartoonist’s or the reader’s understanding of conversational scenes, or the order of their reading. For one thing, we still cannot say much that is not controversial about the reader’s order of attention in reading comics. Do we always start reading comics by viewing the characters’ faces? 22 Comics can vary greatly with regard to the relative amount of words they use, as well as for what purpose they use them (what kind of information is given verbally), let alone that the image­-word ratio typically alternates within any given story. A dialogue scene can portray the participants’ positions, gestures, and relations in great detail, but in a ‘talking heads’ story or a verbal gag strip, words can also be the primary focus of the reader’s attention, whereas sometimes faces can tell next to nothing.

In addition, comics can successfully sever the relation between the speaker, words, and space of the speech situation by various means. This may be done, for instance, by excluding the speaker from the space of the image or the narrative level, by multiplying the number of speakers or utterances, and by making the connection between an utterance and a speaker ambivalent in the space of the image. 23 The relation between the utterance and the vocalising source may remain deliberately ambivalent, for instance, in panels where there is only speech and the characters are not seen, or not clearly seen, such as in panoramic images where the speaking figures may be shown far in the distance or are not visible at all, or in images where the vocalising agent is visually blocked. François Ayroles’s strip “Feinte Trinité”, which includes only speech balloons and no figures, pertaining to a conversation between a son, a father, a mother, and God, or the online comic strip Bande pas dessinée , challenges the basic bipolar structure further by never letting us see who is speaking.

Another challenge to the bipolar structure arises from the speaker’s ambivalent positioning between the picture space and outside it. In some rare cases, the speaker can also remain systematically absent from the images. Consider, for instance, the continuous commentator track in Altan’s Ada (1979) where a speaker, who is never seen, is emotionally involved in the narrative as its commentator and viewer. Much more common is that a voice may, once connected with a particular speaker, become disconnected from that speaker on the visual level of narration. This may occur, for instance, when utterances are superimposed on what is seen in the images, thus suggesting that what is seen is the character’s subjective vision. Towards the end of the frame narrative of World’s End , the Chaucerian story arc in The Sandman series, the voices of a group of characters at an inn called World’s End are superimposed in speech balloons on a double spread with images of an enlarging window pane through which they apparently look at a spectral funeral procession in the sky. The reader, thus, is invited to share their field of vision through the dialogue.

Still other challenges to the rule of the bipolar structure of speech in comics include the multiplication of speakers for one utterance and the use of one speaker as a representative of a group of speakers. For instance, Martin Cendreda’s one­-page story, “I want you to like me”, experiments with this principle by letting a conversation continue from panel to panel while the speakers and their spaces keep changing  (Chapter 3). This creates the effect of a communal mind that apparently thinks the same thought, and says the same thing, irrespective of the individual sources of utterance seen in the images (speakers, billboard, dogs). Similarly, ideas apparently voiced by one person can be attributed to a group of people. 24 A character’s voice may also occur in many parts of one panel. This can emphasise, for instance, the speaker’s quick movement, the effects of an echo, or the complexities of space, as happens in Asterix and the Banquet when the Gaul Jellibabix, who is not seen in the panel, says ‘Here!’ in six different corners of the maze­like alleyways of Lugdunum (modern­-day Lyon) seemingly at the same time.

All these cases experiment with the basic expectations of speech representation in comics: an utterance is visually tied to a particular speaker, and both the utterance and the speaker belong to the space that is seen in the panel. Yet as the exceptions above show, the bipolar structure between the speaker and the utterance can always be modified, challenged, and even discarded. The exceptions make the rule more visible, but the flexibility of the structure also points out that, to better understand speech representation and dialogue in comics, it is crucial to think beyond the speaker-­utterance relation to a number of other seminal elements of dialogue in the medium.

Still another important feature of conversational scenes in comics is the interaction between the utterance, the contents of the image and narrative captions. Narrative captions, which are typically distinguished from speech balloons by their frames, background colour, or typography, can also complement, evaluate, or interpret the speech acts presented in the images. In Daniel Clowes’s first-­person narrative Mister Wonderful (2011), the contrasted and sometimes competing thought captions and speech balloons of the story make clearly visible the expected interrelations between the captions and the balloons. Here, the narrator’s thoughts, placed in square-­shaped captions with a yellow background, are frequently superimposed on speech balloons that contain the narrator’s own speech or other people’s utterances, thus indicating, among other things, the narrator’s lack of attention to what is being said. On a few occasions, the speech balloons are also superimposed on the captions, thus suggesting that what is said interrupts the flow and momentum of the narrator’s thoughts. Thus, also, the connection between the speaker and the utterance in the balloon is momentarily broken.

The Temporal and Rhythmic Functions of Speech Balloons

Having investigated some basic formal elements of speech representation and scenes of talk in comics, we should be able to focus more specifically on how some of these elements realise narrative functions in comics.

Character-­to­-character dialogue, or combined action and dialogue scenes, are central forms of narrative organisation and development in comics, as in literary fiction and film. 25 Dialogue scenes move the story forward, for instance, by giving important information about the characters, their relationships, the milieu, and the evolving events; they can also build suspense and reorientate the narrative. In comics, dialogue also regularly accompanies action. In Asterix , much of the talking between Asterix and Obelix, which is a constant feature of the series, takes place when the two characters are on the move or doing something. Action and dialogue are constantly bound together: while moving or acting out a scene, the characters discuss their intentions, thoughts, and emotions or voice comments about an event or someone they have met.

What Sarah Kozloff has outlined as the main narrative functions of dialogue in film largely apply to comics. Dialogue in films, as Kozloff points out, can contribute to many if not all key elements of a narrative: world construction and identification, characterisation, communication of narrative causality (such as the relation between events or the significance of an event), enactment of a narrative event (the disclosure of important information such as the speaker’s emotional state), adherence to realism (plausibility), and control of the viewer’s evaluation and emotions (the sense of narrative rhythm, the effects of surprise and suspense) (2000, 33–51). Inevitably, a given instance of dialogue can fulfil several of these functions simultaneously.

What is different in comics in this respect may to some extent be self­-evident. Comics lack the sound element, the means and possibilities of the moving image, and the actor’s work and personality is not an issue. With regard to narrative pacing and rhythm in comics, speech balloons play a vital role. Their arrangement in the panel, a sequence, or on the page, modifies both the sense of the time of the narrative and the order and time of reading. On the one hand, the utterances punctuate the story and the dialogue scene and, thus, create a sense of the duration of the event. Sometimes, the speech balloons can in themselves express duration through elongated forms of tails that surpass the frame borders. On the other hand, the speech balloons are part and parcel of the spatial organisation of the comic’s page. While the speech balloon constitutes a space where the utterance can be read, the placement and interrelation of the speech balloons in the space of the page also point out to the reader an order of looking and reading, functioning as one means of connectivity between the panels. From the reader’s perspective, thus, the utterances in a given narrative comic mark stages in the story that need to be attended to. 26 Speech balloons placed on the picture frames, for instance, or close to each other in neighbouring panels, can strengthen the link between the pictures and thus affirm the order of reading. Sometimes also, the space of the utterance can approximate the function of a picture frame or the space between the panels. The placement of speech balloons in a scene of talk may also emphasise, together with other features of the scene, particular aspects of the utterance and the speech situation.

The opening scene of Book One in Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s Preacher (1996) features a conversational scene between three characters, Jesse Custer, Tulip O’Hare, and Cassidy, who are conversing at a table in a diner in Texas. In this example, I would like to empha­sise the significance of three factors in the depiction of the scene: the place of the utterance, the effect of the moving perspective, and the means of layout. The first time we see the protagonist Reverend Jesse Custer’s face and his clerical collar, his utterance—‘’cause lemme tell you: it sure as hell ain’t the church’—is placed over the frame border. Both the placement of the utterance, the particularity of which is em­phasised by the fact that speech balloons very rarely cross the panel frames in this series, and the contrast between what Custer says and who he is stress the importance of the utterance (Figure 9.3). Further noteworthy elements in this panel are the angle of vision, which is placed squarely amidst the interlocutors and very close to Cassidy’s position in the scene, and the fact that two sides of the panel bleed off the corner of the page. The latter feature may compel the reader to turn the page to learn more about the contrast between the speaker and what he has said. In the following pages that depict the conversation, the perspective remains close to the characters, stressing the meaning of gazes and the exchange of looks. Moreover, and typically of dialogue scenes in many contemporary graphic novels, the perspective keeps steadily shifting around the conversing characters, moving to one more or less subjective angle of vision in each panel. Finally, page layout also contributes to this scene through the partial superimposition of some of the panels, such as a close­up image of Tulip O’Hare, on the surrounding panels, thus further aligning the interlocutors to each other and emphasising the importance of a particular gaze, expression, and utterance.

Concerning the sense of rhythm in such scenes, one default expectation is the correspondence between the utterance or an exchange of dialogue and the speaker’s (or listener’s) posture shown in the image. We could call this the realistic formula of time in a scene of talk. In other words, perhaps the most basic rhythm of speech representation in comics is one utterance per speaker, or one utterance and response per panel. Will Eisner, for instance, has stressed the importance of preserving such a bond between dialogue and action on the grounds of realism, claiming that a protracted exchange of dialogue cannot be realistically supported by unmoving static images. Furthermore, for Eisner, a veri­similar exchange of dialogue is one in which the utterances terminate the endurance of the image, that is, the dialogue corresponds with the speaker’s (or speakers’) posture in the image (1996, 60).

Figure 9.3  Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon. PREACHER . Book One (1995) © Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon. All characters, the distinctive likenesses thereof, and all related elements are trademarks of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon.

However, Eisner’s presumption, while it illustrates a basic convention for representing duration in conversational scenes in much comics storytelling, can be contested as an all-­encompassing general rule of realistic speech. Clearly, instead of undermining the sense of veracity in a conversational exchange, a long string or multitude of balloons in one panel can also enhance realism in narration. On the first page of Preacher , Cassidy’s and Tulip O’Hare’s utterances have two parts—their difference is marked, respectively, by the conventions of one balloon opening onto another and by a connecting tail between the balloons. This is a common way to indicate a short pause in speech. Elsewhere, the placement of many speech balloons in one panel can create the effect of a speeded-­up and intensified exchange of words. Strings of balloons or a mass of balloons in one panel may, for instance, suggest the effect of an improvised discourse, conversational intensity (as in the streets of Lutetia in Les lauriers de César ), interruption and talking over others, the volume of speech, a cacophony of voices, and so on. Many superimposed balloons can also indicate a disconnection between speech and thought, as happens in Mister Wonderful , where the narrative captions that are placed on the speech balloons and sometimes even on the speakers’ faces emphasise the effect of an inner voice overriding speech. Moreover, a protracted exchange of dialogue in one panel may suggest a notable speeding or slowing of time in a scene of talk, instead of undermining conversational veracity.

Furthermore, it is important to note that the relation between speech and posture does not alone create the sense of rhythm in dialogue scenes. The panel­-to­-panel transitions and other spatial relations on the page, including the sense of time in a single panel, also affect our understanding of the time and duration of a scene of talk. In our previous example of Meti , the sequence suggests a slowing of time during the dialogue scene: the cartoonist’s hurry to start the interview—he is visibly out of breath when he enters the room in the first panel—is contrasted with Meti’s relaxed attitude. Meti’s calmness has become evident to the reader already in the previous wordless pages of the story, which portray her leisurely picking berries, preparing a pie, and baking it in the kitchen. The fourth and the only wordless panel in this sequence, in which the perspective is more distant and impersonal, powerfully suggests the passing and slowing of time. In these five panels, the cartoonist figure thus apparently adjusts to Meti’s sense of time by eating lingonberry pie and drinking coffee. Only then can the actual storytelling start.

Conversational scenes, when perceived as distinct scenes, may alter the temporal rhythm in relation to the surrounding narrative action. This dimension of dialogue scenes in comics corresponds with what Kozloff refers to as the control of viewer evaluation and emotional response through dialogue. In comics, as in film, such scenes can distract, create suspense and surprise, or control emotional response by elongating a moment and stretching out a suspenseful climax or pause. The conversation at the beginning of Preacher , which turns out to be a frame narrative for much of the ensuing story in Book One of the series, introduces us to the main characters and opens up several questions about their situation that will be dealt with in the subsequent instalments of the story. Scenes of talk can also slow down the tempo in the narrative, as in the example from Meti above, to the extent that they give us an impression of simultaneity between the time of the events and the time of their telling and showing. In comics that include extensive dia­logue during the action, such as Asterix or other European adventure series, such as Spirou and Fantasio , such temporal changes may not be apparent, however, since the action and dialogue establish such a steady rhythm throughout the narrative.

Figure 9.4  Jérôme Mulot & Florent Ruppert. Barrel of Monkeys © 2008, Ruppert, Mulot & L’Association, Rebus Books for the english translation.

Jérôme Mulot and Florent Ruppert’s comic books, including Safari monseigneur (2005), Panier de singe ( Barrel of Monkeys , 2006), and Le Tricheur (2008), make visible a number of underlying principles in speech representation in comics. For instance, they extend the traditional realistic duration of speech in a panel: Ruppert and Mulot sometimes place up to twenty balloons per panel for one speaker and thus obfuscate the expectation of synchrony between the speaker’s posture in the image and the utterance (Figure 9.4). Furthermore, their work investigates the rules of readable information, that is, that speech balloons should contain informative utterances that are attributed to some agent in the story. Generally speaking, certain constraints guarantee the readability of speech balloons in comics. This means that one is to avoid (a) superimposed speech balloons that block the reading of other balloons, unless the superimposed balloons serve a clear narrative function such as indicating the simultaneity of many voices; (b) balloons placed in a semantically important part of the image (such as the speaker’s face); (c) balloons that are ‘cut’ by the image frame so that they become unreadable (this may also happen in Mister Wonderful to point out the narrator’s lack of attention or interest); and (d) continuous nonsensical expressions or empty balloons. However, single ‘blah­blahs’ or empty balloons can be very revelatory of attitude or a lack of response.

Still other experiments with speech and thought balloons in Ruppert and Mulot’s comic books involve the breaking of the flat symbolic space of the speech and thought balloon. For instance, letters and signs regularly overlap the balloon contours and extend to the space of the image in their works, thus undermining the expectation that the balloon is an enclosed space in itself, or speech and thought balloons are treated as literal containers that convey the illusion of three­-dimensionality. Some of Ruppert and Mulot’s speech and thought balloons, or their contents, can be seen, touched, and entered, whereas others may indicate the speaker’s movement in space as a kind of visual trace of the movement.

The Narrative Function of Visual and Verbal Contrast in Dialogue Scenes

Still another medium-­specific aspect in conversational scenes in comics is the narrative effect (rather than function) of contrast, or narratively motivated transition, in the balance between visual and verbal narration. For instance, a scene of character-­to-­character dialogue in comics can always turn into a predominantly visual narrative that fleshes out the topic of the conversation in narrative drawings, or vice versa. This is a typical element in Aapo Rapi’s Meti and complicates in this story the question of the identity of the narrative agent responsible for what is shown in the images. Lilli Carré’s The Lagoon (2008), in turn, depicts a scene where someone is telling a tale, and the oral story is then transformed into a visual narrative that the reader can see evolving from panel to panel. The shift from verbal to graphic narration thus dra­matises the temporal distance between the present of the storytelling and the past of the story events, but it also has the narrative effect of accentuating the storyteller’s skill of inviting the listener into her world and experiencing it from within. Such transferences between verbal and visual narration may in some cases be compared to shifts between different diegetic levels in a literary narrative, for instance when an interlocutor in a conversation becomes a narrator of his or her own story. Yet, the multimodal nature of comics allows the invention of forms of complexity in this regard, pertaining to the relation between the time of the events and the time of their telling, or the source and perspective of narration, that are not available in the monomodal context of literary narratives.

Cartoonists can set up tensions between verbal and visual narration in conversational scenes for various other effects as well. Another device for contrasting verbal and visual narration is to juxtapose the time and place of an ongoing conversation and the time and place of the events that are the topic of the conversation. For instance, at the beginning of Jean­Claude Mézières and Pierre Christin’s Brooklyn Station Terminus Cosmos (1981), where the main characters Valerian and Laureline are engaged in a long telepathic intergalactic conversation, their dia­logue provides the story with a narrative frame. This global frame embeds images from the speakers’ memories as short flashbacks as well as illustrations of things and events that the speakers have heard. The extended present moment of the dialogue thus creates a kind of intersub­jective consciousness frame that incorporates different temporalities and changes of space, which are shown in the narrative drawings. The dia­logue may specify that the things seen in the panels have a varying relation to reality—first­ or second­hand information, mnemonic images, or things seen in the speakers’ present whereabouts—or different meanings for each speaker. The overall effect, however, is not one of simple framing and embedding, but the time and space in which speakers are situated occasionally also appear to coalesce with those of their stories and memories as the speakers share the imagery through the telepathic link.

The ultimate goal of this chapter has been an attempt to develop a more general understanding of the basic elements, main compositional principles, and narrative functions of speech and dialogue in comics. One crucial area for future research that is indicated by this discussion is the way in which the image content, especially the embodiment of the participants, contributes to the conversational scene and the interpretative effects that the scene generates. Typically, the images in comics show involvement in scenes of talk through shared or contrasted perspectives, an exchange of looks, or through gesture, posture, and other physical signs of reaction to others. A key aspect of dialogue in comics in this respect is the depiction of the participants’ face and facial expressions. Visual symbols and verbal­-visual signs, such as emanata, which are added to or around the participants’ face and head in some comics, can specify an expression, show mental states, and emphasise a reaction to someone or something that is said. Furthermore, comics may manipulate the characters’ body shape and size to underline certain aspects of a speaker’s experience, attitude, or personality, or their reaction and engagement in the speech situation. Together and in interaction with the verbal content of the dialogue, these elements produce an integrated, but often quite complex, whole.

Finally, all compositional and spatial elements in comics can have an expressive function that contributes to the reader’s understanding of conversational scenes in this medium. Changing picture frames, panel forms, panel and balloon shapes and sizes, page setup, lettering and letter size, non­realistic backgrounds, 27 and other components of graphic style can convey relevant information, for instance, by emphasising or modifying the meaning of the utterances or pointing out the salient features in the situation. Moreover, the relations between the panels may imply relevant narrative information about the scene; the gaps in what is visually shown in the panel images need to be related to what is said but also to the gaps in the dialogue. The precise meaning of the potentially meaningful formal elements in a scene of talk depends again on the co­occurrence and combination of these elements and on their tension and interaction with what is said and shown in the images.

Comics share various functions of narrative communication through di­alogue with other narrative media, but also employ many medium­-specific strategies that render impossible any direct comparison with dialogue scenes in literature or film. Speech in comics is not only given in a written form but also (usually) in a drawn form, a kind of graphic writing. In this respect, comics vary greatly in the extent that they can maximize the graphic and typographical effects of written speech. The speech balloons function as a visual metaphor for a speech act, voice, and source. At the same time, the speech balloon, the tail, and para­balloonic utterances contribute to the organisation of the time of the narrative and the order and time of reading. Above I have also investigated the common convention in comics that an utterance is physically tied to its source, the speaker, and that this relation suggests a certain (imaginary) duration of time. By developing Thierry Groensteen’s (1999, 2007) insights about the elemental association between the speaker and the utterance, I have sought to contextualise this compositional principle in relation to other key elements of conversational scenes in comics.

1 See also Saraceni (2003, 66–67) on how this may happen in thought balloons and monologue.

2 Oswalt defines an ‘imitative’ as “a word based on an approximation of some non­linguistic sound but adapted to the phonemic system of the language” (1994, 293).

3 See also Frank Bramlett, who stresses that a linguistic investigation of language in comics needs to consider the balance of realism in the characters’ language and the amount of linguistic exaggeration and simplification that is typical of the medium (2012, 183). See also Hatfield (2005, 34), Groensteen (2007, 129), and Miodrag (2013, 32–36).

4 The art historian Ernst Gombrich famously named this rule Töpffer’s law: “For any drawing of a human face, however inept, however childish, possesses, by the very fact that it has been drawn, a character and an expression” (Gombrich 1960, 339–340).

5 Bremond points out how the ‘teratological’ anatomies of certain characters in comics allow us to pose the question of which bodily organs are absolutely indispensable for the realisation of gestural messages (1968, 99).

6 One type of gazing that may be equally well­-portrayed in dialogue scenes is the characters’ joint visual attention to something. For a reference in film studies, see, for instance, Persson (2003, 68–91).

7 See Baetens (2004) on the depiction of hands in Yves Chaland’s and Jacques Tardi’s works. 8 See, for instance, Persson on visual media and personal space (2003, 109–110). 9 Speakers in real­life speech situations can co­opt almost any physical action conversationally, that is, demonstrate by timing an action with the verbal communication that the non­verbal act has a communicative function (Bavelas and Chovil 2006, 100).

10 E.S. Tan argues that some graphic novels avoid using the schema of facial expressions altogether, “either because it is too explicit, or because the emotions that characters have are too complex to be ‘told’ through the face” (2001, 45). I would argue that narration “through the face” is a matter of stylistic choice rather than a reflection of the story’s simplicity.

11 Kennedy distinguishes actual pictorial runes that are metaphorical, such as the state of anxiety shown by eye spirals, from graphic lines that have some literal intent as they attempt to convey perceptual impressions, such as lines radiating from bright light (1982, 600). Forceville has adopted Kennedy’s term (2005, 2011). In his tongue­in­cheek lexicon, Mort Walker defines em­anata as emanating outwards “from things as well as people to show what’s going on”, such as a character’s “internal conditions” (2000).

12 See also Dürrenmatt’s (2013, 115–127) discussion of how exclamation points, question marks, and ellipses have become autonomous means of description in the medium, especially for expressing characters’ emotions, mental states, and/or silence.

13 Forceville, El Rafaie, and Meesters distinguish a pictogram from a pictorial rune on the basis that an isolated pictogram, such as $ or ♥, has “some basic meaning of its own when encountered outside of comics”, unlike a pictorial rune such as motion lines, droplets, spikes, or spirals (2014, 492–493). They admit, however, that the borderline between the two categories may be fuzzy (2014, 494).

14 Suzanne Covey distinguishes between ‘descriptive’ sound effects, by which she means “words, usually verbs, that don’t attempt to reproduce the sounds they depict” and onomatopoeic words that try to approximate sounds at least to some degree (2006).

15 Forceville, Veale, and Feyaerts include in para­ and quasi­balloonic phenomena the various non­bordered zones of the picture that display onomatopoeia and sound effects (2010, 65). On onomatopoeia in French­language comics, see Fresnault­Deruelle (1977, 185–199).

16 Some examples are discussed, for instance, in Dürrenmatt (2013, 165–167). 17 Compare with Chapman (1984, 18–24) on the difficulties of reproducing speech in written dialogue.

18 Forceville emphasises, importantly, the combined effect of non­verbal signs in comics in the representation of emotions such as anger (2005, 84–85). 19 See Smolderen (2002, 2009, 119–127) on why the speech balloon was rarely utilised as a citation of a character’s speech before Richard F. Outcault’s “The Yellow Kid”. There are important exceptions, however (see the last chapter of this book). Lefèvre discusses the gradual spread of the balloon device in European comics since its final breakthrough in the 1930s (2006).

20 Saraceni argues succinctly that the “function of the tail is equivalent to that of clauses like ‘he said’ or ‘Ann thought’ in reported speech or thought” (2003, 9).

21 Lawrence Abbott’s educated guess about eye movements and the order of reading comics is similar to Groensteen’s suggestions, but Abbott puts the main stress on words and verbal narration (1986, 159–162).

22 Will Eisner’s caution in this matter seems justified, even if eye­-tracking research has made important advances recently: “In comics, no one really knows for certain whether the words are read before or after viewing the picture. We have no real evidence that they are read simultaneously. There is a different cognitive process between reading words and pictures. But in any event, the image and the dialogue give meaning to each other—a vital element in graphic storytelling” (1996, 59).

23 See also Forceville (2013), who discusses some effects of tailless balloons and tails that do not point toward an identified or identifiable speaker.

24 Carrier (2000, 42–43) associates this effect with a page from Joe Sacco’s Palestine , but does not explicate how the effect is created. See also Force­ville (2013, 265–266) on a panel in Régis Franc’s Nouvelles Histoires: Un dimanche d’été , where a substantial number of tails do not point toward any identifiable speaker, thus creating the effect of a palaver where “it does not matter very much who is saying what”.

25 See also Phelan and Rabinowitz (2012, 37–38). 26 In Groensteen’s formulation, the positioning of the balloons in the space of the page creates a rhythm in reading as “each text fragment retains some moment of our attention, introducing a brief pause in the movement that sweeps across the page” (2007, 83).

27 On how pictorial metaphors in the image background may express a person’s emotional state in manga, see Shinohara and Matsunaka (2009, 283–290).

Get the Reddit app

Let's talk about graphic novels – from action-packed adventures to intimate memoirs, from meticulous non-fiction to wild surrealism! Share your favorites, showcase your collections, and discuss the latest graphic novel news!

Examples of Graphic Novels without "speech balloons"

First time posting here, so I apologize in advance if I'm doing something wrong!

I'm currently researching for a graphic novel-related project and I need to find examples of graphic novels that don't utilize "speech ballons" to identify when a character talks. Ideally, I'm looking for examples where dialogues are handled with no graphic indications like lines, arrows, etc, only the words in the page.

Thanks in advance, I hope to become quite an active member here! Cheers!

When Did Word Balloons and Thought Balloons Debut in Comics?

Your changes have been saved

Email Is sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

"A Second Draft in Animated Form:" Robert Kirkman on Adapting Invincible to TV

Line it is drawn: inside out week reveals superheroes' inner emotions, batman, superman and wonder woman unite with bugs bunny in multiversus.

In "When We First Met," we spotlight the various characters, phrases, objects or events that eventually became notable parts of comic lore, like the first time someone said, "Avengers Assemble!" or the first appearance of Batman's giant penny or the first appearance of Alfred Pennyworth or the first time Spider-Man's face was shown half-Spidey/half-Peter. Stuff like that.

Reader Steven H. wanted to know about specifically the history of the thought balloon, when that balloon was designed as a sort of cloud rather than a word balloon, but you know what? While I'm answering that, I should really just detail the history of the speech balloon in comics period.

What we now think of as word balloons probably owe their origins to 15th Century paintings and drawings that had I guess what you would call a "speech band," these sort of tapestries with words on them.

These are courtesy of some amazing research by the great historian about classic cartoons and comic strips, Andy Konky Kru .

From 1404, Konrad von Soest's Altar in Bad Wildungen...

From 1498, Cornelis' "Knight and Death"...

Okay, so that would be the standard for years, but as editorial cartoons became more and more popular in the 18th Century, we began to see the birth of what you would call a speech balloon in a number of British editorial cartoons...

From 1749...

Through the 1770s...

The idea of the word balloon was gaining popularity. However, not everyone liked the idea. In fact, the famous cartoonist, William Hogarth, mocked the idea in one of his cartoons in 1756...

So word balloons pretty much fell by the wayside by the time that the 19th Century began.

This brings us to essentially the introduction of the modern comic strip, which is where these things really came into focus. "Comes into focus," though, is a bit of a key term here in the sense that these things were not exactly clear cut. It wasn't like one guy decided, "Oh, hey, I'm going to have word balloons" and everyone copied him. No, it was a lot more subtle than that and there were all these other minor comic strips running around in American newspapers in the late 19th Century that it is difficult to truly determine which strip should be credited with being the "first" of anything, which is why we have more commonly come to credit the strips that rather POPULARIZED specific innovations rather than necessarily CREATED them. In other words, when the other comic strip artists out there were taking their cues, they were taking them from these innovators, so even if they weren't necessarily the FIRST to do their particular changes to the comic strip form, they were close enough that we might as well give them the credit. It's sort of a twist on the ol' koan, "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" in the sense that "If a comic strip debuts an idea but no one reads it, does it really count?"

In any event, this is a roundabout way to take us to Richard F. Outcault and his comic strip, Hogan's Alley, which told the stories of poor kids in New York City slums. Outcault did not use word balloons.

However, at one point, he had a distinctive poor kid show up in one of his strips...

That kid and his yellow outfit soon became the star of the strip, which was immensely popular at the time.

The "Yellow Kid" had dialogue, but it all went on his shirt...

However, while Outcault tended away from speech balloons, as you can see from this typical strip of his...

He DID have word balloons at times...

And since the strip was so popular, the word balloons likely influenced others. Including one strip that launched around the same time that was probably the birth of many of the modern aspects of comic strips...

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='Enter the Katzenjammer Kids!']

Rudolph Dirks introduced a comic strip in 1897 called The Katzenjammer Kids, based on the classic German children's story, Max and Moritz, about two rambunctious little kids. In the original story, though, Max and Moritz were horrifically punished for their pranks. This twist here, then, is that the kids get away with their pranks...

As you can see from their first strip, Dirks was keeping with the standard approach of the era of no word balloons. However, Dirks soon evolved the strip to the point where not only were word balloons standard, but so, too, were more innovative stuff like dreams balloons...

Plus, Dirks is the guy who came up with thought balloons and making them look like clouds...

It's hard to find examples, but that's the best that I've got.

By the early 20th Century, Outcault had moved on to Buster Brown, which routinely used word balloons...

And pretty much everyone was using them by now, like Little Nemo in Slumberland...

The word balloons and the thought balloons were now solidly applied parts of comic strip culture and they have lived on ever since, especially in comic books. Like in Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's first Superman story in Action Comics #1...

Thanks for the question, Steven!

If anyone else has a question/suggestion for a notable comic book first, drop me a line at [email protected]!

• CBR Exclusives
• Comics Should Be Good
• When We First Met