Comic Book Glossary: Transitions, Part 2

Welcome to a new installment of Comic Book Glossary! One of the aims of the Comics Cube! has always been to help out the newer readers who may be interested in, but aren't all that knowledgeable in comics, and one thing everyone needs to know if they're interested are the terms. Click here for the index!

Last week, we talked about the three most often-used transition types in comics. Now, we'll look at the other three transition types that aren't so widely used.

The moment-to-moment transition is like action-to-action, except that it comprises more moments and shows the action slower. So, for example, where an action-to-action transition may show a guy about to throw a punch in one panel and actually throwing the punch the next, the moment-to-moment transition would show each stage of the punch being thrown. Here's an example from Alex Toth's rare Batman work. From a certain perspective, this may look like action-to-action, but consider that most artists would probably omit the third panel, and it becomes moment-to-moment.

The aspect-to-aspect transition is one where a bunch of panels take place in one given moment. In this one-pager by Art Spiegelman ("Don't Get Around Much Anymore"), he shows a person's apartment and the various things in it. Each panel takes place in the same moment as the one before, and with this technique, he shows us the entire apartment unit. (On a side note, take note of the fact that each caption refers to the previous panel, which causes some disorientation.)

These two transition types are seen rarely in American and European comics, but very often in Japanese comics. A part of the reason is that manga is just typically produced in larger products than American and European comics, but another reason is just cultural. Western culture is very goal-oriented, while Japanese culture very much emphasizes the journey over the destination. Here's an example from Osamu Tezuka's SWALLOWING THE EARTH, which could be either moment-to-moment or aspect-to-aspect, dependingon whether or not time is passing within these panels.

The final transition type is the one least-used, pretty much anywhere and by anyone. This is the non-sequitur, where the panels in sequence don't have any sort of logical connection. This is used mainly usually in experimental comics, and quite honestly, the only comic I can think of that actually uses it to service a longer narrative is the adaptation of PAUL AUSTER'S CITY OF GLASS, by Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli. In this sequence, Peter Stillman is narrating the backstory of the book. Stillman's not exactly all right in the head, and Karasik (who did layouts) and Mazzucchelli (who actually drew it) expressed this by attributing his speech to various non-sequitur materials.

I'd be hard-pressed to think what else the non-sequitur could be used for.

These definitions are, once again, from Scott McCloud's UNDERSTANDING COMICS!

Gateway Comics: TOP TEN by Alan Moore, Gene Ha, and Zander Cannon

If you want to buy your friends a comic book for Christmas, there's one comic I can always recommend.

In all my years of reading comics, I've tried getting friends and acquaintances alike to at least appreciate the medium I love so much. And there are some comics that just don't work as gateway comics — they're too entrenched in history, they fail to blow the reader away, they don't really show anything special right off the bat, or whatever other reason — but there is one comic I've found has always worked and has always amused people, entertained them, given them a good story, and made them want to read more.

That comic? TOP 10 by Alan Moore, Gene Ha, and Zander Cannon.

The concept of TOP 10is very simple, and provides the hook right off the bat. TOP 10 focuses on Precinct 10, the police precinct in a city called Neopolis, where everyone has superpowers.

Moore's inspiration for the series was the TV show NYPD Blue, and I think it's particularly inspired to make everyone a superbeing in the city because it prevented the cops of Precinct 10 to function as really just another superteam. This way, it's their personalities that shine, not their powers.

So it's actually structured a lot like a cop TV show, where certain characters exit a scene at the same time others enter. It's episodic, with running subplots but also with full stories in each issue. And there's a wonderful balance of seriousness and humor, as we try to examine what living in this city would really be like. As you can imagine, it leads to a lot of absurdity, and even if it's serious on the page, we the reader can laugh at it.

For example, the racial minority in Neopolis are Ferro-Americans, or robots. The derogatory term for them is "clickers." They have "scrap" music instead of rap music, where their "homes" are "ohms." And when Joe Pi, Ferro-American, has to deal with bigoted Shock-Headed Peter, hilarity ensues.

There really isn't a main character in the book, and it's all about the group dynamics of the characters and the actual short stories they get caught into. And they're doozies.

For example, they have to deal with a murder at the Godz bar. The case? The death of Baldur, setting the mythological tale in a modern cop setting.

They have to deal with their version of a car collision: a teleporter collision. (In addition, this is one of the most touching 22 pages I've ever read.)

Dust Devil's mom has a vermin problem, but of course, in Neopolis, the mice are superpowered. See if you can spot Mighty Mouse and Danger Mouse.

And in terms of the art, Gene Ha and Zander Cannon kill it. I've said that it reads like a TV show, and that's good for fans unaccustomed to the comics medium, but it does utilize exactly one technique that only comics can fully utilize: packing a panel, as Harvey Kurtzman did. And in a city full of superheroes, you can just imagine, there are a lot of inside jokes and Easter eggs. In fact, they were there from the first panel of the first issue. 

From ads about Wolverine's healing factor to Superman's phone booth changes, the first page of TOP 10 is already visually stunning. Add to that some renditions of some familiar characters, changed to fit the world of TOP 10 (and to avoid copyright infringement problems). From the aforementioned Mighty Mouse:

To Spaceman Spiff, from CALVIN AND HOBBES:

To just about every Roman-themed character you can find, from Asterix to Marvin the Martian:

Hell, even to the Hamburglar:

Well, I'm not going to show you everything! Part of the fun is finding them!

TOP 10 was popular enough even with a minimal amount of advertising that they were able to put out a four spin-off series. The two that were written by Moore are SMAX, illustrated by Zander Cannon:

And THE 49ERS, illustrated by Gene Ha:

SMAX is a more hilarious tale, and Cannon's cartoony style fits it nicely. It involves two of Precinct 10 returning to one of their homeworlds, which is a fantasy adventureland. So instead of getting superheroes in the background, we get things like trolls and white rabbits. Here's two trolls dealing drugs.

THE 49ERS is more serious, and Ha's wash-tone artwork suits it, as it details the origins of Neopolis. Just to sell you, spot Bluto.

I would completely avoid the spin-offs not written by Moore. TOP 10: BEYOND THE FARTHEST PRECINCT by Paul DiFilippo and Jerry Ordway just falls flat and doesn't feel organic, while TOP TEN SEASON TWO, by Zander Cannon and Gene Ha was ridiculously shortchanged by DC in that it seems we will never see it come to an end.

Having said that, I wouldn't give any of these books to a kid under the age of 14, so buy at your own risk. If you ARE over the age of 14, then buy it now, I say!

Comic Book Glossary: Transitions, Part 1

Welcome to a new installment of Comic Book Glossary! One of the aims of the Comics Cube! has always been to help out the newer readers who may be interested in, but aren't all that knowledgeable in comics, and one thing everyone needs to know if they're interested are the terms. Click here for the index!

Last time, we discussed a gutter, and how the reader interaction with comics comes from it. Today, we'll discuss some of the transitions that take place in those gutters. Scott McCloud defined six main transition types in UNDERSTANDING COMICS (essential reading for those who want to know more about the technical aspects of the medium), and we'll look at three here.

The most often-used transition type by any storyteller is the action-to-action transition. This is pretty self-explanatory. It's when you show one character doing something in the course of two panels. This is essential for anyone who wants to tell a story properly. Case in point: Wonder Woman flips Superman, drawn by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez. (Read my analysis of the execution of this scene here.)

The next most used transition type is subject-to-subject. This is when you keep things in the same scene, but the subject of the panel changes. Obviously, this is important to keep the scene interesting (especially, I'd argue, when people are talking).  Here's a sequence from THE ESCAPISTS, written by Brian K. Vaughan and drawn by Steve Rolston.

And the next most-used type is the obvious scene-to-scene. Unless your story all occurs in one place and no one moves (it's happened), the scene has to change. Here, you've got Steve Ditko jumping around the Marvel Universe for an opinion on Spider-Man (note the lack of borders, although the gutters are implied, to show a montage effect).

Comics can and have been told using just these three transition types. But what if you want to achieve another effect? Say, a larger sense of place, more buildup? Well, next time, we'll look at the three scene transitions that are used significantly less!

Thanks to Scott McCloud and UNDERSTANDING COMICS for his definitions!

Comics Techniques and Tricks: Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez

Welcome to another edition of Comics Techniques and Tricks, in which we showcase techniques that only comics can do! Click here for the archive!

In THE MANY WORLDS OF TESLA STRONG, Alan Moore and a host of artists take Tom Strong's daughter Tesla on a tour around the ABC Multiverse.

On one such planet, she meets a superpowered counterpart named Tesla Terrific. The artist for this particular sequence is Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez. Here's a page.

Take a look at just how dynamic that page is.  And now look at how cool the technique actually is. Tesla Terrific is looking off the screen in panel one. In both panels 1 and 4, Tesla Strong is looking right at the same image of Tesla Terrific. Note how you can view panel 1 on its own, and panels 1 and 4 as an actual full-page drawing. The panel borders from panels 2-4 serve to control the rhythm of the page.

The trick is repeated with that big drawing of Tesla Strong from panel 4. Look at how Tesla Terrific waves goodbye to her from just outside panel 6 while Tesla Strong is flying off in panel 6, but if you look at the page as a whole, it kind of looks like Tesla is also waving goodbye to the Tesla Strong in panel 4.

That's dynamic!

Comic Book Glossary: Gutter

Welcome to a new installment of Comic Book Glossary! One of the aims of the Comics Cube! has always been to help out the newer readers who may be interested in, but aren't all that knowledgeable in comics, and one thing everyone needs to know if they're interested are the terms. Click here for the index!

Last time, we discussed what a panel is. All right, you know that space in between two panels? That's called a gutter, because, well, it looks like a gutter.

From NEW TEEN TITANS #38, by Marv Wolfman, George Perez, and Romeo Tanghal

There's the easy part. The more complicated part is what I'm going to say next, and that's the fact that gutters are the foundation of comics.

See, one drawing, that's a drawing. An editorial cartoon? That's a cartoon. FAMILY CIRCUS? That's also a cartoon. Those aren't comics - at least not the way that "comics" are defined, which is a sequential combination of words and pictures, or, as Scott McCloud put it in UNDERSTANDING COMICS, "juxtaposed pictoral and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or produce an aesthetic response in the viewer."

The word "sequential" is key here, and it means that one picture has to follow another and tell the story. Okay, so Roy Lichtenstein's stuff, even though they were copied from comics? They're not comics.

Well, except for this one. See, this one involves a gutter.

Granted, Lichtenstein didn't seem to understand that for a foot to press down on the pedal to open the garbage can, you actually have to, you know, press down on the pedal. But hey, hacks will be hacks.

Okay, so, anything that delineates the separation of one moment from the other is a gutter, whether you're as straightforward as Ty Templeton:

Or as fancy as this scene by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (the purpose of this scene being to be disorienting anyway):

Essentially, just because you can't see the gutters doesn't mean there aren't any there - they're just tiny and you can't see them, but if you can delineate one moment from the other, they're there.

Gutters can also be used to split a panel with just one background, to imply the passage of time between both panels, as demonstrated here by Craig Thompson and GOOD-BYE CHUNKY RICE:

Okay, now, some comics scholars believe that the power of comics is all contained within the gutter, as it's what makes comics interactive. Comics are a big "fill in the blanks" medium, where the gutters are the blanks. For example, take this sequence from TOM STRONG #13, by Alan Moore and Pete Poplaski:

See, it's up to you to decide how hard Tom hit Paul, just how far Paul fell and how on fire he is. It's this kind of interaction between the story and the reader that sets comics apart - after all, even novels don't force you to interact in the same way. (Not that I'm saying one is better than the other.)

Obviously though, some gutters offer less interpretation than others. It all depends on the type of panel-to-panel transition, and we'll look at some of those next time!

Comic Book Glossary: Panel

Welcome to the first installment of Comic Book Glossary! One of the aims of the Comics Cube! has always been to help out the newer readers who may be interested in, but aren't all that knowledgeable in comics. Click here for the index!

We'll start out with the basics. See the boxes that contain the pictures? Those are called panels.

CALVIN AND HOBBES by Bill Watterson

Panels are, as Art Spiegelman calls them, the Ur-language of comics, the basic building blocks of the medium. They control the action. While "panels" are typically thought of as boxes, a panel can actually take on any shape, such as a television screen, seen here from Frank Miller's BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS:

To index cards, seen here in Will Eisner's THE SPIRIT.

Whatever panel you choose, just make sure it suits that particular moment in your story! For example, here's Neal Adams, tilting the panels diagonally so it gives an increased length for the falling Beast:

And changing the panel size alone can change the amount of tension in any given scene, as proven here by Steve Ditko in one of the greatest and most important Spider-Man moments of all time:

You can view some more effects of different panel shapes in some installments of Comics Techniques and Tricks!

Comics Techniques and Tricks: Marcos Martin

Welcome to another edition of Comics Techniques and Tricks, in which we showcase techniques that only comics can do! Click here for the archive!

When you have a continuous background with moving figures in front of it, like this or this, it's called a polyptych. Here's Marcos Martin using a variation of that technique in Amazing Spider-Man #561, framing Spider-Man's motion in one smooth curve, all the while keeping the entire page as one continuous background.

Note how even the first panel is an interior shot of exactly the same spot that that setting would correspond to on the exterior shot of the building!

Cleverness, design, and a clear flow - that's why Marcos Martin is one of my current favorite artists!

Comics Techniques and Tricks: Ben Oda and Marshall Rogers

Welcome to another edition of Comics Techniques and Tricks, in which we showcase techniques that only comics can do! Click here for the archive!

Detective Comics #475 gave us the classic Joker story (and quite frankly, my favorite), "The Laughing Fish." In the story, the Joker decides to poison a bunch of fish so it all has his face on it, so he can claim copyright and trademark to the fish and therefore get royalties from the sales.

Isn't that concept just so awesome? Really? It's SO insane that it's perfect!

Anyway, today's comic trick is given to us by Ben Oda, who lettered the comic. Marshall Rogers gave him the framework for the tricks, and Oda integrated the lettering so well that it felt like it was done by the artist. Note the sequence below.

And note how the "HONK" and the "SKREECH" sounds play into each other, just as they actually would in such a situation. Even the directions of the sound effects are appropriate; the "HONK" signifies the horizontal movement of the truck, while the "SKREECH" signifies its attempt at a sudden stop. It stops at the end of the "HONK," signifying that it's too late.

Lettering is an art too, folks!

Comics Techniques and Tricks: Harvey Kurtzman and Bill Elder

Welcome to another edition of Comics Techniques and Tricks, in which we showcase techniques that only comics can do! Click here for the archive!

One of comics' most important creators, Harvey Kurtzman continually innovated with a bunch of tricks! In Tales Calculated to Drive You MAD #7 (the antecedent for MAD Magazine), Kurtzman and artist Bill Elder lampooned Sherlock Holmes with "Shemlock Shomes" and his sidekick, Dr. Whatsit. In the following sequence, Shomes and Whatsit try to get from one place to another.

Note the ease and convenience with which we read the panels. If you did this in any other medium, it would call too much attention to the shifting modes of transportation - prose would have to detail the exact shifts, and it would be too disorienting in film. But in comics, our visual cues are just the figures of Shomes and Whatsit. We see them moving and it registers to us that they're moving. The modes of transportation are almost an afterthought!

Comics Techniques and Tricks: Winsor McCay

Welcome to another edition of Comics Techniques and Tricks, in which we showcase techniques that only comics can do! Click here for the archive!

Today's trick comes from Winsor McCay, from a 1908 Little Nemo in Slumberland sequence. Sometimes, a trick can just be looking really cool! Enjoy this wonderfully designed page!

Comics Techniques and Tricks: JH Williams III

Welcome to another edition of Comics Techniques and Tricks, in which we showcase techniques that only comics can do! Click here for the archive!

Today, we're going to link to another website, since it has a deeper analysis of the piece than I can give you. Scott M. McDaniel (no relation to Scott McDaniel of DC Comics) does a sweet analysis of a page from Promethea #24, painted by JH Williams III.

Click here to see the analysis, including pointing out that the page is laid out in a Yin/Yang shape, the use of contrasts to balance the composition, the flow of the captions, and, of personal interest to me, the use of the Golden Section/Golden Ratio. Go over there now!

Comics Techniques and Tricks: Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy

Welcome to another edition of Comics Techniques and Tricks, in which we showcase techniques that only comics can do! Click here for the archive!

In March 1975, in the 38th issue of Shang-Chi, Master of Kung-Fu, Paul Gulacy and Dough Moench pull off this brilliantly executed bit of storytelling that has been reprinted in Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics.

Not only does it so adeptly bypass the problem of boring static that can be produced in a scene so full of exposition by not using any of Wally Wood's standard 22 panels for such an occassion, but that's how you set a mood!

Comics Techniques and Tricks: George Perez and the Infinity Gauntlet

Welcome to another edition of Comics Techniques and Tricks, in which we showcase techniques that only comics can do! Click here for the archive!

Today's Comics Tricks come to us from July 1991, when Marvel Comics had Jim Starlin and George Perez put out the first issue of Infinity Gauntlet, which I really think to this day has been Marvel's biggest event book. It also holds the distinction of being the event that made me a comic book collector, with issues 3 and 4 being the first comics I distinctly remember asking my parents buying for me. Reading it now makes me feel that it is kind of - well - stupid. (Someone try to summarize it for me and keep a straight face. Seriously.) But the art is still great. Seriously, here's the cover to issue 1, which is a Comics Trick in itself:

But the Comics Tricks come, of course, inside the book. The issue has multiple narrators, and these days (and even back then, it was already starting, with Sandman and Watchmen), that would be distinguished by different lettering styles and different colored caption boxes. In Infinity Gauntlet, they use the same font all throughout, and George Perez just finds an inventive way to introduce each narrator. Here are a few examples.

Here's Dr. Strange, Marvel's Sorcerer Supreme (note also how the symbol on Strange's cloak transitions straight into the establishing shot of his lair, the Sanctum Sanctorum) :

A few pages later, we get the Silver Surfer, Cosmic Skyrider of the Spaceways, doing some narration:

But my absolute favorite is this introduction of Marvel's leading Avenger, Captain America:

That Perez sure made an impression on me as a kid!