Critical Terms for Comics Study

Panel: Sometimes called frame, this is the area within which an image, text, or
combination of the two appears. Note that panels need not have distinctly-drawn borders.

Gutter: The space between panels, usually referring specifically to the gap between two
adjacent panels.

Tier: A horizontal row of panels.

Layout: The arrangement of panels on a page. See Composition.

Composition: The arrangement of material within a single image. Every panel has its
own composition, therefore; and the layout of a page can be seen as the composition of
the page as a super-panel.

Grid: Any regular arrangement of uniformly-sized panels.

Splash (Splash page): A single image that fills the page.

Double-page splash or double-page spread: A single image that fills two adjacent
pages.

Balloon: A conventional device for representing speech, thought, and occasionally other
sounds or even reactions (such as a question mark to indicate puzzlement). Usually
balloons are solid enclosures around text and they usually have tails or other directional
markers to indicate who is speaking. Balloons to indicate thought are often depicted with
bumpy, cloud-like edges, whereas spoken words are typically enclosed in smooth oval
shapes. A balloon drawn with a dotted line instead of a solid line usually indicates a
whisper.

Caption: Any text not located within a balloon or, if it in fact represents a character’s
speech (such as would ordinarily appear in a balloon), a de facto balloon that is not
attached to a visible character.

Sequentiality: The arrangement of elements in a particular order. In comics, the

sequentiality of images frequently corresponds to the passage of time, though the rate of
time’s passage can vary in dramatic or subtle ways.

Juxtaposition: The placement of images or other elements of a page near each other.
Juxtaposition is closely related to sequentiality, therefore, though a phenomenon such as
the page turn (which see) does not depend on juxtaposition for its sequential force.

Closure: The interpretative process of filling in the gaps in meaning between juxtaposed
panels or images. “Observing the parts but perceiving the whole,” as Scott McCloud puts
it (Understanding Comics, p. 63). See Transitions.
Transitions: The kinds of movement from panel to panel or from page to page. Scott
McCloud identifies six main types of panel-to-panel transition:

(1) Moment-to-moment (e.g., an eyeblink. Panel 1: Eyes open. Panel 2: Closed)

(2) Action-to-action (e.g., pitching a ball. Panel 1: The windup. Panel 2: The pitch)

(3) Subject-to-subject (e.g., a shift in point of view within a single scene. Panel 1:
Person A on the telephone to person B. Panel 2: Person B on the telephone to Person A)

(4) Scene-to-scene (e.g., the familiar “Meanwhile . . .” caption in the second of two
panels separated in space, or a “Later” caption in the second of two panels separated in
time by more than a moment)

(5) Aspect-to-aspect (e.g., different areas within a single scene. Panel 1: The desks of
a classroom. Panel 2: The view out the classroom window with the window still visible)

(6) Non-sequitur (e.g., any incongruous or otherwise obscure juxtaposition. Panel 1:

A sandwich. Panel 2: A samurai)

Line: Chiefly, the quality of an artist’s rendering of outlines, though every line that is
drawn contributes to the general aspect of an artist’s “line,” which is somewhat analogous
to a writer’s “voice.” Hard to define in the abstract, but easier to describe in particular
cases, such as “Carol Lay has a bold, precise, variable line” (where “variable” refers to
calligraphic variation between thick and thin portions of a curve) or “Craig Thompson
uses a lush, almost sloppy brush line” (where “brush” identifies the tool he uses to apply
the ink; the difference between lines produced by brushes and by pens is often evident).

Spot blacks: Patches of solid black shading. These need not correspond to optical
realism in terms of lighting sources and shadows; often, spot blacks are employed for
emotional effect or to balance the composition of a design.

Cross-hatching or hatching: The use of criss-crossed parallel lines to create the

impression of shading and tones.

Page turn: The term I use to describe the gap between the last panel of a right-hand page
and the first panel of a left-hand page (in Western comics; for manga and other comics
produced in accordance with certain Asian reading conventions, the handedness is
reversed). Artists may make use of the page turn to surprise the reader in some way,
though an over-reliance on its rhetorical force may produce a deadening or even comical
effect.
 Citing Passages in Comics

If you want to cite a detail from a particular panel in a comic, first give the page
number on which the panel appears, then add a period and the number of the panel (or
panels) with no spaces on either side of the period: e.g., 12.1 (for the first panel on page
12), 36.4-7 (for panels 4 through 7 on page 36). It is easy enough to quote text, though
note that it is conventional in citation to reformat the frequently all-caps texts used in
comics as mixed type using capitals and lowercase letters as in ordinary prose. Quoting
images is more difficult, and in effect you will have to describe any images that you want
to cite as part of your argument. Do not assume that your reader will have the work at
hand for convenient consultation of the page reference, but give enough of a description
to be intelligible and to provide the details necessary for your argument. The accurate
and persuasive description of panels will itself be an index of the overall accuracy and
persuasiveness of your interpreation of the passage (i.e., if you describe something
inaccurately, that will be evidence of a misreading, whereas a subtle description will be
evidence of close and careful reading).