Monday, November 8, 2010

Words and Images: Part 2 COMICS


Today, I was perusing through a copy of the California Aggie a newspaper produced by my school at the University of California, Davis. Where by chance I took a glance at the tiny comics section where I was met with a little two panel comic strip that illustrate perfectly how words and images need to be well balance in order for things like comics to work.

Comic strip, NAMES, found at xkcd.com

The comic is simplicity at its more basic form, line drawing. The characters are stick figures and the clothes on the characters are there to indicate status, position or gender.

The comic is actually a focus on the male character’s frame of thought as he stands as a groom next to his bride. In one panel is a close up of his dilemma, where he has forgotten his soon to be wife’s name. In the next scene, the comic book artist has zoomed out, giving the viewer the entire view of him at his wedding with his bride next to him and a preacher just about to announce his wife’s name. As soon as the preacher recites her name, a thought bubble stemming from his figure appears and exclaims “Aha! Rachel!” while this was not the most elegant comic, or even humorous, it does show that words and images have to work together to make some sense. If there were no words, the two-panel scene would be all together meaningless. If it were only words, we would not see too much humor, only a cruel joke. The comic together gives the joke a lighthearted experience not to be taken too lightly.

Read more comics here.

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