tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195867192010-03-10T18:01:42.796-05:00Studying the visual language of "comics"Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.comBlogger338125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-59049733038034422572010-01-25T13:17:00.003-05:002010-01-25T13:17:00.361-05:00

I've posted every now and again about a convention in comics that I've called "action stars", where a whole panel is replaced by a star shaped "flash" that essentially represents "event happens here!" but doesn't show that event. I've likened this to being like a pronoun in the visual grammar, since it can replace the Peak events of the sequence, just like a pronoun can replace a noun (or noun

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-17782294094198933962010-01-19T12:03:00.001-05:002010-01-19T12:16:29.067-05:00

Patric Lewandowski offers this video lecture of his attempt to define comics, based on his earlier column from Comixtalk. He covers a lot of ground, meshing numerous memes of comics theory. Ultimately, I do disagree with most of his points, for reasons I've described elsewhere**, but it's at least interesting to see him present it all together, and I do like that other people are at least trying

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-55888619505423308992010-01-12T06:51:00.000-05:002010-01-12T06:51:00.392-05:00

One of Scott McCloud's more wacky inventions is the game Five Card Nancy which is based on the old comic strip Nancy. The basic premise of the game is that you can create lots of different (and fun) novel strips by combining random panels together. Scott recently posted an old collage he did that led to the game.Of immediate note in his collage is that the sequence doesn't exactly make much sense

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-69066221961883801712010-01-04T10:47:00.002-05:002010-01-04T13:57:18.887-05:00

My friend Alex sends along this link to a gift pack of "storycards". Basically, you can use these cards in sequences to create lots of different novel stories. The idea is similar to McCloud's Five Card Nancy game.I'm interested in it for a few theoretical reasons. For example, having a stock set of units that can be combined in different ways is similar to language, where you have a set of words

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-75035005649878742372009-12-24T04:19:00.002-05:002009-12-24T04:26:35.547-05:00

Okay, one more status update then we're back to some real posts... My brainwave study has nicely concluded and I've now moved on to analyzing the results. Things look fantastic, so I'm very excited about working to get these written up and submitted to a journal in the coming months. This whole project has been a very long one: 1.5 years making stimuli, 7 months running the experiments, probably

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-56795452802647816552009-11-30T23:34:00.004-05:002009-11-30T23:44:53.045-05:00

Unfortunately blogging has had to take somewhat of a back seat lately, as my workload has been just crazy. At the end of this week I should finish running participants through my brainwave study using comics, though I can already confirm that the results are just fantastic. I think I can confidently characterize how the brain processes narrative sequential images, and its really quite exciting (

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-70143722993589472712009-11-15T23:40:00.002-05:002009-11-15T23:40:00.087-05:00

I've frequently heard it said that every panel in a comic has to connect to every other panel. I've tried to go about showing the problems with individual transitions or McCloud's closure, but I have yet to tap into this issue on the blog. Potentially, this could be at least somewhat the notion behind Groensteen's ideas of braiding and arthrology. "Restrained arthrology" says there are meaningful

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-36776149193420871222009-10-28T17:38:00.003-04:002009-10-28T17:44:28.610-04:00

So, today marks a minor milestone for me, as I ran my very first study of comics looking at people's brainwaves. The image here to the right is from that first participant, and each of the lines is of a different type of sequence that we are experimentally testing.So, what does this tell us? Absolutely nothing. Yet.Data from one participant doesn't say much, but give me a few more weeks and these

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-14192835292852087412009-10-20T10:45:00.001-04:002009-10-22T18:34:28.057-04:00

Adventures in Cartooning is a fun and creative book by James Sturm and two of his graduates from the Center for Cartoon Studies, Andrew Arnold and Alexis Frederick-Frost, and published by First-Second.It is designed as a how-to create comics book, though the lessons almost wholly come in narrative form as the Magic Cartooning Elf and other characters discuss the properties of comic creation while

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-54894418412965032882009-10-08T13:19:00.003-04:002009-10-08T13:51:58.553-04:00

Duncan, Randy & Matthew J. Smith. 2009. The Power of Comics. New York: Continuum BooksThe Power of Comics is a recently released “first textbook ever” for “comics studies”, authored by Randy Duncan and Matthew J. Smith (book website here). Perhaps to be expected from a book on the general “comic studies”, it includes a broad range of topics, from the history of comic books to comprehension of the

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-89609107782741267552009-10-01T01:11:00.004-04:002009-10-01T01:32:07.385-04:00

Derik has a short post that makes a nice note about how understanding of individual panels is sometimes conditioned by their context in a sequence. I think this is a very important point that is well illustrated by his example. Sometimes, understanding of the elements in an individual panel relies on the information in other panels. Most all cultures and individuals have little trouble decoding

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-87416969236403745172009-09-29T01:15:00.000-04:002009-09-29T01:16:00.136-04:00

Kukkonen, Karin. 2008. Beyond Language: Metaphor and Metonymy in Comics Storytelling. English Language Notes 46 (2):89-98.This paper from the literature point of view explores meaning-making in comics, particularly from metonymy and metaphor. It argues that the "semiotic" approaches of European comics scholarship that dissect parts into structrualist "minimal units" are insufficient to capture

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-35622373038619329312009-09-18T11:15:00.005-04:002009-09-18T12:07:35.568-04:00

These are a couple great articles by Brent Wilson about how children in different cultures learn to draw, particularly contrasting the Japanese with other cultures. Both articles contain more extensive discussions that I'll mention here, only focusing on some of the highlights...Wilson, Brent. (1999). Becoming Japanese: Manga, Children’s Drawings, and the Construction of National Character.

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-69762816809914817602009-09-12T01:04:00.005-04:002009-09-29T01:19:02.538-04:00

As long as I'm recharging a bit for future blogging and managing my preparation for the new semester here at school, I felt I should at least devote one blog post to shill for the new website my father established for his paintings. He's put up numerous works of his along with essays about them, including this one below which hangs in my home. Most of my family is highly creative in various

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-33475936664502833222009-09-06T23:56:00.003-04:002009-09-07T00:00:58.058-04:00

I have unfortunately been remiss in blogging lately. I actually just got back from an intense 8-day long Soo Bahk Do martial art test (not to mention the month and a half intense training preparing for it), and am just now reintegrating into "normal life" (if you can call what I do "normal")... This week is the start of the Tufts school year, which will excitingly feature my teaching of a class

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-88341747976343632752009-08-26T12:32:00.001-04:002009-08-26T15:39:30.222-04:00

Often times when I give talks, especially concerning layout or the visual grammar of sequences of images, one of the questions inevitably says something along the lines of "But, there's no guarantee that the reader will view a page in the proper order." The high variability of possible choices or readings of a comic page makes it hard for them to accept a steadfast theory of comprehension.However

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-51440670733843088742009-08-20T12:36:00.010-04:002009-08-20T14:38:29.263-04:00

Abstract Comics is a new collection of non-representational comics by a variety of authors, including my esteemed blogging colleague Derik Badman. Besides being a beautifully done work of artistry and imagination, among particular crowds it spurs the question "If these are comics, then what 'are comics'?"To this end, the book (and the nature of the contents in general) makes a good conversation

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-79898378656217312122009-08-11T17:55:00.000-04:002009-08-11T21:08:00.102-04:00

In my last post, I discussed some traits of this quote by Chris Ware found from this blog post“I don't like to think of my work as 'cinematic.' A movie is passive -- you're watching it, taking it in. Where a comic strip, it's completely active: you have to read it, search it for meaning, for the connection with your entire experience and your memory. Yes, you do have the illusion of watching

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-2967843130290869642009-08-02T14:38:00.000-04:002009-08-02T14:38:00.742-04:00

Dash Shaw writes an interesting post delving into the "cinematic" nature of comics that explores thoughts from authors like Chris Ware with many insightful quotes.Relevant to some of this discussion might be that some believe comics to have predated the film techniques. Or, the idea that this is a competence versus performance issue — that film uses the same mental structures as comics, just with

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-78390254176739400062009-07-20T10:36:00.002-04:002009-07-20T10:47:58.541-04:00

Masahide Yuasa, Keiichi Saito,Naoki Mukawa. 2006. Emoticons convey emotions without cognition of faces: an fMRI study. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. April 22-27, 2006. Montréal, Québec, CanadaRelated to the previous post on a testing of McCloud's "Cartoon Identification Theory" on cartoony vs. realistic images in the brain, here's a study using fMRI (brain scans) to look at

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-15463369663024627962009-07-14T08:54:00.005-04:002009-07-14T11:43:54.005-04:00

I am excited to say that my panel at Comic-Con next week should be a fun one. I'll be on the Comics Theory panel in room 30AB on Thursday at 11:30. Here's the official description:11:30-1:00 Comics Arts Conference Session #2: Comics Theory— Dru H. Jeffries (Concordia University) argues that Zack Snyder’s film 300 mimics the form of comics by manipulating film styles, particularly slow motion.

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-20628229860568781652009-07-07T11:55:00.003-04:002009-07-07T14:59:09.031-04:00

A few months back I recorded an interview with WGBH Boston that has finally come online:They went with the "not just for kids" lines a bit, but it was a quick tantalizer into my work I thought. The most challenging thing I thought was how fast it was. We had a number of topics we wanted to hit, and only 5 minutes to do it with no editing. So, that meant everything went by very fast. Enjoy!

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-88441986603549040742009-06-25T10:25:00.000-04:002009-06-25T10:29:06.791-04:00

Christiansen, Hans-Christian. 2000. Comics and Film: A Narrative Perspective. In Comics and Culture: Analytical and Theoretical Approaches to Comics, edited by A. Magnussen and H.-C. Christiansen. Copenhagen: Museum of Tusculanum Press.This paper attempts to draw from film theory to inform the understanding of the comic medium. He discusses things like film shots/cuts, etc. especially in light of

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-1005697139461482152009-06-16T10:24:00.001-04:002009-06-16T10:29:47.355-04:00

Oop, looks like I forgot to post a couple weeks ago on 5/31 that this website hit its 7th birthday! Whoohooo  — belated celebration!Not much time to blog these days. I'm currently running an extensive experiment that has gone through numerous rounds of troubleshooting, so that's occupying most of my time. If this design works though, I'll be dancing around campus in amazement. I'm also finally

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19586719.post-60578162686624078442009-05-27T00:00:00.000-04:002009-05-27T00:00:00.714-04:00

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of giving a talk at the University of Toronto about my theories of visual language hosted by the Knowledge Media Design Institute. They have now posted this talk online to be viewed in full (beware, it's quite long) on their website.If anyone is really interested in just what my theory entails overall, this is definitely worth watching. It lays out the basic

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705933006220475644noreply@blogger.com0