The Visual Language of Comics

The Visual Language of Comics PDF Author: Neil Cohn
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441174516
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Drawings and sequential images are an integral part of human expression dating back at least as far as cave paintings, and in contemporary society appear most prominently in comics. Despite this fundamental part of human identity, little work has explored the comprehension and cognitive underpinnings of visual narratives-until now. This work presents a provocative theory: that drawings and sequential images are structured the same as language. Building on contemporary theories from linguistics and cognitive psychology, it argues that comics are written in a visual language of sequential images that combines with text. Like spoken and signed languages, visual narratives use a lexicon of systematic patterns stored in memory, strategies for combining these patterns into meaningful units, and a hierarchic grammar governing the combination of sequential images into coherent expressions. Filled with examples and illustrations, this book details each of these levels of structure, explains how cross-cultural differences arise in diverse visual languages of the world, and describes what the newest neuroscience research reveals about the brain's comprehension of visual narratives. From this emerges the foundation for a new line of research within the linguistic and cognitive sciences, raising intriguing questions about the connections between language and the diversity of humans' expressive behaviours in the mind and brain.

The Visual Language of Comics

The Visual Language of Comics PDF Author: Neil Cohn
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441174516
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Get Book

Book Description
Drawings and sequential images are an integral part of human expression dating back at least as far as cave paintings, and in contemporary society appear most prominently in comics. Despite this fundamental part of human identity, little work has explored the comprehension and cognitive underpinnings of visual narratives-until now. This work presents a provocative theory: that drawings and sequential images are structured the same as language. Building on contemporary theories from linguistics and cognitive psychology, it argues that comics are written in a visual language of sequential images that combines with text. Like spoken and signed languages, visual narratives use a lexicon of systematic patterns stored in memory, strategies for combining these patterns into meaningful units, and a hierarchic grammar governing the combination of sequential images into coherent expressions. Filled with examples and illustrations, this book details each of these levels of structure, explains how cross-cultural differences arise in diverse visual languages of the world, and describes what the newest neuroscience research reveals about the brain's comprehension of visual narratives. From this emerges the foundation for a new line of research within the linguistic and cognitive sciences, raising intriguing questions about the connections between language and the diversity of humans' expressive behaviours in the mind and brain.

Who Understands Comics?

Who Understands Comics? PDF Author: Neil Cohn
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350156051
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
**Nominated for the 2021 Eisner Award for Best Academic/Scholarly Work** Drawings and sequential images are so pervasive in contemporary society that we may take their understanding for granted. But how transparent are they really, and how universally are they understood? Combining recent advances from linguistics, cognitive science, and clinical psychology, this book argues that visual narratives involve greater complexity and require a lot more decoding than widely thought. Although increasingly used beyond the sphere of entertainment as materials in humanitarian, educational, and experimental contexts, Neil Cohn demonstrates that their universal comprehension cannot be assumed. Instead, understanding a visual language requires a fluency that is contingent on exposure and practice with a graphic system. Bringing together a rich but scattered literature on how people comprehend, and learn to comprehend, a sequence of images, this book coalesces research from a diverse range of fields into a broader interdisciplinary view of visual narrative to ask: Who Understands Comics?

The Visual Narrative Reader

The Visual Narrative Reader PDF Author: Neil Cohn
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472577914
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
Sequential images are as natural at conveying narratives as verbal language, and have appeared throughout human history, from cave paintings and tapestries right through to modern comics. Contemporary research on this visual language of sequential images has been scattered across several fields: linguistics, psychology, anthropology, art education, comics studies, and others. Only recently has this disparate research begun to be incorporated into a coherent understanding. In The Visual Narrative Reader, Neil Cohn collects chapters that cross these disciplinary divides from many of the foremost international researchers who explore fundamental questions about visual narratives. How does the style of images impact their understanding? How are metaphors and complex meanings conveyed by images? How is meaning understood across sequential images? How do children produce and comprehend sequential images? Are visual narratives beneficial for education and literacy? Do visual narrative systems differ across cultures and historical time periods? This book provides a foundation of research for readers to engage in these fundamental questions and explore the most vital thinking about visual narrative. It collects important papers and introduces review chapters summarizing the literature on specific approaches to understanding visual narratives. The result is a comprehensive “reader” that can be used as a coursebook, a researcher resource and a broad overview of fascinating topics suitable for anyone interested in the growing field of the visual language of comics and visual narratives.

The Language of Comics

The Language of Comics PDF Author: Mario Saraceni
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415214223
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
The Language of Comics provides a history of comics from the end of the nineteenth century to the present and explores the 'semiotics of comics'.

This Book Contains Graphic Language

This Book Contains Graphic Language PDF Author: Rocco Versaci
Publisher: Continuum
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
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Super Graphic

Super Graphic PDF Author: Tim Leong
Publisher: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 1452135274
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
The comic book universe is adventurous, mystifying, and filled with heroes, villains, and cosplaying Comic-Con attendees. This book by one of Wired magazine's art directors traverses the graphic world through a collection of pie charts, bar graphs, timelines, scatter plots, and more. Super Graphic offers readers a unique look at the intricate and sometimes contradictory storylines that weave their way through comic books, and shares advice for navigating the pages of some of the most popular, longest-running, and best-loved comics and graphic novels out there. From a colorful breakdown of the DC Comics reader demographic to a witty Venn diagram of superhero comic tropes and a Chris Ware sadness scale, this book charts the most arbitrary and monumental characters, moments, and equipment of the wide world of comics. Plus, this is the fixed format version, which includes high-resolution images.

A User's Guide to Thought and Meaning

A User's Guide to Thought and Meaning PDF Author: Ray Jackendoff
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191620688
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
A User's Guide to Thought and Meaning presents a profound and arresting integration of the faculties of the mind - of how we think, speak, and see the world. Ray Jackendoff starts out by looking at languages and what the meanings of words and sentences actually do. He shows that meanings are more adaptive and complicated than they're commonly given credit for, and he is led to some basic questions: How do we perceive and act in the world? How do we talk about it? And how can the collection of neurons in the brain give rise to conscious experience? As it turns out, the organization of language, thought, and perception does not look much like the way we experience things, and only a small part of what the brain does is conscious. Jackendoff concludes that thought and meaning must be almost completely unconscious. What we experience as rational conscious thought - which we prize as setting us apart from the animals - in fact rides on a foundation of unconscious intuition. Rationality amounts to intuition enhanced by language. Written with an informality that belies both the originality of its insights and the radical nature of its conclusions, A User's Guide to Thought and Meaning is the author's most important book since the groundbreaking Foundations of Language in 2002.

Expressive Anatomy for Comics and Narrative: Principles and Practices from the Legendary Cartoonist

Expressive Anatomy for Comics and Narrative: Principles and Practices from the Legendary Cartoonist PDF Author: Will Eisner
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393346838
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
The final volume of Will Eisner’s celebrated instructional trilogy explores the critical principle of body grammar in comics storytelling. Designed and outlined by Will Eisner before his death in 2005, this posthumous masterwork, the third and final book in the Will Eisner Instructional Series, finally reveals the secrets of Eisner’s own techniques and theories of movement, body mechanics, facial expressions, and posture: the key components of graphic storytelling. From his earliest comics, including the celebrated Spirit, to his pioneering graphic novels, Eisner understood that the proper use of anatomy is crucial to effective storytelling. His control over the mechanical and intuitive skills necessary for its application set him apart among comics artists, and his principles of body grammar have proven invaluable to legions of students in overcoming what is perhaps the most challenging aspect of creating comics. Buttressed by dozens of illustrations, which display Eisner’s mastery of expression, both subtle and overt, Expressive Anatomy for Comics and Narrative will benefit comics fans, students, and teachers and is destined to become the essential primer on the craft.

Unflattening

Unflattening PDF Author: Nick Sousanis
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674744438
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Unflattening is an experiment in visual thinking. Nick Sousanis defies conventional forms of scholarly discourse to offer readers both a stunning work of graphic art and a serious inquiry into the ways humans construct knowledge.

Marvel by Design

Marvel by Design PDF Author: Robert Klanten
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783967040494
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
As one of the most recognizable brands in the world, Marvel has spent the last 80-plus years inspiring generations of creatives through its approach to visual storytelling. Marvel's comic books, in particular, established a distinct graphic language that has found its way into mainstream culture, including 1960s Pop Art, and present-day digital culture, gaming, advertising, and more. Marvel By Design will celebrate the company's visual language with an in-depth exploration of the design process behind the brand's most recognizable graphical elements including logos, covers, lettering, layout, and color palettes. Readers will learn how the renowned Marvel Method established a unique approach to the creative process and how that process can serve as a template for creatives working beyond comics. Throughout the book, Marvel By Design will connect the dots between comic culture and its undeniable influence in every creative field including the evolution of graphic design, editorial design, movies, and visual culture at large.