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Visual Framing: From the Line to the Multiframe

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Frames and Framing in Documentary Comics

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels ((PSCGN))

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Abstract

Approaching comics as a visual language, this chapter addresses the textuality of comics, both concerning cues for particular frames (i.e., a drawing style referencing a particular genre or period) and as framing techniques that structure the reader’s gaze by inclusion and exclusion of particular elements (i.e., through cartooning, perspective and composition, and page layout). Documentary graphic narratives operate in a mode of tension between naturalistic and abstract styles; the chapter demonstrates how both are used for particular emphases and to facilitate different types of realism. The multiplicity of co-present images on the double page determines that each panel is framed by the panoptical vision of its surrounding elements, which presents a unique environment for documentary framing. The chapter examines how, by juxtaposing particular images, meaning is created beyond the sum of its parts, disruptions are performed, and how visual cues guide the interpretation of the represented events.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Neil Cohn, however, stresses that comics “are not a language, but they are written in a visual language of sequential images” (2013, 2; original emphasis).

  2. 2.

    While there is some dispute concerning the most befitting terminology for the creators of comics, this study will address them as either author, artist, or cartoonist, depending on which aspect of their work the current context focuses on. The creators discussed here work as single authors of both the verbal and the visual text, whereas for works that involve a division of labor, further differentiation will be necessary.

  3. 3.

    With the focus of this study in mind, McCloud’s point may certainly be understood as referring to naturalistic, rather than realistic art.

  4. 4.

    Groensteen stresses the difference between “multiframe” and “hyperframe”: while the latter specifically corresponds to and is determined by the materiality of the page, “the multiframe does not have stable borders, assigned a priori. Its borders are those of the entire work … The multiframe is the sum of the frames that compose a given comic—that is, also, the sum of the hyperframes” (2007, 31).

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  1. English and American Studies, University of Flensburg, Flensburg, Germany

    Johannes C. P. Schmid

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Schmid, J.C.P. (2021). Visual Framing: From the Line to the Multiframe. In: Frames and Framing in Documentary Comics. Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63303-5_4

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