Comic strip analysis
. Purpose
○ Satire or political cartoons
○ Aimed to ridicule
○ May poke fun but tend to be gentler in the treatment of object
○ Primary purpose is to entertain, and not to object/offend someone
or something
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. Structure
○ Cartoons and comic strips are drawn in boxes called panels
○ Panels are arranged in sequences, and read in a linear fashion
○ Space between panels is called as gutter
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. Exposition
○ Text that comes in speech bubbles
○ Tells the story
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. Speech and Thought bubbles
○ Used for internal and external speech and thoughts of characters
○ Have a border
○ Shapes of bubbles is important – rectangular, cloud, etc.
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. Artistic style
○ Comics are drawn purposefully (with intention)
○ Pictures are cartoony/realistic/heavy/light/bright/dark/crispy/
weighty
○ Tool used to draw – Pencil, pen or brush
○ Words describing mood and tine can be used for analysis
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○ Colours and meaning associated with them (symbols of different
colours)
. Caricature
○ People and issues can be simplified, distorted or exaggerated for
effect
. Humorous tones
○ Parody
○ Sarcasm
○ Irony
. Emanata
○ Items like dots, lines, exclamation marks, onomatopoeia
○ Depict action or sound
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. Main purpose
○ Satire:
◆ Mock
◆ Humor
◆ Ridicule
○ Irony
○ Bring out global issue
. Multimodal
○ Different ways in which the author conveys ideas like
◆ Text
◆ Images
◆ Graphs
◆ Maps
○ At least 2 of these should be in combination e.g. if there is text and
○
image in one cartoon, it implies multimodal
. Spatial Mechanics
○ Camera angle
○ Gutter
○ Spacing b/w characters
○ Close ups on faces of characters
○ What element is using more space – character 1 / character 2 /
speech bubble
◆ If equal – equal focus on both
◆ One bigger – dominating attitude (Authority)
◆ Big text box – dialogue is important
. Juxtaposed
○ Contradictory ideas
○ Fire and ice
○ Through text or cartoon expressions
. Display lettering (any text not in word balloon ort not used as a
caption)
○ Character sitting with a book, title of the book is written, that title
is one example of display lettering
○ Protestors have banners which have texts, that text is display
lettering
○ Logo of the company, its text is called display lettering
. Caption – Description outside the panel (Small text below an image in
newspaper, telling more about the image)
. Word balloons – speech bubbles
● PATMID
●
● Language devices
● Presentational device
● Style
● Organization
● Tone
● Mood – conveyed through language, images, color, etc.
● Meaning – how it is brought out
● Splash panel – acts like a title page
● Gutter
● Protagonist
● Foreground
● Background – less significant
● Action
● Expression
● Close ups, camera angle
● Emanate
● Anthropomorphism – Animals depicting human traits like walk on 2
legs, speak
● Speech bubble
● Sound effects – onomatopoeia
● Captions
● Symbolisms
● Punch line – main joke, at the end
2nd:
● Borderless panel – So that attention goes directly at that
●
● Wants to speak
● Using the table to balance himself
● Speech is enthusiastic
● He and his speech occupy most of the panel, showing that it is
important
3rd:
● Teacher and her text bubble occupying most area – hierarchy
● Calvin's only response is "Oh."
● From enthusiastic to sad, immediate change of mood – hence, climax
of the 4 panels
4th:
● No longer enthusiastic, more sad
● Contrast in 1st and 4th panel, seen through text and expressions
● 1st and 2nd have a lot of text, but he speaks minimal in the 3rd and 4th
