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How do comic book characters move?
Kaya # 1 and Left to Right Motion Literacy is a magic spell we place on our brains. The squiggles that you are reading currently have no inherent meaning. Humans imbue these arbitrary symbols with the power to represent something greater. The facility for oral language seems to be a part of human nature, but… Read more
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The Best Comic Book Face Acting
The Ribbon Queen # 1 and Creating Character Through Facial Expressions How do you get to know a person? In real life, you spend time with them. Seeing how they react to different situations, what they say and do, and why they make decisions lets you know who the person is. All of these things… Read more
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Drawing Attention with Light and Shadow
Hellboy: Seed of Destruction Chapter One and Chiaroscuro Lighting The human brain is a powerful hub of magic. It is able to take a two-dimensional image of light reflected onto a retina and conjure a three-dimensional field. This “illusion of depth” spell requires certain components. You need perspective, parallax, focus, and occultation. As a final… Read more
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Go Anywhere You Want
20th Century Men # 1 and Time Travel via Style If you read a comic, where are you? Oftentimes we read comics in homes, at libraries, in schools, on public transit, and so many other locations. But one location you might not realize you are reading from is within the comic, in between the front… Read more
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Are the Invincible comic book fights better than the TV show?
Invincible # 2 and Crafting Satisfying Action through Setups and Payoffs In Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud introduces the concept of closure, “the phenomenon of observing the parts but perceiving the whole“. Much of the magic of comics is built upon this one weird trick. When two images are placed in sequence, a reader interprets them… Read more
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How to Tell a Joke Better Than Family Guy
Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. # 5 and Building Character with the Cutaway Flashback The cutaway gag is a staple of comedies, situational and animated. Not all of them are created equally. The best versions aren’t just funny non-sequiturs. The humor comes from the character. When Arrested Development has Lucille Bluth claims to Michael, “I love… Read more
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Secret Ways Comic Letterers Make You Hear
Kaya # 8 and Voice Through Word Balloons Comics are both a narrative and a visual magic. This is similar in some ways to film, but that is an audio-visual alchemy. Ever since the introduction of the talkies, films can pair together image and sound. Comics, other than the occasional one on the web, don’t… Read more
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Parasocial Ending Explained
How a comic can depict multiple layers of performance, deception, and reality What is truth? Any magician knows that reality is malleable. The things that you think you see, know, or remember aren’t always accurate. A skilled magician can use the power of performance to manipulate your perception. They might dress up in outfits they… Read more
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Tricks for Less Boring Writing
Hellboy: Wake the Devil and Making Exposition Interesting All art is an attempt at telepathic communication through time. When it’s words, it’s more obvious, but images, sounds, movement, and montage are all techniques that allow messages to travel to the future. Each mode has its own unique advantages and disadvantages. Visual media can express that… Read more
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Manga Fight Scenes: Cooler Than Comics?
Berserk: The Golden Age Chapter 4 and Speed Much of what is called magic, similar to technology, is really about the manipulation of time. It takes time to light a fire, chopping and building wood, finding kindling, and creating a spark. But a magic spell, or a propane stove, will accomplish the same thing much… Read more
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BIFF BANG POW! Clickbait isn’t just for kids anymore
Void Rivals # 1 and Sound Effects If you read any major publication’s articles on a comic book from the mid 1980s and on, there is a significant chance that the headline, subhead, or lede was a variant on “BIFF BANG POW, Comics aren’t just for kids anymore.” Aside from shoddy journalism, the prevalence of… Read more
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I Can Trick You With Colors
Blood Stained Teeth # 1 and Non-Literal Color In Genesis chapter 30, Jacob, the patriarch later known as Israel, performs what can only be described as color magic. He made a deal with his father in law for all of the sheep that weren’t a single color and instead had spots or stripes. In order… Read more
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How do you tell the story of Hip Hop without music?
Hip Hop Family Tree Book One and Drawing Sound Generally speaking, the one artistic magic unattainable in comics is sound. An artist can draw whatever they want and in whatever technique they’d like, but only the most experimental books have any audio more complex than a Spotify playlist. If an artist wants the reader to… Read more
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Subs? Dubs? Neither! Can Americans Understand Japanese Manga?
Lone Wolf and Cub and Action without Words In the book of Acts, the disciples of Jesus are gifted with the Holy Spirit after his ascension. One metaphysical, supernatural, or even magical gift of the Holy Spirit was that the disciples were able to go out into the city of Jerusalem, full of people from… Read more
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The Lesson Stan Lee never Learned
Hellboy: The Wolves of Saint August and Silent Panels How and when the wizards who craft comics choose to deploy dialogue is a dark art unto itself. Comics, being images in sequence, don’t actually require dialogue’s presence. Read the airplane safety diagrams or IKEA instructions, some of the most widespread comics of all time, if… Read more
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Akira Toriyama’s Secret Masterpiece
Sand Land 1 and Detail versus Simplicity The Dr. Slump and Dragon Ball mangaka wrote a series that is now a hit anime and video game Some of the great artists of comics make their career off of obsessive detail. The recently departed Kentaro Miura was known for the intricate linework in Berserk. On the… Read more
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Literal Colors are Boring – Try Coloring Expressively
Lunar New Year Love Story and Colors as Emotions Gene Luen Yang and LeUyen Pham’s masterful graphic novel tells a love story using color Green with envy. Blue comedy. A yellow-bellied cur. Color is a fundamental metaphor that shapes our lives on a subconscious level. The strict scientist understanding of colors as wavelength bands of… Read more
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Manga Does This Better Than Comics
I Heart Skull-Crusher 2 and Conveying Emotion through Abstraction I want more comics like this masterwork from Josie Campbell, Alessio Zonno, Angel De Santiago, and Jim Campbell Scott McCloud writes in his seminal work Understanding Comics that abstracting an image is about “focusing on specific details.” As shown in the image below, “by stripping down… Read more
Divining Comics 