Narration in comics

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What I once thought of as a narratorial mistake on the part of an inexperienced writer actually sheds light on a larger issue of narration in comics.

What got me thinking about narration was a page from David Mack's "Parts of a Hole" DD-mini, in which the sequence of panels has DD narrating a fight he's in a certain remove from the current action, physically and temporally, but then plunges into first-person, present tense. What gave me the most pause wasn't the discontinuity, admittedly, but the clumsily-worded and unnecessary content: "Oh my gosh, I hope I didn't hurt her" or somesuch.

I digress. Discontinuity of this sort I'm sure dates back to at least Miller's run on DD (which is the oldest comic that I've read -- feel free to find older, more influential precedences), and from there, writers play fast and loose with rules of narration. To use an analogue from literature, it's some kind of variation on the free indirect style, but instead of an omniscient third person narrator, we have the first person but temporally removed from the action. The problem I see here is that the distinctions between the now and the remote reflection are often muddy and can contribute to misreadings, or at a storytelling level interfere with the reader's experience.

However, the abrupt, sometimes-unsignalled change between 1st person-now and 1st person-later may reflect the sequentiality of comics, though I don't see how this development could've grown organically from the form itself; rather, it strikes me as a result of lazy (at best), ignorant (at worst) writing.

― Leee (Leee), Wednesday, 30 July 2003 22:12 (twenty-two years ago)

It is neither lazy nor ignorant if done well. The Invisibles often relied on such devices, although not this particular folly. It is in the nature of comics that the grip of pre-determined visualisation allows a looseness in the other aspects of structure - the closure between panels, the direction of dialogue and the chronology are all readily disrupted. I find such devices invigorating.

The first person now to later was used in the movie Casino, when the past-tense voice over abruptly stopped as the character died.

― Judge Mentalist (Judge Mentalist), Wednesday, 30 July 2003 22:30 (twenty-two years ago)

What's the aim of these devices, beyond certain visceral reactions? Is it a kind of tension between graphic and text?

Can you say more about "pre-determined visualisation" -- i.e. aren't the captions as predetermined?

― Leee (Leee), Wednesday, 30 July 2003 22:43 (twenty-two years ago)

It's a tool. No more no less. Is the color green bad or good? Depends on what you're painting.

But like any tool, it can be used as good just as easily as it can be used for evil (or dreck.) Sure, there's lazy use of it, but there's also outstanding use of it that adds depth both to the word and the image.

― Matt Maxwell (Matt M.), Thursday, 31 July 2003 00:05 (twenty-two years ago)

I like it when they go "POW!" and "OOF!" and "Z-Z-Z-ZAP!"

Thank you for your time.

― jewelly (jewelly), Thursday, 31 July 2003 00:12 (twenty-two years ago)

i really loathe narration in comics; it seems like a holdover from some earlier, cruder form of the medium (which isn't wholly true, obviously, as the comics of the 10s thru the 30s were just as advanced, if not moreso, than the comics of the 50s and 60s...but it definitely hit an apex with EC...and certainly took hold with the um slight dumbening of the post-code industry) i also particularly hate the post alan moore "narration as a disguise for the fact that i'm like a real writer, me." and i REALLY hate the use of cutesy fonts in mainstream comics to distinguish between characters interior monologues (for which i guess we have sandman to blame.)

― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 31 July 2003 00:21 (twenty-two years ago)

The reader's internal monologue is one of comics' biggest problems I think. Because comics are dialogue-centered, panels without dialogue (or narration or sound FX) always seem 'silent' which forces the storytelling into a certain mode, even if unintentionally (that mode being 'cool/arthouse/hal hartley') - this is part of why I stopped reading indie comics because the fucking pauses everywhere made them all read the same. Mainstream comics use narration to avoid that horrible silence in the head - personally I prefer a discreet use of sound effects, a la Tintin.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 31 July 2003 10:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh yeah Jess is SO RIGHT about the different-fonts thing. Mousy lower case faux-handwritten fonts in comics are a particular abomination.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 31 July 2003 10:36 (twenty-two years ago)

But Jess is wrong about Alan Moore: he is actually a great innovator of the comic narrative. Juxtaposition, rhythm, contradiction, the order of the panels, visual motifs etc. Watchmen is basically a dictionary of different narrative techniques unique to comics. Actually the abundance of these tricks in Watchmen is so overwhelming it occasionally distracts you from the actual plot. I think Neil Gaiman is more of an "real writer scripting comics": his comics often have long narrative panels, which should never be used if you can illustrate the same thing with pictures.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 31 July 2003 11:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Which his couldn't cos he kept getting saddled with artists like Jill thingummy (and the one who did the Kindly Ones!)

Moore can do narration well, and he can overdo it badly, but his dialogue skills are usually good enough that it doesn't matter too much.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 31 July 2003 11:27 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think Jess meant Alan Moore perpetrated it. Big Numbers made a big song and dance of no narrative boxes.

Destroy: "thinks" bubbles

― Alan (Alan), Thursday, 31 July 2003 11:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Uh, Alan Moore already did.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 31 July 2003 12:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Alan and Alan are fun-haters, clearly. And you a fan of chick-lit Mr T! Where would romance comics be without think bubbles??

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 31 July 2003 12:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Where they are now, IE non-existant. (er, aren't they?)

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 31 July 2003 12:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes because of Alan Moore.

(OK no because of the same things that killed every other genre comic in the 50s)

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 31 July 2003 12:25 (twenty-two years ago)

What you do need in the grammar of images (and words coming from actors in those images), is some sense of who is showing you the images. The narrative box is a simple way of setting the voice of the presented image, how it relates to your viewing (allowing judgements on the perspective, irony, the weight of what's presented). There are other more sophisticated ways of doing this, but they are a simple enough device to grasp. Thinks bubbles are also simple to grasp, but work to different ends. They are a cheap way to tell stories with an omniscient narrator -- if they're the thoughts of the current narrator then a narrative box will do the same trick -- able to present multiple viewpoints at once. Chick lit/romance is better off without such a priveleged position with the thoughts of the protagonists, because it keeps that veil betweem human action and motivation which is the motor of most successful romantic fiction.

I think.

― Alan (Alan), Thursday, 31 July 2003 12:43 (twenty-two years ago)

(Blimey)

― Alan (Alan), Thursday, 31 July 2003 12:43 (twenty-two years ago)

I want to say Tom hates "fun" for making comments re: Jill Thompson & Marc Hempel (so wrong!) but he's talking about Sandman so maybe I should say Tom hates "graphic sequential narratives striving for literary significance".

I like the use of narration via captions in lieu of using poofy thought balloons (speaking of hating fun), but like Matt said (threadkilla style), it's all in how you do it, not so much what you do. Some books seem to use the captions Claremont-style (or whoever-style) - as a crutch to give the events & characters on page some semi-belabored context (cf. "I'm Wolverine. I'm the best at what I do" while he eviscerates some ninjas & rescues Kitty Pryde) (or the time / place / significance - "this is the United Nations; a thirty-ton gorilla dropped from a plane at 20,000 feet will fall through 30 floors" - of setting schtick).

I'm also a big fan of using captions in temporal contrast w/ what's being show (cf. the sequence of shots in _Out of Sight_ w/ JLo & Clooney getting all romantic - they're getting undressed & giving each other googly eyes in the present time while the dialogue is actually of them in the hotel bar in the recent past, dancing through the steps that'll lead them to getting naked) - is Moore the "innovator" in this regard?

What about Will Eisner's part in all this? (Note: I've never read any Eisner.)

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 31 July 2003 13:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Words that only restate what's happening on the screen/panel = dud. Alan Moore didn't create dialogue/narration that runs counterpoint to the image, but he made it a big part of his work.

Screenwriters have been doing this for ages, however. Just that in comics, the trend used to be narration that bolstered the image. Not too many writers used narration in an ironic manner.

― Matt Maxwell (Matt M.), Thursday, 31 July 2003 13:54 (twenty-two years ago)

I seem to recall watching Kubrick's The Killing on TV and fella (probably thingy Cox) was on before it explaining that the intrusive narrations that occur throughout were foisted on it by studio bosses who found the narrative too confusing. I remember laughing at one where it was the equivalent of "Later that night" and the first shot was out of a tenement window on to a night scene.

― Alan (Alan), Thursday, 31 July 2003 14:05 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm uneasy with all these attempts at defining good and bad tools. Some are suited to some things better than others, but most are just weapons in a writer's armoury, to be used appropriately or not, skillfully or clumsily, in fresh or stale ways. I certainly think that Alan Moore went quite a long way to advance the range of techniques on show, and the thoughtfulness and imagination with which they are used. He's not been an entirely npositive influence through no fault of his own but because less talented people have misunderstood him, and adopted some of his less good habits (like too purple prose with forced metaphors) without any of his intelligence.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 31 July 2003 17:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Going back to what Tom said about 'silemt' panels -- surely there's a happy medium b/w dialogue-less panels and talking in *every* panel, which to me is the worst of these two evils because then, the comic becomes a deluge of words in which case you're better off reading a book. There is no break for the images to sink in. I find that bushleague-writers have difficulties tapping into a good rhythm re: dialogue.

― Leee (Leee), Thursday, 31 July 2003 19:33 (twenty-two years ago)

thirteen years pass...

http://i.imgur.com/YZJkt9n.jpg

― Violet Jax (Violet Jynx), Wednesday, 31 May 2017 20:03 (nine years ago)

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