Visual Studies
The Visual Language of Comics
“Comic book, once a one or two man operation in their advents, have evolved from their once formulaic and promotional pasts. Throughout the past century, and before that, image and text have been combined and blended together to create montage, relating narrative to a reader through explicit imagery and text. However, as the medium grows and changes with a maturing readership, more complex and innovative stories are written, by such greats as Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Matt Fraction, and Chris Ware among others.
The question at hand is: How do people actually go about reading comics? Like the words in a sentence, we are able to read the text and image simultaneously, deciphering the inherent meanings that arise from juxtaposition of the two elements. This meaning could be a simply narrative connection, or it can go deeper, making visual puns and achieving symbolism that the reader must notice as they flip through the pages. There is a collective understanding of the visual flow of comics, and artists know that the reader must be guided to the conclusions the artists want them to make.
The goal of this project is to explore how the reader makes conclusions from the reading of text and image, and the processes that go into the creation of the medium.”
Sector C: Art Practice and Technology
Advisers: Deidre Murphy (FNAR) | Jean-Christophe Cloutier (ENGL)