Some Medium-Specific Qualities of Graphic Sequences

Abstract

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