Research Task: Bad Examples

Brief

Here are a couple of examples of how not to organise different types of text like word balloons and captions. Take a look at them and identify what the basic errors being made are:

Thoughts

There's a few things about the text on this illustration and one of them is that the speech bubbles in the first panel is out of order so it doesn't make sense. "Hiya, I'm Home!" is good where it is but the "Oh Hi, How was your day?" Should sit lower than the other text so you know where to start and finish. Or switch the composition, flipping the image.

The second panel is incorrect where it said "I made a right onto first avenue", since the car is turning left which will lead the reader to confusion- again, if you flip the image it'll make the image correct. Also, personally if I put the caption as "The moon shone down on the city" I'd have the moon higher up and have a more casting shadows to reflect the moon shining down on the city and make it more dramatic.

Primary Research

I wanted to do some of my own research by looking at comics that I have that are my favourite so I can see how each of them use text.

I decided to look at my favourite comics to get a gist of text work in comics. In the image below you can see how it's done with a conversation; one person speaks first followed by (underneath) another person's speaking. Additionally, it'll show a brief pause by separating the two sentences to show natural flow of speech, here, Ellie (the one picking up a cassette tape), is annoyed, she's replied to the question and then brushing off Riley.

On this page spread, there's only one speech bubble at the bottom but you can see action and sound effects. It's a good way of helping me understand good ways of creating narrative and effectively making the audience understand what's going on in the scene.

This has a mixture of simple speech text and sound effect, this page helps me understand the direction of speech for the person speaking. The sploosh indicating that she'll wash the car.

This page is my favourite, you can see the boom (sound effect) of the bomb going off. You also see the spiked bubble to show someone speaking over the radio (out of their location).

The Last of Us: American Dreams Paperback – 29 Oct. 2013, By Neil Druckmann. 1

I wanted to pick another comic book, I decided to go with a different format of book. I went with my other favourite graphic novel-- in this case, a manga that I used to read in my teens. Since this is a manga, how you read it is different. It starts of on the right, going down then left going down; I've highlighted particular panels that helped me understand difference in speech bubbles or sound effects/actions.

In this case mangas "verbally" described a way of speaking, the 'mumble mumble' helps us understand how's she saying it and gives the narration character and feeling. The 'Kyeeee' is in bold with slightly spiked bubble to help us understand that they're yelling and frustrated.

What I call the wobbly bubble is a way of expressing that the person is using a waverd tone or pleading that she wants something. The other panel has a thinking bubble to help us understand what she's thinking-- in this case adds comedic value.

These panels are very fun and creative in how they show a narrative and show what's going on in the scene; if the text was in english (minus the small english translation) we would easily understand what's going on more effectively-- but the mood and humour is still there regardless.

K-ON!, Vol. 1- 30 Nov. 2010. by Kakifly. 2

Evaluation

This was a really nice task to do and I enjoyed looking at some of books in-depth, it's something I didn't really notice much when reading them as a teenager. I found it very inspiring looking at them and especially these comics, I hope to use them as an influence in future projects. Picking apart the comics and panels really got me thinking about how I should approach narratives and text, like when shouting to use spiky text bubbles or thinking with a cloud.

1 The Last of Us: American Dreams Paperback – 29 Oct. 2013, By Neil Druckmann. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Us-Faith-Erin-Hicks/dp/1616552123/ref=asc_df_1616552123/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=310961745507&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=159248992002369572&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045110&hvtargid=pla-456873719443&psc=1&th=1&psc=1 Accessed 8 July 2022

2 K-ON!, Vol. 1- 30 Nov. 2010. by Kakifly https://www.amazon.co.uk/K-Vol-1-Quality/dp/0316119334 Accessed 8 July 2022.