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Reimena
@reimenayee.com
Historical fiction comics skeleton with a whimsical and gothic vibe. Academic-practitioner & comics taxonomist. Co-founder of the Cartoonist Coop. I am just chilling here when I am not making my (web)comics or blogging about craft. reimenayee.com
1.3k followers123 following391 posts
Rreimenayee.com

In the lead up to the Comics Devices library's launch, here are the explainers I made for how comics work at its most base level. Panel and Gutters, Time and Space, and how those four things can change the reading experience.

Screenshot of the Panels and Gutters page. The full text is too long for alternate text, so the summary is: panels and gutters are core to comics, panels refer to units of storytelling, gutter refers to the space around panels that allow imagination to fill in the blanks between panels. Panels and gutters can contain image and text, or become image and text themselves. They are flexible elements that can be moved around, and that affects how reader's perceive time.
Another screenshot with too long full text. The summary is... Time and space are intrinsically linked in comics. Time refers to in-story time between panels and pages. Space refers to the canvas of the comic, either a page or screen, on which images and text are placed. Placement of text and image can tell us the temporal location of a story; the spatial location of a story, and the narrative location. The when, where, how and what.
The time-space relationship is often expressed chronologically: in English, a panel on the left occurs at an earlier time than a panel on the right. This is a basic reading order that's affected by the language of the culture from where the comic is produced in. So in the US, it's left to right. Japan is right to left. But we don't have to conform to this, because in comics, the epxerience of time can be loose depending on where an artist places the text and image in space. Using a variety of techniques, artists can subvert, affirm, twist time-space. For example, lengthening the distance between panels, or in other words, widening the gutter, can lengthen a story beat.
A story event can be experienced differently when its associated arrangement of panels and gutters are changed. A flashback can interrupt the present, or it can be experienced simultaneously with the present. When adding devices, more complex time-space-bending effects can be produced. So something can be read both backwards and forwards and all around by doing things that only comics can do.
2
CHdrawntocode.com

I'm SO flipping excited for this library to open!! I love comics, but I've never studied devices, really looking forward to learning more. 🤓🌱 Are you making this library free to access? Just sharing the bountiful harvest of your research with us? Can we donate?? 🤗🔥

1
RAbeccabeean.bsky.social

What is the Comic Devices library? That sounds cool and useful!!!

1
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R
Reimena
@reimenayee.com
Historical fiction comics skeleton with a whimsical and gothic vibe. Academic-practitioner & comics taxonomist. Co-founder of the Cartoonist Coop. I am just chilling here when I am not making my (web)comics or blogging about craft. reimenayee.com
1.3k followers123 following391 posts
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