Comics Studies with Sharika

If possible, include moments in your storytelling that slow down the narrative and induce a feeling of serenity upon the reader I was searching through Pinterest when I came upon this particular page from the manga Horimiya: Page from Horimiya by HERO and Daisuke Hagiwara (Square Enix) In the example above, we see the two characters — Souta and Yuna — walking beside one another in the first panel, glancing away as if unsure of what to say or do next. The absence of other artistic elements draws our eyes to the pair alone. The vertical panel arrangement on this page then guides us downward to a close-up of Souta’s hand slowly taking hold of Yuna’s. This close-up conveys the tenderness of the gesture. Because these panels contain few artistic elements that may otherwise be distracting, the reader’s attention lingers on the moment, thereby creating a sense of warmth. Notice how the middle two panels move at a slow pace, allowing us to both see and feel the softness of the hand-holding. Th...

The way we present a comic — how we style panels and present the artistic elements within them — plays a profound role in its overall narrative "volume" Recently, I came across these words by comic book artist Chris Ware from Paul Gravett's website*. He is referring to his work,  Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Kid On Earth  (Pantheon, 2000): Mostly, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I guess at some point I realised that the basic tools inherited as a cartoonist just seemed inadequate to express a real sense of what it feels like to be alive, that there’s a sort of a ‘volume level’ always set at ‘ten’ in most comics that reads and feels like shouting or screaming, and has a sort of intensity to me that doesn’t feel ‘real’ in a way a good and carefully considered novel strives to feel. I guess I consciously tried to tone down, or quiet down - or even essentially sterilize - the approach that I was taking so that the surface of the comic strip, or the drawing of it, would have very...

Note:  This post is part of my ongoing pre-doctoral exploration into how panels communicate emotion and narrative flow in comics. Here, I’ll examine how composition and placement shape the reader’s emotional experience using an example from Noragami by Adachitoka. How do we decide how and where to place certain elements that are relevant to a panel? Once the artist has decided on how to lay out the panel, where to place it within the page, and how much room each panel needs to take, it is time to decide how and where to place various relevant artistic and textual elements within each panel in such a way as to drive the narrative forward – visually and emotionally. In the example below, taken from a page in the manga Noragami, we see the main characters Yato and Hiyori interacting with one another. The first panel displays a close-up drawing of Hiyori, perhaps to show the reader that she is blushing and feeling embarrassed, which in turn helps the reader understand her feelings as ...

Comics help convey a narrative through time, space, emotion, and rhythm Comics have existed as a tool for visual storytelling for many years. They are used for entertainment as well as educational purposes. It is interesting how comics function — telling stories through a collection of panels, all arranged sequentially and purposefully, to guide the readers' eye across the page, and by doing so, visually narrating the story to them. Apart from standard guidelines, comics don't have a particularly established style or format. It all depends on the artist who decides how to lay out panels, whether to add colour, or even text, to tell a story. For example, Western comics often use vibrant colours in their pages, still or dynamic panels, and familiar styling of speech bubbles and lettering. This is evident in many popular comics of today that are published in the US, and even in countries such as India. In the example below, taken from Archie Sonic Comics, the panels follow a layou...