Comics storytelling 24: Movement

Alright, this is the next Dark Knight Returns page, and as you can see, it depicts the young Bruce Wayne falling down the "rabbit hole" he fell into on the previous page.

First, look at that first panel, the one depicting the actual fall. It is a rather high panel, going from the top of the page down to the bottom of it. It is also rather narrow compared to its height, increasing the feeling of height. And as the previous panel was drawn out downwards and to the right, this one goes up a bit from the 4 x 4 panel-grip Miller uses, up to the very top of the page – thus establishing, sort of, a connection with the previous page, and emphasizing the height element.

Second, look at all the SKREEs below Bruce in that first panel. They're the sounds of the bats milling about in the cave. I suppose you could borrow a semiotic term and call them "signs" for the bats. Anyway, they're establishing a position for those bats, setting the stage for the next panel, where Bruce is below them having landed – "OOF!" – and then reacted to his landing – "Aaj!!". So you have two moments being depicted in this one panel; keep that in mind as we're later going to move into analyzing how time is depicted on this page.

Third, in panels 3 and 4, the Bats fly lower, almost colliding with Bruce. Note the bat shapes in these panels – they emphasize that the SKREEs really depict bats, and that the bats now are really "in Bruce's face". This impression is reinforced by the more intense red color in these panels, and the intensity is increased in panel 4, where the SKREEs take up more of the panel and are more chaotically intermingled with each other, leaving less free space in the panel. This increased intensity is reflected in Bruce's speech, with the boldened "bort!" ("away!") – he begins to shout because he's more stressed out.

Finally, in panel 5, we see much fewer SKREEs, indicating that there are fewer bats remaining. Those SKREEs are also decreasing in size – the two lower ones are smaller than the top one (and we know that the come after the top one because we read pages from top to bottom) – indicating that the remaining bats are also moving away from Bruce, as sounds sound weaker the further away from us they originate.

(Did I mention that Miller is a master storyteller? This is really brilliant stuff.)

One more thing: The final panel of this page, like the final one on the previous page, extends off the 4 x 4 panel grid outwards to the right and downwards. However, in this case that isn't to indicate movement; instead, it is a larger panel simply because it is a momentous moment in Bruce Wayne's life, and the increased size of the panel depicting that moment simply reflects the increased importance of that moment.

(We'll be returning to this page later on for some analysis of how time works in panels, looking at the splitting up of a picture into four panels and comparing it to pressing four pictures into one panel.)

Comics storytelling 23: Movement

I'll be coming back to the "time" theme in this series of posts on storytelling in just a while, but first, we'll do the lead-in to those examples, and it happens to give us the opportunity to look at some storytelling dealing with movement (or rather, the illusion of it, since we're in reality just looking at inert pictures on a page).

This is from Frank Miller's brilliant Batman – Dark Knight Returns, which remains one of the high points of the superhero comics genre. A retired Bruce Wayne/Batman sleeps a fitful sleep as recent events, such as increased gang violence, have taken a toll on his peace of mind. He dreams about the events that led up to his choosing to become a "bat" after his parents' death. (Note the shadow of the bat crossing the moon as Wayne sleeps; it reinforces the near-mythological interpretation of Batman's origin that is about to be presented, as if the bat is somehow connected with his dreams.)

Anyway, young master Bruce is out on the manor's grounds with his parents, running after a rabbit. The rabbit escapes into a hole, and Bruce doesn't want to give up the chase – whereupon the ground gives way, and he falls into the suddenly much larger rabbit hole.

And now comes the clever part: This sequence is at the bottom of the page, so the final, larger panel expands to the right and downwards, out from the 4 x 4 panel grid that is established as the standard in the story. By doing that, Miller draws the reader's eye further to the right and downwards than it would otherwise have gone, and thus creates the illusion of movement to the right and downwards, reinforcing the reader's impression that young Bruce is, indeed, falling down the hole.

This is in itself would be enough to establish Miller as a master storyteller, but it is only the beginning – as we shall see in the next installment of this series.

Comics storytelling 19: Speech characteristics

Well, more on sound – speech, to be precise – and its characteristics. Here, we have an example of incessant talking, with Charlie Brown making the mistake of asking Lucy for some chatter. He gets more than he bargained for, as denoted by a) the lack of space between the words in Lucy's speech balloons, indicating that she not only speaks very fast, but doesn't even seem to need to breathe in occasionally; b) the size of her speech balloons, completely dominating her panels. In fact, by having the second Lucy panel's balloon being larger than the first, almost crowding out even Lucy herself, Charles Schulz gives the reader the impression that far from tiring, Lucy is even stepping up her speed-talking effort. (This is of course reinforced by her not looking the least bit winded in either of the panels.)

Like I said previously; a master at his craft.

Comics storytelling 16: Panels & distance, 2

More on distances. In this "Zits" strip, Jeremy looks to make a reaaaallllly long shot, and the distance from him to the hoop is emphasized in the same manner as in the "Mutts" Sunday page, by letting the distance stretch out all across the width of the strip.

By making the figures of Jeremy and Hector relatively small, perspective is used to further emphasize how far away from the hoop Jeremy is.

But – and to draw this back to the point I've been making repeatedly in this series – that's clever, but not even half the joke. The rest is supplied by Hector's nonchalant attitude.

Hector's relaxed body posture, bored facial expression, and the fact that he can't even be bothered to look when Jeremy makes his attempt – plus his dismissive comment, "If you make this shot, I'll have a heart attack" – all signal the impossible distance in a manner that's consonant with what the clever trick with the panel's length is telling us. The clever storytelling enhances the point, but without Borgman's & Scott's excellent artistic skills, the joke, resting just upon the panel-width trick, wouldn't be near as strong as it is.

Storytelling 11: State of mind

As everybody knows, Zero is the good-hearted but a bit slow country boy in Beetle Bailey's outfit. Here he is, early in the morning, not-quite-awake yet and thinking he's got to go out to milk the cows.

Now, you could make this a joke about Zero being so stupid that he actually believes that he's got to go out and milk the cows, but that wouldn't be particularly funny. First of all, it would be a cruel sort of humor that Mort Walker doesn't resort to, and second, it wouldn't work anyway as that would go against the character of Zero as it has been established in the strip for well over half a century.

So how does Walker go about making this a credible, not-cruel gag? He emphasizes that Zero is still not quite awake, and that that's why he's preparing to go out and milk the cows as he always does at home.

First, the setting tells us about it being so early in the morning as to be practically night. Beetle is in his bed and undressed, which signals sleeping time (of course it's necessary for Beetle to be in his bed and out of his clothes, as Beetle sleeping isn't in itself much of a signal that it's nighttime). Note also Zero's state of undress. He's taking his jacket on outside his undershirt; clearly he's just gotten out of bed.

Beetle's line in the second panel also helps set the stage, by reminding (or informing) the reader that Zero's from a farm, which explains why he suddenly feels so duty-bound to milk cows.

And finally, the clue that tells the reader that Zero's groggy with sleep: Look at his eyes, in both panels. They're half-closed, and not exactly focused; in fact, the don't even line up properly. (Also, the little bubble-like round things behind his head in the first panel is a classic comics marker that somebody is groggy, tired, drunk or a little bit crazy.)

You may think that the gag isn't all that strong, but the backing it gets from the meticulous storytelling nevertheless makes it work.

Storytelling 10: The unknown threat

I'm a fan of Chad Carpenter's Tundra strip. This one is a variant on the "the character is unaware of something" sort of joke that was also exemplified in our first installment in this series. Carpenter tells his whole story in one panel and with only one character, but the basic premise is the same: the reader is aware of something the character is not, and the basic humor emanates from that.

Carpenter spruces up the gag a bit with the character's line – the "nibble" he felt is clearly a massive understatement in relation to the giant bite that just led to the disappearance of not only his fishing buddy, but the entire rear half of their boat.

(Note the hat from the fishing buddy floating in the rubble – it is there to inform you, the reader, that this isn't some crazy person talking to himself but rather a normal person who simply doesn't know there's nobody left to listen to him.)

Storytelling 9: Time and words/speech balloons

Time and pacing are important aspects of comics storytelling. Usually, in humor strips, you go for a snappy last panel with the punchline. Here, the point of the gag is Jeremy sitting half-dozing at the table for a very long period of time. This is shown by having the events of the day pass by in the background, but also through the impossibly long balloon where the word "trött" ("tired") is drawn out over no less than 24 hours.

So here creators Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman use two modes to convey the how tired (and bored) Jeremy is: the passage of time in the background, and how he draws out the word "tired" – and half the joke is that he just couldn't do that in the real world. His mother's "maybe you need more rest" just adds a nice touch of (likely unintended – by her, not by Borgman and Scott, of course) irony.

Storytelling 8: Symbolism and mystification

Under deadline pressure (funny how that builds up when you're sick), so just a quickie look at a classic: the guy hanging on for dear life to branch that is the only thing keeping him from a steep fall.

Here, the father in "Zits!" is in a very precarious situation, so we have a mystification – how the heck did mild-mannered, sedate Walter wind up in that position? (We also get the added thrill of a familiar comics situation; Sarge winds up hanging from that branch at very regular intervals, so how is the "Zits!" team going to resolve it?)

Turns out he's not in that position at all, it's used to symbolize him being overwhelmed – in this case by groceries – and not getting any help from Jeremy, who's engrossed in something and wearing earphones preventing him from hearing the father's pleas for help. A nice depiction of a not-too-uncommon occurrence in many households – the parent's feelings of abandonment are nicely overdramatized for comic effect, but not to the point where it loses the recognition humor. I wouldn't be surprised if this strip went up on many fridges all over the world.

Storytelling 7: Mystification

Back to looking at storytelling techniques again. This time, an example of "mystification" from the excellent "Zits" by Jim Borgman and Jerry Scott.

I call this technique "mystification", because it presents the reader with a riddle, a mystification, and the gag is the explanation in the final panel for this apparently inexplicable behavior or situation.

In this case, Jeremy returns home – in panel #1, we see him slamming the door of his car, giving us the valuable information that he has just arrived wherever he has just arrived. In panel #2, we see his mother sitting on the chimney, which informs us that he has apparently arrived home. We also see them exchanging normal son-mother greetings – "Hi mom.", "Hello Jeremy" – so apparently Jeremy's mom sitting on the chimney isn't particularly weird to either of them. Why on Earth is that so?

We have our mystification, and in the final panel, we get the answer: Jeremy's friend Pierce is visiting, and he can't find his snake. He has even, as he tells Jeremy, asked Jeremy's mother if she's seen it.

Now we see why the strip had to have that initial panel of Jeremy arriving home. It was necessary to have Jeremy just arriving to the house, otherwise he would have known that Pierce hadn't found his snake yet. And it was necessary for him to ask Pierce about that, because that is what prompted Pierce to divulge that he had asked Jeremy's mother – which is what resolved the mystification for the reader!

Borgman and Scott well and truly know their craft. I doff my hat in their general direction.

Storytelling 6: More loud yelling

I'll have more to say on this (probably using Frank Miller's "Daredevil" as an example) but here are the basics: comics use visual cues – like size and shape of balloons and size and shape of letters – to reveal the qualities of sound – like how loud it is. Generally speaking, the fatter and bigger the letters, the louder the sound. We already know that "Sarge" in Mort Walker's "Beetle Bailey" is a loud man; let's watch him prove it:

Note how not all the letters in Sarge's yelling are visible. Why not? Because they're so big that there isn't even room for them in the panel! Ergo, they have to be very loud, don't they?


…Or do I mean VERY LOUD?!!

Storytelling 5: More on sound

In our exploration of sound in the comics panel, we once more look at the storytelling skills of Mort Walker. This time, it's about telling us something we didn't realize about the qualities of an everyday object.

Lt. Fuzz thinks Cookie should be wearing a helmet, and Cookie reveals that he's already wearing one – in a drastic, immediately-understandable manner that will let the reader make the connection immediately. The joke hinges on the use of Cookie hitting his chef's hat with the soupçon to make an immediately recognizable metallic sound ("BONG"); if the reader would have to read Cookie's whole line explaining that "this hat is made of metal", the joke would fall entirely flat. As so often in humor, it's mostly about timing, and the visual shortcut is what makes the timing work.

(The joke is also dependent on another quality of comics: the cartoony way the hat is depicted lets Walker get away with suddenly springing the "it's metal" joke on us. In real life, it would be obvious pretty soon that Cookie's chef's hat wasn't exactly normal, but a cartoon doesn't give enough detail and realism for us to recognize that – which is why we don't react with a feeling that we've been cheated: "Hey, no fair! We would have noticed long ago if that hat was made of steel!")

Storytelling 4: Loud yelling

Here, Mort Walker plays with established comics language – or perhaps established comics semiotics, if we want to be more precise and pretentious. Beetle and Killer decide to try to fool Sarge into believing that he's losing his hearing, so they "talk" soundlessly.

Sarge responds equally soundlessly in panel 5 – but Walker uses enough established comics symbols for "loud yelling" to convince them – and us readers – that his response is, in fact, louder than loud. And yet, he only needs to use two (or perhaps four) symbols for "loud yelling" to give us that impression – in spades.

First, there's Sarge's face. He a) looks angry and b) his mouth is open wide. Hence, we "know" that he is yelling angrily. Second, there's his word balloon. It is c) drawn with a heavy outline, which is an established symbol for loudness – perhaps the outline needs to be heavier and stronger to be able to contain all the loud words in big, fat letters? – and it is also d) very large, which is necessary to make room for all those big, fat letters.

Two more things support the impression of loudness given to the reader. In the preceding panel, the scowling look on Sarge's face indicates that he is both on to the soldiers' scheme and not pleased about it, and in panel 5, the hasty exit by Killer and Beetle supports the notion that Sarge is now so angry that the smart thing is to not stick around – and one indication of how angry somebody is is of course how loudly they are yelling at you.

Brilliantly done, and very funny.

Storytelling (3) and your cellphone

Quick note: I've gone over to English to accomodate a couple of American friends. We'll see how long it lasts.

The use of pictorial language to denote emotion and/or tone of voice is hardly new in comics storytelling. "Astérix", for example, excels in it. Especially when it comes to depicting the character of sound, it is very innovative because it uses once sense modality – vision – to depict another – sound/hearing.

The creators of "Zits", Jim Borgman and Jerry Scott, are often visually creative in their storytelling, and here they have melded two concepts – the modern-era free choice of different ringtones for different people and the use of visual language to connote personal characteristics – in an innovative and quite funny manner.I'd say that "Zits" is probably the brightest spot on today's comics page.

(Also note that it isn't just different sounds that Brogman/Scott are depicting with their iconography, but also the somewhat more abstract concept of personal characteristics.)

Berättarteknik 2

Vi tar ytterligare en titt på berättarteknik, återigen med "Knasen" som exempel, och återigen med ett nytt element som tillförs i den sista rutan och som ger svaret på en fråga (den här gången explicit) från den första rutan.

Fänrik Fjun skäller ut Schassen stående i en tunna. Varför? Därför att alldeles strax kommer Otto farande för att hugga honom i benen.

Den här strippen kunde ha gjorts utan Knasens och Jägarns medverkan. Poängen förblir densamma. Däremot är de viktiga för att tydliggöra poängen. Utifall att läsaren inte tillräckligt uppmärksammar och förundras av att Fänrik Fjun står i en tunna i första rutan – den förundran som är själva förutsättningen att det ska ligga någon poäng i slutrutan – är Jägarn med för att peka ut detta underliga faktum för läsaren, och Knasen kan sedan förklara varför i slutrutan, om det nu är någon läsare som inte förstått det. I vårt förra exempel var frågan inte uttalad, varför Knasens replik i slutrutan fick anpassas till detta, men det är den alltså här.

Nu kanske någon van serieläsare och allmänt uppmärksam person tycker att det är onödigt med förtydligandet, och att skämtet skulle vara roligare om det fick stå för sig självt.  Men håll då i minnet att "Knasen" publiceras i dagstidningar för att snabbt kunna uppfattas av läsare som skummar igenom seriesidan för att bli roade snabbt och enkelt. Knasen och Jägarns repliker är helt enkelt en återförsäkring att skämtet ska vara klart och tydligt även för den som inte är van "Knasen"-läsare och kan alla relationerna mellan figurerna utan och innan. Och som vanligt när det gäller Walker lyckas han med den uppgiften på ett utmärkt sätt – tydlighet är en dygd när man måste kämpa om det redan knala utrymmet på seriesidan.

Berättarteknik

Seriekännaren Janne Lundström hade en gång en artikelserie i tidningen Knasen där han analyserade humorn i olika Mort Walker-serier. Artikelserien hette "Det roligas teknik" och visade just olika tekniker för att vara rolig i seriestrippform. Senare samlades den i en bok, som rekommenderas – fast ni får nog fjärrlåna den via ert bibliotek, för den är inte så vanligt förekommande antikvariskt. Mitt ex får ni alla fall inte låna, för jag hittar inte igen det – trots att jag nyligen lagt ner en ohemul massa tid på att sortera mina seriealbum. (Mutter.)

I all anspråkslöshet tänkte jag göra något liknande här på bloggen, men jag slog tanken på att låna titeln från Lundströms artikelserie och bok ur hågen, för jag kommer knappast upp i hans expertisnivå. Det fick bli "Berättarteknik" i stället. Därmed blir jag ju i och för sig fri att även ta upp exempel på berättarteknik från serier som inte är humorserier.

Mycket i konsten att vara rolig i strippformatet handlar om att införa en överraskning i sista rutan. Ett sätt kan vara att utvidga synfältet i den sista rutan och visa en detalj som läsaren inte var medveten om. Ur kontrasten mellan läsarens förväntan (eller brist på förväntan) föds humorn.

I Knasen-strippen nedan förs det oväntade elementet inte in genom att man vidgar perspektivet, utan genom att det helt enkelt traskar in från vänster. Det är en ilsken björn som kommer in – och att han kommer in från just vänster är en viktig poäng, för med vårt västerländska lässätt från vänster till höger innebär det att vi kommer att läsa av det här bildelementet innan vi ser Knasens kommentar till höger i bilden. Eftersom läsarens förväntningar inte har byggts upp på något särskilt sätt inför slutrutan ger inte björnens intåg heller någon speciell komisk poäng. Poängen måste därför komma från Knasens replik, och ligger i att Schassen i realiteten helt plötsligt inte får titta någonstans, varken upp eller ner. Olikt modellen där humorn föds ur något som läsaren inte känner till och plötsligt får avslöjat föds den alltså här ur något Schassen inte känner till – och som han helst heller inte bör få veta.

Om vi skulle berätta det här skämtet på ett alternativt sätt, genom att expandera slutrutan för att plötsligt avslöja ett redan existerande björnhot för läsaren, skulle det kunna se ut som följer:

1. Schassen hänger vid stupet, och Knasen ropar åt honom att inte titta ner... och förresten, inte titta upp heller.
2. Schassen ifrågasätter vad sjutton Knasen menar egentligen.
3. Slutrutan zoomas ut för att visa anledningen till att Knasen ger så konstiga instruktioner.

På det sätt Walker valt att göra i den visade strippen slipper han den mittruta som behövs för att skapa den förvirring som den expanderade slutrutan ska förklara, men det nödvändiggör också att han lägger in Knasens replik för att skapa poängen. Det är väl inget problem egentligen, men läsarens "aha!" fördröjs den bråkdel av en sekund som det tar att ta in Knasens replik.