The visual language of comics: introduction to the structure and cognition of sequential images

240 Pages·2014·10.313 MB·English

by  Cohn, Neil

The Visual
Language of
Comics
ADVANCES IN SEMIOTICS
Semiotics has complemented linguistics by expanding its scope beyond
the phoneme and the sentence to include texts and discourse, and their
rhetorical, performative, and ideological functions. It has brought into
focus the multimodality of human communication. Advances in Semiotics
publishes original works in the field demonstrating robust scholarship,
intellectual creativity, and clarity of exposition. These works apply semiotic
approaches to linguistics and non-verbal productions, social institutions
and discourses, embodied cognition and communication, and the new
virtual realities that have been ushered in by the Internet. It also is inclusive
of publications in relevant domains such as socio-semiotics, evolutionary
semiotics, game theory, cultural and literary studies, human-computer
interactions, and the challenging new dimensions of human networking
afforded by social websites.
Series Editor: Paul Bouissac is Professor Emeritus at the University of
Toronto (Victoria College), Canada. He is a world-renowned figure in
semiotics and a pioneer of circus studies. He runs the SemiotiX Bulletin
[www.semioticon.com/semiotix] which has a global readership.
Titles in the Series:
Buddhist Theory of Semiotics Fabio Rambelli
Introduction to Peircean Visual Semiotics Tony Jappy
Semiotics of Drink and Drinking Paul Manning
Semiotics of Religion Robert Yelle
The Language of War Monuments David Machin and Gill Abousnnouga
BLOOMSBURY ADVANCES IN SEMIOTICS
The Visual
Language of
Comics
Introduction to the Structure and
Cognition of Sequential Images
NEIL COHN
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway
London New York
WC1B 3DP NY 10018
UK USA
www.bloomsbury.com
Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published 2013
© Neil Cohn, 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or
any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the
publishers.
Neil Cohn has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be
identified as Author of this work.
No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining
from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury
Academic or the author.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-4411-7451-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cohn, Neil.
The visual language of comics : introduction to the structure and cognition of sequential
images / Neil Cohn.
pages cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4411-7054-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-4411-8145-9 (pbk. : alk.
paper) -- ISBN 978-1-4411-7451-2 (ebook (pdf) : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-4411-8324-8
(ebook (epub) : alk. paper) 1. Semiotics--Psychological aspects. 2. Visual literacy.
3. Comic books, strips, etc.--Psychological aspects. 4. Sequence (Linguistics)
5. Cognition. 6. Psycholinguistics. I. Title.
P99.4.P78C64 2013
302.2’019--dc23
2013018690
Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN
This book is dedicated to my best friend, John Pacheco

CONTENTS
List of figures xi
Introduction xv
1 Introducing Visual Language 1
What is “visual language”? 3
The structure of visual language 7
Outline of the book 13
SECTION 1 Structure of visual language
17
Concern #1: Panels are not arbitrary signs 17
Concern #2: There is no systematic lexicon of panels 21
2 The Visual Lexicon, Part 1: Visual Morphology 23
A visual lexicon 23
Open-class lexical items 24
Combining schemas 28
Conclusion 33
Closed-class lexical items 34
Bound morphemes/affixation 34
Suppletion/umlaut 44
Reduplication 47
Conclusion 48
3 The Visual Lexicon, Part 2: Panels and Constructions 51
Regularity in panels 51
Suppletive panels 52
Panel-level templates 53
Panels as attention units 56
Visual language constructions 59
viii CONTENTS
Multimodal constructions 61
Conclusion 62
4 Visual Language Grammar: Narrative Structure 65
Three ideas for sequential image comprehension 65
1. Panel transitions/linear coherence relationships 66
2. Promiscuous transitions 67
3. General cognitive scripts and schemas 68
Conclusion 69
Basic narrative categories 70
Peaks 71
Initials 73
Releases 73
Establishers 74
Prolongations 75
Orienters 75
Summary 77
Constituent structure in visual narrative 78
Modification 83
Summary 86
Discourse and Film 87
Conclusion 88
5 Navigation of External Compositional Structure 91
The challenge of page layouts 91
Variations in ECS 92
Comprehension of ECS 94
Constraints on external compositional structure 95
Embedding structures 100
Descriptive tree structures 102
The infinite canvas 105
Conclusion 106
6 Cognition of Visual Language 107
Graphic morphology 107
Motion lines 108
Carriers 109
CONTENTS ix
Narrative grammar 110
Narrative categories 112
Separation of structure and meaning 119
Constituent structure 129
Visual narratives and brains 133
Fluency 134
SECTION 2 Visual language across the world
137
7 American Visual Language 139
Graphic structure 139
Mainstream American VL: “Kirbyan” 139
Cartoony American VL: “Barksian” 141
Independent American VL 143
Art versus language 144
Morphology 147
Narrative grammar 148
Languages versus dialects 151
8 Japanese Visual Language 153
Graphic structure 154
Morphology 156
Narrative grammar 159
Differences in visual language grammars 163
Influence in Japan and abroad 166
Transmission of visual language 168
Language contact 170
9 Central Australian Visual Language 173
Cultural role 174
Graphic structure 175
Spatial orientation 176
Lexicon and morphology 179
Static signs 180
Dynamic signs 185
Narrative grammar 187
Erasure 188