Glossary of comics terminology
Several attempts have been made to formalize and define the terminology of comics by authors such as Will Eisner, Scott McCloud, R. C. Harvey and Dylan Horrocks.
Much of the terminology in English is under dispute, so this page will list and describe the most common terms used in comics.
[9] The size, shape and style of a panel, as well as the placement of figures and speech balloons inside it, affect the timing or pacing of a story.
[7] Often designed as a decorative unit, its purpose is to capture the reader's attention and can be used to establish time, place and mood.
[20] In early renderings, word balloons were no more than ribbons emanating from their speakers' mouths, but as they evolved and became more sophisticated, they became a more expressive device.
[22] In a caption, words appear in a box separated from the rest of the panel or page, usually to give voice to a narrator, but sometimes used for the characters' thoughts or dialogue.
[7][23] In some comics, where speech balloons are not used, the captions provide the reader with text about what is happening in the images.
[34] Writers can communicate their stories in varying amounts of detail to the artist(s) and in a number of ways, including verbally, by script or by thumbnail layout.
This job may be broken down further into: The penciller or penciler lays down the basic artwork for a page, deciding on panel placement and the placement of figures and settings in the panels,[23] the backgrounds and the characters' facial expressions and poses.
[35] The colourist or colorist adds colours to copies of the finished artwork, which can have an effect on mood and meaning.
Normally separate from the writer, the letterer is the person who fills (and possibly places) speech balloons and captions with the dialogue and other words meant to be read.
[37] In the West, comics have traditionally been hand-lettered, although computer typesetting has become increasingly common.
In some cases, dialogue may appear in speech balloons, following the common convention of comic strips.
As the name implies—"gag" being a show-business term for a comedic idea—these cartoons are most often intended to provoke laughter.
Such cartoons are used to convey and question an aspect of daily news or current affairs in a national or international context.
Political cartoons generally feature a caricaturist style of drawing, to capture the likeness of a politician or subject.
Political cartoonists may also employ humor or satire to ridicule an individual or group, emphasize their point of view, or comment on a particular event.
[47] Graphic novel is a term whose definition is hard to pin down, but usually refers to a self-contained, book-length form.
Amongst the criticisms is the fact that the use of the word "novel" excludes non-novelistic genres, such as journalism, biography or history.
Webcomics, comics published via the Internet on the World Wide Web, have emerged since the beginning of the 21st century.
A slide show-like format for webcomics was described by French cartoonists Balak in 2010, which he dubbed Turbomedia.
