Additive combination – when words or images are used to strengthen the meaning or explain the other. They basically show the same sort of idea unlike interdependent combination and build upon each other.
Amplification through Simplification – is what cartooning is essentially. Pictures can be put on a scale from complex – simple, realistic – iconic. By stripping an image down to the specific details and bare bones of the image, an artist can amplify the meaning by making the reader focus in on the important aspects and meaning of the drawn forms instead of the details. It opens the door to more relatability for the reader and universality in the imagery because the defining details are not present, thus making it easier to insert our own thoughts, conceptions, and even our own selves into the images.
Bleeding – When a panel runs off the page instead of being enclosed and contained within borders. The image can set a mood and give a sense of timelessness as time escapes the borders into space. This technique is commonly used in Japanese manga and Western comics are beginning to adopt it as well.
Closure – the grammar of comics and something we do unconsciously every day. When we see parts only parts of a whole through our senses, our mind mentally connects the pieces together to perceive the entire whole. Believing in this perception is an act of faith.
Comics – “Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intending to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.” A.K.A. sequential art.
Gutter – the space that separates each panel in a comic. It represents both time and space in comics between the two images and where we assume something happens there that is not drawn. Combined with closure, we are able to connect the two different images aside one another and transform them into a single idea or storyline.
Icon – an image that is used to represent a person, place, thing, or idea. There are different categories of icons such as symbols, icons of language/science/communication, and pictures. Within pictures, they can range from being very photo realistic to simplified and abstracted versions of reality, meaning some icons are more “iconic” than others.
Interdependent – when words and pictures go hand in hand to convey an idea. They are two separate ideas that play off each other and could not work or be as strong as they are when put together compared to when they are seen separately.
Mono-sensory medium – a medium that only uses one sense to create an experience. Comics solely uses imagery to convey information visually for readers to experience the story’s world, including sounds.
Montage – when words have been treated as part of the picture, and can even be integrated/woven into the imagery or vice versa.
Non-sequitur – a panel-to-panel transition within a comic that has no logical relationships between the panels.
Pictorial – images having a resemblance to the subjects they are representing. Their meanings are more fluid and ever changing depending on the appearance of the picture compared to non-pictorial icons.
Synaesthetics – the idea of uniting all senses, specifically by using uniting the art forms which appeal to the different senses. Within comics, lines hold expressive potential depending on how it is drawn, what it is drawn in, and the direction it is drawn, thus, giving the art form emotions and other senses. For example, wavy lines and flies around a garbage can visually convey the garbage’s rotten smell.
Zip ribbon – the motion line within comics to show the path of movement of objects through space. These lines have become more refined and stylized over the years and have been used to create drama in action, especially in American comics. The background or the subject can be streaked into motion lines depending on the desired viewpoint the author wants the viewer to see.