Combining the rhythms of comics and picturebooks. Thoughts and experiments

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by  Rebecca Palmer

Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics
ISSN: 2150-4857 (Print) 2150-4865 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcom20
Combining the rhythms of comics and
picturebooks: thoughts and experiments
Rebecca Palmer
To cite this article: Rebecca Palmer (2014) Combining the rhythms of comics and
picturebooks: thoughts and experiments, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 5:3, 297-310,
DOI: 10.1080/21504857.2014.926955
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21504857.2014.926955
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JournalofGraphicNovelsandComics,2014
Vol.5,No.3,297–310,http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21504857.2014.926955
Combining the rhythms of comics and picturebooks: thoughts
and experiments
Rebecca Palmer*
FacultyofArts,LawandSocialScience,AngliaRuskinUniversity,Cambridge,UK
(Received 7January2014;accepted15May2014)
The quality of rhythm is intrinsic to the study of both comics and picturebooks.
5 However, the focus of theorists and practitioners carries a different emphasis for
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0 each narrative form, visual rhythm being dominant where the comic is concerned,
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r while analysis of picturebooks focuses on the dynamic rhythm of text and image
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b working in concert. I suggest that this divergence is in part a reflection of a key
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ct difference between the two forms of visual narrative, for a comic is made with the
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private, silent reader in mind, whereas a picturebook anticipates a collective, vocal
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1 reading. Yet picturebooks and comics also share substantial common ground, the
8 combinationofconventionsfrombothformssuggestingfurtherpossibilitiesforstory-
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3: telling. This article offers a study through practice of the potential to create effective
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at newrhythmsforcomic/picturebook crossovers inmyownwork.
y] Keywords:rhythm;pace;musicalsequence;visualnarrative;crossover text
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I Though they have developed as distinct forms of visual narrative, comics and picture-
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ff books clearly share substantial common ground, and often borrow and quote from one
cli another.Infactitcansometimesbedifficulttodefinewithcertaintywhichatextis.Inthe
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R last decades, the academic community has proposed various definitions for both comics
y [ and picturebooks. Building on Will Eisner’s (2008) description of comics as ‘sequential
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d art’, Scott McCloud proposed his now-famous definition of comics as ‘juxtaposed
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d pictorial and other images in a deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/
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nlo or produce an aesthetic response in the viewer’ (1993, 5). Criticism has been levelled at
w McCloud’s definition that questions not only its accuracy in formal terms but also its
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D a-historical nature (Aaron Meskin gives a succinct account of these critiques in his essay
‘Defining Comics?’ [2007]). Other attempts to isolate the essential qualities of comics
havebeenadvanced:someemphasisetheblendofwordandimage(Harvey1979);others,
likeMcCloud,focusontheirvisuallysequentialnature(Groensteen[1999]2007;Hayman
and Pratt 2005); while others again point to historical, commercial and cultural context
(Sabin 2001) as well as commonalities of style (Pratt 2011).
Differencesinterminologyaside,academicsworkinginthefieldofpicturebookshave
generally been in agreement on the basic definition of the form, the interdependence of
word and image being the common denominator and point of difference from illustrated
booksandotherformsofchildren’sliterature(thisdistinctionisclearlyoutlinedbyMaria
Nikolajeva and Carole Scott [2006]). Yet this definition also raises difficulties: what are
we to make of a book that presents a visual narrative without words? Moreover, since
*Email:[email protected]
©2014RebeccaPalmer
298 R. Palmer
comics studies and picturebook studies have come more closely into contact, both have
had to acknowledge that the collaboration of word and image as a distinct narrative
medium is not unique to either form. Recent years have seen a growth in exchanges
between the two areas of research. In 2012, the Children’s Literature Association
Quarterly published the results of a symposium entitled ‘Why Comics Are and Are Not
PictureBooks’,withcontributionsfromexpertsineachfield.Allgrapplewiththeformal
distinctions between them, some proposing a revised taxonomy (Nodelman 2012; op de
Beeck 2012), others preferring to frame their relationship in terms of genealogy (Nel
2012, 445). In speaking of the problematic nature of an attempt to define the essential
characteristics of each form individually, especially in the light of their shared character-
istics, Charles Hatfield and Craig Svonkin refer to Wittgenstein’s notion of family resem-
blancestheoryanditsrecentimpactongenretheory.Wittgensteinsuggeststhat,ratherthan
possessing an essential property in common, related things may be linked by a number of
overlapping similarities (Hatfield and Svonkin 2012, 434). In doing so, they join Aaron
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1 Meskin(2007)incallingintoquestionanyprojectwishingtodrawfixedlinestodemarcate
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r either form. History shows that such lines are liable to provoke artists in any medium to
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b muddle them and cross them, and book artists are no exception (the work of Shaun Tan
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ct being only one much-cited example). But it follows that such perceived parameters are a
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4 prerequisite for transgression: in fact, to work within or against constraints is one of the
8 1 mostfruitfulcircumstancesforcreativethinkingandmaking.InMeskin’sview,theinterest
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3: in identifying what is characteristic and conventional to each form lies in using that
at 0 knowledge tounderstandhow artists use orrefusethem(2007, 376). As a maker ofvisual
] narrative,theinterestformeissimilarlynotinanydefinitionperse,butinthemechanicsof
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ar each form as a structure to adapt and to question in the process.
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r In the context of this essay and the practical experiments on which it reflects, my
nfi attentionwasparticularlyfocussedonthedifferenceandtheoverlapintherelationshipof
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e word, image and reading in comics and picturebooks. Having worked principally on
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cli narratives in comic form, where the words related to the images as dialogue, physically
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a present on the page and in the images in a very different way to the words in a picture-
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[ book,Iwascurioustoseehowthatinterweavingoftextandimage,bothinamaterialand
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b narrative sense, would work in the context of a picturebook. I follow Jane Doonan’s
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e (1993, 9) example in invoking the reader as a key part of the triad from which the
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oa narrativesprings,sincethereaderorreadersandthewaytheyreadseemstometobeone
wnl ofthemaindistinctionsbetweenthetwoforms,namelythereadingexperiencestheyeach
Do imply. The point that all scholarship comparing the two forms returns to is the intended
readership of the picturebook, which is understood by all to be inherently a form ‘for’
children,whetherthecontentissuitableornot.1Althoughpicturebooksmaybereadalone
in solitude and silence, and in fact such readings have their own characteristics and
benefits, as a form it is designed to be shared too, read out loud to or with others.
Editors of picturebooks have described to me how they always test the words to see how
theysoundoutloud.EricCarleascribesBillMartinJr’ssuccessasapicturebookwriterto
thewayhewrotehisstories‘rhythmfirst’,testingoutthemeterbeforecomposingthetext
(Marcus 2012, 71).
Acomic,ontheotherhand,isbestsuitedtobereadinsilence.Comicsseemtoresist
being read out: to do so flattens the dialogue and robs the sequence of its careful timing.
Pace and rhythm is of central importance to both comics and picturebooks, but it is no
surprise, given the different readers and readings they project, that the emphasis for
theorists and practitioners should be on visual rhythm in comics, while the rhythm of
the text as it is spoken plays a vital role in the picturebook, its ‘sayableness’ and
Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics 299
momentum central tothe dynamicrelationship ofword and text (Shannon 1991). Clearly
picturebookscanbeandarereadsilentlyandalone,andcomicsmightequallybereadout
loud.Yetourvariedinteractionswiththemasreadersdonot,Ithink,precludetheirformal
andmaterialadaptationforparticularkindsofreading.Theseriesofexperimentsinvisual
storytelling I present here (Figures 1–8) isthe result of an ongoing curiosity to see if and
howIcouldbridgethatdifference,creatingacomicdesignedtoreadoutloudthatisalso
a picturebook in direct speech.
Following the precedent set by Matt Madden’s 99 Ways to Tell a Story (2005) and
Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in Style (1981; first published in 1947 as Exercices de
Style), which inspired my own series, I set out to choose an incident as unremarkable as
they had done. An event from my own childhood presented itself: bath time. There were
six of us, and as many as possible would often be squeezed into the tub at once. Dad
would come in to dry our hair. He would sing ‘The Grand Old Duke of York’, towelling
your head from side to side, side to side, to the end of the rhyme. The rest of us played
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1 until our turn came. The anecdote presented rich possibilities for investigating the inter-
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r action of visual and verbal rhythms in narratives where image and word are mutually
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b dependent for meaning. I also discovered that the complexity of representing so much
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ct simultaneous activity in the same graphic space stretched my competence in a way that
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4 led to a firmer understanding of the structuring of visual narrative and its unique
8 1 capacities. Lastly, the story describes what Margaret Meek (1987, 21) calls a ‘literacy
3:0 event’ in my own childhood, and as such is useful in that it illustrates very palpably the
at 0 linksbetweentheactive,socialexperiencesthatmakeuptheearlieststageofliteracy,and
] the journey into silent reading at a later stage that seems so much formed by that
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ar beginning. What follows outlines my thoughts in relation to all three. I refer to my
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r drawings throughout, but I intend that they should also speak for themselves. One by
nfi one and in combination, they show one side of this investigation. In writing, I want to
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e examine the other side: my thoughts as they developed in a reflexive relationship with
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cli these experiments in visual narrative, so that the reader can trace their mutual impact.
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a Throughout the series, the rhythm of the nursery rhyme is a constant among many
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[ variables, repeated in each experiment just as it was repeated for every child that got out
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b ofthebath;repeated,infact,asasimplemelodyrecursinaseriesofmusicalvariations,a
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e comparison to which I return. Nursery rhymes have featured in picturebooks since their
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oa earliest beginnings, developed to their full comic potential with the illustrations of
wnl Randolph Caldecott and others since. Introduced into a new narrative context, away
Do from Mother Goose, the rhyme becomes one voice among many here, a strong basic
rhythm under the less ordered cadences of the conversation and noise from the bath. My
first drawings (Figure 1) were very literal, representing and reinforcing the rhythm of the
rhyme with an echoing visual rhythm. I made broad brushstrokes and minimal, quick
drawings of the figures, intending to embody something of the movement and energy of
theactionandunderlinethebeatofthemarchthatisthesubjectoftherhyme.Thequality
of mark-making in a still image can suggest movement very effectively, as the work of
artistslikeQuentinBlakedemonstratessoclearly.Thedrawnlineisanindexofthehand
that made it, which can invest what it represents with its own motion (Atkinson
2009, 271).
Art Spiegelman ([1989] 2011) likes to describe comics as diagrams for conveying
informationgraphicallyinthemosteffective(andaffective)way.ForSpiegelman([1989]
2011; 2004, v), clarity is key to communicating the story, taking precedence over
aesthetics. So that the sequence would read as moment-to-moment action, and match
the pace of the rhyme when sung or spoken aloud, I reduced the figures to the bare
300 R. Palmer
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minimumnecessarytoconveythecharactersandmotion.Drawingthematspeedbrought
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nfi me closer to that economy, whilst also creating a quickness of line that added to the
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e animation of the figures.
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cli What interested me, looking at these drawings on a page together, line after line, was
ad their relationship to musical notation. Both Eisner (2008, 26) and McCloud (2000, 206–
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[ 207)linkthepatternofpanelsonapageofcomicstothepassingoftimerepresentedbya
by musical score. Thierry Groensteen ([1999] 2007, 45) draws a parallel between the ‘basic
ed heartbeat’rhythm‘imposedbythesuccessionofframes’andtherhythmorbeatinmusic.
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oa It is perhaps not surprising that, attempting to show movement that matched the irrepres-
nl sible beat and drive of the rhyme, my first impulse was to make a kind of score. Musical
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o notationisdesignedforinterpretationbythosewhocandecipherandinterpretitasmusic.
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Even as it exists alongside others in the same time and place, as a pattern on the page,
each note is a new moment in time, like the panels of a comic. The magic of dots and
dashestransformedtobecomemusichassomethingincommonwiththewayacomiccan
conjureupcharactersandtheirstories.Theparallelbetweenascoreandacomicservedas
a reminder to me that it is the reading that creates the rhythms. A musical score can be
beautiful in itself but, if we know what it is for, we know that its purpose is to be
translated into sound. The composer’s creation is fully realised only when the musician
interprets the score. The physicality of a comic or picturebook, where what I see on the
pagehasanaestheticaswellasfunctionalquality,candistractfromanunderstandingthat
the point of transition from page to mind is the place where the story ‘happens’. This
makes sense of the idea that a static image on the page can have rhythm or pace. The
rhythms are perceived, they play on the mind’s agility in making associations and its
aptitude for metaphorical thinking (Lakoff and Johnson 2003, 6). If a musical score is
unintelligible to us, the graphic pattern still suggests a rhythm.
Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics 301
QueneauwasfirstpromptedtobeginhisExercisesinStylebyaperformanceofBach’s
Art of the Fugue (Campbell-Sposito 1997, 6). In a fugue, the melody is picked up by a
numberofinstrumentsinsuccession,eachonegivingitsownparticulartoneandcharacter
tothetheme.Thevisualparallelbetweenmyfirstdrawingsandamusicalscoreledmeto
associate the series I was making with a set of musical variations, a useful analogy for
understanding what I do as story-teller.2 I am always pre-occupied by a wish to recount
lived experiences so that they are recognisable and ‘ring true’. Naturally, this leads tothe
temptationtouseawordlike‘capture’todescribehowIgoaboutdoingthat,whichframes
myprocessasakindofuninflectedrecordingoftheworld.ButthestoriesItellareoften
fictional,andevenhere,wherewhatIamrepresentingreallyhappened,theimpossibilityof
simplycapturingitonthepageisevidenteveninmyfirstattempt.Marryingtherhythmof
the nursery rhyme – and the regularity of action that accompanies it – to the haphazard
noise and activity of children in the bath was a challenging task, more so than I had
anticipated. So many elements of text and image must be brought together in a way that
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1 reads simply and clearly, evoking the scene in the mind of the reader with all the
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r immediacy of a pop-up tent. There is more than one form that it could take, variations
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b on the theme that will each bring the scene to life in a different way. It falls to me as
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ct storytellertoorchestrate,averbthatdescribesmuchmoreeffectivelymyeffortstoweave
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4 thestrandsoftheeventtogethersothattheyactonandwitheachother,communicatingas
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8 a whole. It also acknowledges the construction of the narrative, whether it is fictional or
3:0 not. When I tell a story in comics, I want to be ‘a window on something’, as Joe Sacco
at 0 (quoted in McGrath 2004) puts it. I have always thought of myself as effaced in the
] process, because it is the loss of self-consciousness in the intuitive playing-out of char-
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ar actersandeventsthatallowsmetotellstoriesatall.ButSaccoscrupulouslyrevealsitasan
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r activerolebyincludinghimselfasparticipant/observerinhiscomics.Itisimportantnotto
nfi vanishcompletelyfrommyownfieldofvision:youhavetocreateawindowbeforeothers
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e can look through it, and of course it always frames the view from a particular aspect. To
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cli identify myself with the window is to acknowledge that my role as storyteller is itself a
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a construction. The difficulty of representing time and space in two dimensions brings you
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[ up short againstthenecessity to invent structuresthat will invite thereader’s imagination
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b in,andsoevokeeventsmostvividly.Theparticulardifficultyinrepresentingthisbathroom
ed scene ‘in the flat’ also brought me face to face with my capabilities and intentions, with
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oa myselfas director and creator, notconduit ormedium.
wnl Thoughunconsciously,Imusthaveconceivedofmyfirstdrawingsasthebaselineof
Do ascore,intendingtorepresentthechildreninthebathaboveorbesidethatregularactivity
likeanotherstave,inthehopethatthetwowouldreadassimultaneousevents.Figures2a
and 2b show the sequence that was supposed to act in this way alongside Figure 1,
depictingthechildreninthebath,althoughthefacttheyareinabathisnotentirelyclear.I
wrote the text of the speech bubble with a looser rhythm, attempting intermingled
conversations that follow naturally from one another but nevertheless fit a more subtle
meterwhenspoken.Thechangeinsizeofthepanelsandtheirmergingwasmeanttohave
a similar effect, the physical structure of the frames shifting to accommodate the move-
ments of the children.
Unfortunatelythedramaofthehair-dryingandthedramainthebath donotreadasa
whole: visually, there is nothing to connect them, so my attempt to highlight the contrast
in rhythm is quite ineffectual. I was trying to show too much, failing to trust the reader’s
imagination enough. My initial drawings of the hair-drying, in which each tug of the
towelisrepresentedliterallyindirecttransposition,aretoocloseandrepeatedtoooftento
givearealsenseofvigorousmovement.Justasinmusic,certainnotesmustbeaccented:
302 R. Palmer
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d Withoutaccentthereisnolife.Thebeatbecomesmonotonousandwearisome.Musicwithout
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y Conversely, if every note, word or movement is stressed, the result has even less meaning.
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o Every maker of comics knows the importance of identifying which moments to show,
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w leaving the rest to happen in the gutter, as McCloud describes (1993, 64), implied rather
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are invested in what is represented (Gombrich [1960] 1977, 184–185).
(a) (b)
Figure3. Thisfantasy sequencedevelopedfromthepatternofbrush strokesinFigure1b,which
reminded meoftheswingingarmsof thesoldiersintherhyme.©Rebecca Palmer2013.
Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics 303
As well as deciding what would be depicted and what could be left out, I had to
reconsider the quantity of text that I wanted to include. Though they interact with the
panels as a graphic counterpoint to their rhythm, the speech bubbles of Figure 2a intrude
intotheactionandthewordsfixittoofirmlyinplace,distractingandconfusingthereader
by placing emphasis on a storyline that should rather be understood as an incidental part
of the whole. When the activity in the bath is allowed to exist without text, it is more
effective, and I was struck in a new way by the wisdom of wordless picturebooks and
comics like Jan Ormerod’s well-known Sunshine (1981) and Moonlight (1982). These
bookswelcomethekindofsolitarycontemplationOrmerod’ssmallprotagonistisengaged
in at the start of one and the end of the other. However, they are equally effective when
readoutloud:infact,thepicturesinviteyoungreaderstointerpretwhatishappeningand
to give the characters voice. Thus the book is ‘read out’ in the most conversational and
direct way possible, the child reader inhabiting and owning the story and its characters
without any need for speech bubbles.
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1 So we return to the idea of reading a story out loud as a shared experience. Nothing
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r could be nicer than to be read to, or to be told a story: Daniel Pennac (2006) gives a
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b glowingdescriptionofthepleasureandvalueinthat.Buttoparticipateinthestorytelling
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ct is also enjoyable, and valuable, both for adults and children. Much writing on children’s
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4 interaction with picturebooks emphasises their equal, if not superior, perceptiveness in
8 1 interpretingpictures(amongstothersMeek1987,10–11;NikolajevaandScott2006,261;
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3: Arizpe and Styles 2002, 26). The picturebook, with simple subtlety, often addresses its
] at 0 iomblaigveiosutsoathdeulytowunhgorreeaaddesr,thwehmile(Gthiebswonor2d0s,1a0t,c1o0u2n)t.e3rpFoiginutr,ebse4loanngdb6yaasttseomcipattioansitmoitlhaer
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ar interaction.Bothadvancedandearlyreadersaregivenpowertotellthestory,thepictures
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r and words weighing equally in that telling. The words on the page may be supplemented
nfi by many outside it; comments, corrections, extrapolations, supposings…. The book
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e remains the same but each telling is different. Such communal reading reminds me that
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cli the text of a comic is closer to the script for a film or play than to that of a picturebook.
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a Making a distinction between reading to and reading with, as Meek (1987, 26) does, is
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[ key, for, though comics may be ‘well-nigh impossible’ to read to someone, they can be
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b very satisfying to read together. Their visual nature invites a joint pouring-over and
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e pointing-out of detail (Sabeti 2011, 143) and it is only the fact that the pacing takes
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oa place principally through the rhythm of panels that hampers a dramatic reading.
wnl Thinkingaboutthepotentialforacomic/picturebookmeanttobereadthiswayhelped
o me to decide how to proceed with my own variations. Initially I had focussed solely on
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what I wanted to show, my eyes fixed on the transition from the scene in my memory to
the page. But as the series grew, I began to turn my attention on the point of commu-
nication. The page had to convey the scene clearly and succinctly, without muddle.
Pinpointing the essence or core of what I wanted to tell showed the way to certain
forms that would allow me to do so. What was the characteristic of my childhood bath-
timethatIwantedthereadertograsp,theonequalitythatwouldservetobringthewhole
to life? The mingling of many voices, the interruptive clamour and hurly burly of the
family together inthebathroomwas at theheart of it. Ido notknowwhether mywish to
orchestrateitinthiscontextplays outearly fantasiesofcontrol asoneamongsomany in
my family. One memory strikes me though: a car ride, me sitting in the back with the
others, listening to various conversations crisscrossing. Someone asked a question, and
the response from another conversation seemed to answer, the coincidence creating a
hilarious nonsense (to me, at least). Figure 7 shows the sequence that comes closest to
conveyingthissenseofthepotentialcomedyinwhichmanypeoplearebusilyabsorbedin
304 R. Palmer
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Figure4. Usingthevisualrhythmofpanelstoechoandemphasisetheregularbeatoftherhyme.
©RebeccaPalmer 2013.
their own activities in the same space. That comedy is witnessed by the reader, as an
outside observer, but they also participate in it, acting as characters. Read together, the
shortexclamationsandsoundeffectsthatinterrupttheimperturbableGrandOldDukeare
designedtobedecipheredeasilybyearlyreaderssothateveryonejoinsinwiththechaos.
The short-hand drawing and splooshy wash denote the disorder and motion, their econ-
omyclosertothemodeofdrawingincartoonsorcomics:intendedforclarity,maintaining
momentum. The pronounced bow of the towel focuses attention on that action – perhaps
Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics 305
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Figure6. Figures6aand6baredesignedtobereadoneithersideofapageturn.6ashowsaslow
buildupto 6b,adouble-pagespreadof mayhem thataccompaniesthe brisk rhythmof therhyme.
©RebeccaPalmer 2013.