Panel Time!

1.5 seconds per panel. That's how long it takes on average for wordless panels to be read.

I recently completed a very exciting study that asked people to read four-panel comic strips one panel at a time. In this "Self-Paced Reading" task, they see four boxes on the screen, and with each button press a subsequent panel appears in the sequence. Only one panel is shown on the screen at a time.

While they do this, the computer records how long it takes them to move from each panel to the next. By manipulating the strip in various ways, I'm able to tell if certain manipulations have a greater impact on the reading from the original "normal" sequence.

I'm not going to go into the intricacies of the experiment (you can wait for the write up for that), but I thought I'd share some tidbits.

For instance, for "normal" wordless four panel Peanuts strips, it takes a person on average 1.5 seconds per panel. The first panel is usually read relatively slow (1.7), the second panel is fastest (1.3), then third is slightly less fast (1.5), then fourth is back to where the first was (1.7).

An interesting side note about this: since all these panels were the same size, yet were read at different speeds, it might imply a rejection of McCloud's claim that panel sizes affect reading time (which thereby somehow affects narrative time). However, this experiment didn't test that specifically, and no alternations in panel sizes nor layouts were given either. So, I can't say anything conclusive about that.

This was a very exciting project for me to complete, because it marks the first time I've (anyone has?) looked at data like this for how people understand sequential images.

Time and The Torch

On this page I found another great example of a page by Jae Lee that defies the "temporal mapping" idea that successive panels are successive moments:

I'm unaware of the full context of the page, but the Human Torch is flying around some big monster of sorts and creates the number "4" (for Fantastic Four no doubt) in his path. Doing so, his path begins by violating a constraint of page layout, entering at the bottom of the page, and then flies over his own path, which crosses a panel he's already been in.

I'm not sure I agree with the analysis given on that blog, mainly because I think appealing to McCloud's transitions and closure only hurts his otherwise fairly good discussion.

Now, I don't want to suggest here that there is not time being shown here, but I think that there are two considerations that need to be reoriented.

First, let's not talk about "time," let's talk about "events." To the human mind time is only an extrapolation of events. Thinking in terms of a clicking-clock type of absolutist Time is not on the same level with the understanding of time constructed in a person's head. From understanding events, we can tell that time passes, not so the other way around.

Second, panels do not necessarily have to equal moments. Rather, panels function as "attention units" grouping important information into meaningful chunks. These chunks don't have to be moments, but they do highlight relevant information in ways that the author intends.

This is exactly the case in this example. The interesting thing is that the flow of events runs counter to the standard reading path of panels in order to create the "4" emblem. If reading left-to-right as if these were independent moments, this would make no sense whatsoever. But, because this display uses image constancy (breaking up a single image into parts... what I'd call a Divisional panel, the understanding of which is what Gestalt psychology would call Closure), the panels only serve to divide up the conceptual space of the image to highlight the Torch at different positions within the space.

Yes, the countering of events vs. panels is a bit funky, but it's also a creative use of playing the two off each other to reveal their functions.


Note: For those more interested in these types of examples about Time, most of these ideas are written about more extensively in my paper Time Frames... Or Not. Attention Units are discussed more in A Visual Lexicon.

Graphic safety for airplane crashes

One of the reasons I've been a bit MIA from the blog lately is because I've been traveling a lot. On one flight, I noticed some interesting things in the safety manual. First, let's look at a section that isn't too bad:



This part shows a nice step-by-step for what to do in the event of increased cabin pressure: how to put on an oxygen mask. Note the "no smoking" sign to the side — smoking with one of those things would be bad. Here, the numbered panels may serve two purposes — it gives a reading order along the "z-path", left-to-right and down, and it also gives an order to the procedure. You need to follow these steps in order to put the mask on correctly.

Comparatively, this one from right below seems very strange:



If the numbers are meant to direct a stage-by-stage process (or even just an order for reading the panels), then perhaps I can paraphrase the overall meaning (and the signs to the side):

"In the event of either a land or water crash, first, African Americans need to cover their heads. Then, blond women need to grab their legs, followed by white men who should force their children down next to them into submission. Lastly, once all the other groups are safe, pregnant women should brace themselves. They're the bottom rung in our concerns."

Ok, so maybe I added a few minor embellishments, but my point should be clear: this sequence has no need of numbers for any purpose. Really, all people should brace themselves as quick as possible in one of these ways, not in any particular temporal order. And, despite that people probably would read it in a z-path anyhow, there isn't any need to read these in the numbered order here either.

I love this example especially because it provides great support for why sequential images are not always a sequence in time. Each of these panels simply shows a different viewpoint of a broader scene. It's a shift in Space but not in Time. Truly, you could rearrange these panels in any order and still maintain the same meaning — clearly a sign that no "time" passes across the panel boundaries.

Time essay analyzed

In Derik's continuing exploration of panel transitions (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), he does an interesting job of dissecting my latest essay "Time Frames... Or Not." To keep things localized, I'll make my responses there, but he seems to have done a fairly thourough job of it. Worth perusing.

Also, Blogger has helpfully decided to add tags in finally, so I'll be trying to work those into all my past posts in due time.

Tim and Time

So, well timed for my new essay, "Time Frames... or Not", on why panels don't equal moments (and time does not equal space), Tim Godek posts this excellent and simple example of a temporal paradox. (I'm not reposting it here because the file size is rather large, so go look yourself!)

Since the three "moments" of the event happen across the same background, a "temporal map" reading would force the foreground figure to be hovering in front of the background, or, the background shifting behind the character. I think that we're forced to reconcile that the person is doing an action that occupies a singular space (i.e. sitting and thinking) while the background does not remain consistent behind that static foreground space. So, either fore/background is shifting or it creates a paradox of temporal progression where we parse the foreground figure in his own "conceptual space" separate from the background.

This also relates back to the "positive/active" versus "negative/passive" elements I talked about in my "A Visual Lexicon" paper. I think what makes this strip work without a "shifting" interpretation is that the Tim character is Active in the sequence compared with the Passive background. So, our focus of attention is held on him rather than on the consistency and oddness of the background.

In either reading, there is something in the content that illicits a "not normal" reading (i.e. moving when sitting vs. static yet background conflict). If anyone finds more of these temporal paradox type examples, definitely send them my way.

New Essay: Time Frames... Or Not

Wow, its been a really long time since I last posted a new downloadable essay. Well, if you've been anxiously awaiting one, today is your lucky day! I've just posted my latest theoretical offering, "Time Frames... Or Not," where I tackle the assumptions that lead to the (false) belief that successive panels equal moments in time. Here's the full abstract:

The juxtaposition of two images often produces the illusory sense of time passing, as found in the visual language used in modern comic books. While this linear sequence may seem on the surface to present a succession of individual moments, the understanding of graphic narrative is hardly so simple. This paper will explore how the linearity of reading panels and the iconicity of images create various assumptions about the conveyance of meaning across sequential images relation to space and time.

Astute and long-time readers of this blog will remember that I mentioned writing this paper way back in January of this year. Its good to finally get it done and out!

Like many, I'll be back to school come Tuesday, so hope you all enjoy the day off!

Thoughts on Time

I've had a couple very interesting (and heated) discussions about "time" with friends recently that might be interesting to share. What had inspired one of these discussions was a book I'd read that implied that human's ability for narrative gave way to ideas of past, present, and future, and thus a sense of time that is unavailable to animals.

My friend, ever the philosophical champion of animals (bless his heart) responded that this isn't the case at all. He noted this example: his cat can watch its prey go behind an object and will know its going to come out the other side, so it goes to the other side to trap it when it comes out. So, since it can predict the result from a starting action, it has a sense of a future, and thus a sense of time.

I disagreed with this categorization, thinking that a conception of "time" as a thing is different from the cause and effect knowledge of events in daily life. He replied that it's just a matter of degree, not kind.

My thoughts right now are that there are two things going on here:

1. The subjective experience of time through the events that happen through during the day.
2. An abstract sense of time as something objective and outside just experience.

Whether it’s a matter of degree or kind, some type of symbolic activity (be it language or otherwise) is necessary in order to move from a conception of the first type to the second.

So, what does this have to do with visual language?

Well, many people believe that panels somehow equate to moments, and that "movement through space is movement through time." I believe that the second belief in time underlies these assumptions. The whole sequence of panels (or just physical space) is looked at as an abstract passage of time in which the actual panels (or internal parts of panels) are seen only as parts that fulfil the expectations of the broader whole.

In contrast, a view of panels akin to #1 focuses only on panels as segments of events. That is, the understanding of panels in sequence is far closer to the experiential sense of events than to an overarching sense of time (as I suggested way back in my Buddhism essay).

Timing

Newsrama hosts the first part of three articles about Time in sequential art written by Joanna Estep. The piece is very well presented, and I like how systematic her analysis is, especially her use of diagrams to push along the theory. It's well worth reading, and I look forward to seeing what her next installments bring.

However, I also want to point out that it makes certain assumptions that are largely passed on from the Eisner/McCloud tradition. Mainly, it holds that "one panel = one moment," which simply isn't the case if you actually look at sequences of images from books (as opposed to just mental theorizing – of which I've been guilty of too). There is nothing about two panels that dictates time is passing – only content that implies temporal succession can yield this result. And, once you see that many panel sequences don't inherently push time along, you realize that problems arise in any linear notions of time across panels.

Following this, it also reinforces the ideas that "spatial distance = temporal distance." I had some thoughts on this like four years ago that I've never really worked into a full-blown paper, but the basic idea is that panel sizes create a rhythmic structure for reading. To really see if this is true I'd need to do eye-tracking studies though…

I'll hopefully be posting an essay I've been working on about Time myself sometime soon, but till then my old essay Visual Syntactic Structures (and book Early Writings...) delves into these things for anyone interested.

Update: I now see that Timing Part 2 is posted too. Again, worth reading, but continues the assuptions in McCloud that "reading time = fictitous (i.e. mental) time." I'm also curious why she includes her "hierarchies within images" as being related to time, since she doesn't measure any increase or decrease thereof. I agree with this: I don't think foregrounding is related to time at all, though I do think its related to distinguishing things like who is the focused actor and who is subsidiary.

Update #2: Timing Part 3 is up now, rounding out the articles. This one is about the integration of text. I'm not sure what real relevance it has for the understanding of Time after stripping away the assumptions I talked about above, but she certainly has some interesting things to say about composition and reading orders. Go read.

Musings on Time and Space

One of the papers I’m currently writing is about how “time” is understood across sequences of panels. Scott McCloud’s basic position on this is that “time = space,” so moving through space means that time is passing in graphic form. I have numerous problems with this, but more than anything it has made me question why this equation might be made.

I’ve been particularly into Benjamin Lee Whorf’s writings, who argued that the language we speak affects the way we think and perceive reality. A class on this "lingustic relativity" in college is what basically motivated me to study the relationships between linguistics and “comics” in the first place.

Whorf argues that the tense system found in most European languages is what (in part) has created our sense that time is a linear thing. Because we have a past, present, and future tense, it lines up all events in a row. He makes similar arguments to the extant that we create a sense of “space” out of our quantifiers and plural system that relates back to our understanding of time.

So, this begs the question: Will the people who speak a language without a tense system (like Hopi, as Whorf shows) have a different manner of conveying concepts graphically? Would their visual languages lack sequential events entirely in favor of something else more amenable to their spoken language? Would this make the visual langauge grammar dependent on the concepts from the spoken, or can both exist with different systems of conveying events?

This is one of the most fascinating possibilities for research I think: whether the language one speaks affects the language that one draws. In some ways, this is the question that a lot of my work is leading up to. All in good time I suppose...