Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, is an amazing book about the work that goes in to this visual medium. It includes chapters about transitions, comics through history, comics in other countries, art styles and how this story telling avenue has an affect on our minds.
In the chapter titled "Blood in the Gutter" McCloud discusses the transitions between panels. He argues that there are six different types of transitions when telling a story in a comic. These are:
- Moment to Moment
- Action to Action
- Subject to Subject
- Scene to Scene
- Aspect to Aspect
- Non-Sequitur
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| Fig.1 - Aspect to Aspect Transitions |
McCloud shows that in a majority of American comics (such as Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four) uses transitions that are action to action based, whereas in Japanese comics (such as those of Osamu Tezuka) use drastically more aspect to aspect based transitions in comparison to America. Aspect to aspect transitions are used to establish a mood or a sense of place, it shows a moment at a standstill, frozen in time. In Fig. 1 we see a four panels establishing a kitchen scene. People can perceive and imagine this kitchen in just those four panels alone. McCloud talks about this idea of Closure, that we observe part of a scene within the fragments we are given but our minds are perceiving the whole it, we are filling in the blanks in the gutter. Fig. 1 gives us a high degree of Closure because we are taking these four fragments and constructing an entire environment so we get a real sense of this woman cooking. Aspect to aspect is very beautiful way of telling the story, because it places emphasis on being there in the narrative, not getting there.
If we chose to see stories as a series of connected events, then transition types 2 - 4 are perfect for that because the show things happening in concise and effective ways. Transition types 2 - 4 give us a more straightforward lens to the narrative. Action to action is the most commonly used transition because it uses less panels then any of the other transition types and when you have limited pages for an issue it is better to move the story than it is give appreciation to aesthetic (unless it is trying to emphasise a point). Movement to movement type transitions can be frequently replaced with action to action because you only need to show the first and last panel.
