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October 17, 2005
Comic Analysis
http://www.comics.com/comics/spotthefrog/index.html
The comic Spot the Frog, by Mark Heath, is definitely an example of a word specific comic. If the picture was completely absent, I would still be able to take the same exact meaning from the comic strip. The picture only serves to provide us, the readers, with a mental image of what the words have already said. The picture does not add humor to the comic, but rather it is simply a nice touch.
I thought that the panel transitions in this comic strip were particularly interesting becuase the first panel is enclosed by a box and consists of horizontal lines on which the words are written. Heath gave this panel such a look to give the idea of words written on a piece of paper. He repeats the look of this panel again in the third panel where more words are located. By presenting the words in the comic as if they were written down on a piece of paper stresses their role in the comic. Heath makes sure that there is nothing in the panels containing words that would distract the reader and take their attention away from the words. It is like Heath knows that the humor of his comic depends on the understanding of these words and does not want to compromise that by cluttering the panels with pictures.
The middle panel is interesting in that there is no box or outline surrounding it, nor are there any words in the panel. The lack of structure suggests that the space is purely there for artistic purposes. The lines used in the illustration are free and flowing, and the lack of boundaries allows our minds to undergo the gestalt theory of continuance. Although the picture only shows a man and a frog in grass watching a leaf, our minds imagine the two outside in nature, perhaps in a field, on an autumn day. Such semantic meanings that are taken from the picture are due to the nature of the lines, bent and curvy, which indicates movement and wind, the changes in color, which separate one object from another, for example the man's pants from the grass on which he is kneeling, and common shapes, which allow us to see faces and a leaf out of mere ink marks. I think that Heath purposely left the middle panel without a boundary to make it seem in the background of the comic, whereas the two outer panels seem to be overlapping the scene, and thus more important.
The writing style also helps to give this comic a certain feel to it. The words are written so that they look like someone just wrote them down, as if they were writing in a daily journal. The writing is legible of course, but it is by no means neat. The informality of the writing reminds me of my own writing and gives the comic a personal feel, as opposed to computer font, which always gives a detached feel to writing.
I would have to classify the panel transitions as scene to scene, but this is a loose catergorization because the first and last panels don't really give any sort of setting, so it is not completely accurate to say that they are in a different scene than the middle panel. To me, however, the first and last panels have a distinctly different feel to them than the middle panel, and that makes me lean towards the idea that Heath was trying to establish two different scenes. Although at first glance this comic may seem short and simple, it contains many components that give it a certain semantic meaning and add to its overall feel.
Posted by lcissullivan at October 17, 2005 06:21 PM