Introduction

Design Resource

The Grammar and Vocabulary of Comics

The linguistics of Comics

Saurabh Singanapalli

IDC, IIT Bombay

Introduction

• How do you read comics?
• How do you understand comics?

As a visual medium, comics are unique in the sense that they form flowing narratives through the use of a sequence of static images, often supported by text. But then, how does the reader understand the narrative in comic books? According to Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics (1993), the real message in comics lies in the space between panels, what he calls the “gutter”. It is the way in which the writer/creator handles these transitions that eventually allows the reader greater or lesser control over the interpretation of the narrative. In other words, he calls transitions between panels the grammar of comic books.

McCloud defines six transitions from one panel to the next:

•Moment-to-moment
•Action-to-action
•Subject to subject
•Scene-to-scene
•Aspect-to-aspect
•Non-sequitur

Similarly, McCloud identifies words, pictures and icons as the vocabulary of comic books. For him, the “icon” is the key unit that forms this vocabulary of comics. Semiotics has long studied signs and what they signify, and McCloud applies this knowledge to form a basis for the language of comics. If we draw a parallel with linguistics (the study of language in speech and writing), where words and sentences are the basic building blocks, we can see that comics also have their own building blocks, which go beyond just words and images alone. In written and spoken language, you make meaning through words and through the structure of sentences (which is the interrelationship between words), and this is what we call syntax and semantics in linguistic terms. But the rest of the media also have their own syntax and semantics. How do these work in the case of comics?

To answer these questions, this article, borrowing heavily from McCloud’s views mentioned above, seeks to describe and present various aspects of the grammar and vocabulary of comics, supported by examples from a range of existing comics. It is hoped that his will be helpful to anyone studying comics or even, to some extent, for those studying visual narratives in general.

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The Grammar and Vocabulary of Comics