Character Establishment in Comics

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

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

Dialogue Alone:

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

Dialogue Plus Image

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)

Image Alone

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.