Character Establishment in Comics

1. Character Establishment in Comics

2. Now that you have seen the many unique ways that graphic novels tell their stories, it’s time to take a closer look at the character development and establishment methods available only in this medium • There are three of these: DIALOGUE ALONE, DIALOGUE PLUS IMAGE, and IMAGE ALONE

3. Dialogue Alone • Dialogue alone is where new readers are most likely to focus most on • Here, only the words on the page are required to understand the development or establishment taking place • While images can exist alongside the dialogue, seeing them is not required to make sense of the development • Because graphic novels involve images by definition, this sort of character establishment is relatively rare

4. Dialogue Alone:

6. Dialogue Plus Image • This style of establishment requires the dialogue on the page AND the image to make sense of the development or establishment of the character; they carry far less significance when taken separately • Because of the nature of graphic novels, this is a very common technique, as visuals are often designed to go hand-in-hand with dialogue

7. Dialogue Plus Image

9. Image Alone • This is the opposite of dialogue alone – a scene where only the image is necessary for the development or establishment to make sense • Unlike Dialogue Alone, which will often accompany an image even if it can be taken by itself, Image Alone development often exists as just an image, without any dialogue whatsoever • This is because comics include images anyways, and so it is far more common to encounter a page with just pictures than a page with just text (though that does happen)

10. Image Alone

11. Find a good example of two types of graphic novel-exclusive Character Establishment in you Graphic Novel: • Dialogue Alone: Only the dialogue is necessary to get the information you need about a character • Dialogue Plus Image: The dialogue and images on the page must be experienced together to get the information you need about a character • Image Alone: Only the images on the page are necessary to get the information you need about a character Now, share your choices with your group. Once you finish, choose (as a group) two examples that you find particularly interesting. The person (or people) who found it will then share with the class.