Comic Strips

In McCloud’s document, he describes another form of communication through time frames in comics. In a world where perception of time is hard to judge, comic book authors manipulate several characteristics of the strip to accentuate several aspects of time. Some tools authors use is stretching out the boxes in horizontal length, this works by forcing the eye to spend more time on that particular frame which in turn stretches out the time. Other clever tools that writers use is the shape of the box, certain shapes evoke a particular response from the readers such as exclamation or tension for non standard frames. Splitting a large frame into several smaller frames allows the reader to understand the events in the order that it happens. For instance when a large frame is introduced, we are unaware if the events are sequential or instantaneous. A large strip can contain a lot material in the sense of activities going on. By breaking the frames up , the reader would be able to follow the path of words sequentially. This is much different than most standard media content such as the television where time is measured the same as it is in reality. There is no rule on comic book frame calibration for time; therefore writers have such articulate ways to help demonstrate time.