Explore how time and movement is represented in the comic form and the role played by image and text in achieving this?
Comic authors use strategies to communicate a sense of movement and time in each panel (Duncan & Smith, 2009b, p. 139). Looking at Art speigalman’s Maus, a comic book that subverted stereotypes of mainstream comic book culture through its profound literary expression, we can observe these techniques at play (Ducan & Smith, 2009a, p. 1). The body language and posturing of characters in Maus, including gestures and more subtle changes in facial expressions is used to show how they are moving through space (Ducan & Smith, 2009b, p, 134, 144). As these body movements shift from panel to panel, it creates a sense of motion, much like how films are animated through changes in each frame (Duncan & Smith, 2009b, p. 136). There are a number of conventions that comic books share with the making of films. Similarly, the positioning of a panel, like in film, panning, tilting and tracking movements create pathways of movement, up and down, zooming and out or following an object through space (Duncan & Smith, 2009b, p. 144).
In Maus, we also see how time is portrayed in comic books. The author is aware of how a reader interprets stretches of time in each panel, paying attention to how long it takes to perceive the image and text, or how the reader projects their own notions of the time it takes to perform actions or contemplate presented something in a thought balloon (Duncan & Smith, 2009b, p. 138). A panel with little detail and words generally tends to speed up the time, splash panels which are loud and punchy are often used to indicate a single instant in time (Duncan & Smith, 2009b, p. 138). Interestingly in Maus, the authors uses time stylistically and symbolically, juxtaposing the past and present, for example a Nazi from the war peering out of the corridor at the author interviewing his father in the present day.
Bibliography
Duncan, R., & Smith, M. J. (2009a). Defining comic books as a medium. In The power of comics: History, form and culture (pp. 1-13). New York: Continuum.
Duncan, R., & Smith, M. J. (2009b). Creating the story. In The power of comics: History, form and culture (pp. 127-147). New York: Continuum.