Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative

The
Will Eisner Library

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Eisner, Will.
[Graphic storytelling]
Graphic storytelling and visual narrative : principles and practices
from the legendary cartoonist / Will Eisner.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
Originally published in 1996 with the title: Graphic storytelling.
ISBN 978-0-393-33127-1 (pbk.)
eISBN 978-0-393-34682-4 (e-book)
1. Comic books, strips, etc.Authorship. 2. Comic books, strips, etc.Illustrations.
3. CartooningTechnique. 4. Graphic novelsAuthorship. I. Title.
PN6710.E57 2008
741.51dc22
2008019796
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110
www.wwnorton.com

W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT
CONTENTS

COPYRIGHT
EDITORS NOTE
FOREWORD
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
1 THE STORY OF STORYTELLING
2 WHAT IS A STORY?
3 TELLING A STORY
4 IMAGES AS NARRATIVE TOOLS
5 ALL KINDS OF STORIES
6 THE READER
7 READER INFLUENCES
8 IDEAS
9 THE WRITING PROCESS
10 STORYTELLERS
11 ARTISTIC STYLE AND STORYTELLING

12 COMICS AND THE INTERNET
ALSO AVAILABLE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
FURTHER INFORMATION ON
WEBCOMICS
OBSERVATIONS ON STORY
SCHOOLS OFFERING COURSES IN

COMIC CREATION
EDITORS NOTE
WILL EISNER INTENDED FOR GRAPHIC STORYTELLING AND
VISUAL NARRATIVE AND HIS
other educational/instructional books to be living
textbooks with long shelf lives and continuing
utility. It is in that spirit that this posthumous W.
W. Norton edition, the first by a new publisher,
respectfully incorporates additional changes.
The original editions of this book and its first

companion volume, , were published by
Poorhouse Press, a tiny imprint operated on a very
part-time basis by Will Eisner himself, and largely
overseen by his late brother Pete, who had retired
some years earlier. Ever the ambitious
businessman as well as creator, Eisner decided to
self-publish his educational titles to keep a foot in
all aspects of the comics industry. (, the final
volume of his educational trilogy, was first
published after Eisners death.)
While Eisner was solely responsible for the

editorial side of the Poorhouse Press volumes, all
of his numerous graphic novels, magazines and
comic books were being published and designed
by professional organizations in America and
overseas, and he was not, during that stage of his
long career, running a true publishing operation
himself. Thus, the Poorhouse Press editions,
though commercially successfulas dozens of
printings attestwere assembled without the
ben- efit of todays sophisticated scanners or
professional art direction. Most of the
illustrations, including Eisners own art, were
delivered to Poorhouses printer as
mechanical boards comprised of simple Xeroxed
paste-ups or less-than-perfect photostats. As a
result, the printed version of most images
suffered considerably.
For the new W. W. Norton editions, virtually all of
the illustrations have been scanned directly from
Eisners archived original art or, in the case of
other artists examples, from the best available
source materials. In some cases, altogether new
images were used, including alternate images from
Eisners out-takes file. Four side- bars have been
added to illustrate storytelling principles by
contemporary cartoonists.
In keeping with the authors wishes, we have

updated the text, where necessary, to remove
anachronisms and to reflect the current state of
the comics industry and technology. Minor
grammatical errors were corrected and some new
text was added for clarity. Additional insightful
editing to this edition was provided by Margaret
Maloney, with oversight from Robert Weil and
Lucas Wittmann. With input from James Sturm of
the Center for Cartoon Studies, the various
elements were given to Black Eye Design where
Michel Vrana, an exceptional designer with
long experience in the comics field, worked with
talented book designer Grace Cheong to update
and improve the layout. The guidance and ultimate
approval of the estate, primarily Ann Eisner and
Carl and Nancy Gropper, was at all times
appreciated. The final results, we are confident,
would very much please the author.

Denis Kitchen
FOREWORD
IN AN EARLIER WORK, COMICS AND SEQUENTIAL ART, I
ADDRESSED THE PRINCIPLES, concept and anatomy of
the comics form, as well as the fundamentals of
the craft. In this work, I hope to deal with the
mission and process of storytelling with graphics.
The effort of artists to tell stories of substance

with imagery is not new. In an essay in Bookmans
Weekly (July 1995) David Beron reviewed some
of the history of this effort. He cited major
woodcut artists who, in my opinion, established
an historical precedent for modern graphic
storytelling. Frans Masereel, a Belgian
political cartoonist for La Feuille, began producing
novels without words. In 1919 he published
Passionate Journey, a novel told in 169 woodcuts,
last published by Penguin Press, New York, 1988.
This book has an introduction by Thomas Mann.
The famous author enjoins the reader to accept
being captivated by the flow of the pictures and
the deeper purer impact than you have ever
felt before. Masereel went on to create more
than twenty novels without words. He was
followed by Otto Nckel, a German, whose
Destiny, a novel in pictures, appeared in 1930,
published in America by Farrar & Rinehart.
About that time, Lynd Ward also began

publishing graphic novels in woodcut form. He
dealt with mans spiritual journey through life. In
six succeeding books, Ward firmly establishes the
architecture of the form. Of greater significance is
the resonance of the subjects he undertook. It is
these substantial themes that pro-
vide encouragement to the aspirations of comics.
A sampling of Wards work is included in this
book.
In 1930, Milt Gross, the brilliant American
cartoonist, produced a satirical graphic novel, He
Done Her Wrong. It was a spoof of the classic novel
done with wordless cartoons. While he didnt have
the literary pretensions, or the serious subject
intent, of Masereel, Nckel, or Ward, he
nevertheless observed the same format. In 1963,
it was reprinted in pocket book format by Dell
Books. By then, comic books were
well established. My colleague Harvey Kurtzman
broke additional ground in this area with his
paperback of all-new comics, Jungle Book, in 1959.
Comics are essentially a visual medium

composed of images. While words are a vital
component, the major dependence for description
and narration is on universally understood
images, crafted with the intention of imitating or
exaggerating reality. The result is often a
preoccupation with graphic elements. Page
layout, high-impact effects, startling rendering
techniques and mind-blowing color can
monopolize the creators attention. The effect of
this is that the writer and artist are deflected from
the discipline of storytelling construction and
become absorbed in a packaging effort. The
graphics then control the writing and the product
descends into little more than literary junk food.
Despite the high visibility and attention that
artwork compels, I hold that the story is the most
critical component in a comic. Not only is it the
intellectual frame on which all artwork rests, but
it, more than anything else, helps the work
endure. This is a daunting challenge to a medium
that has a history of being considered
juvenile pap. The task is further compounded by
the harsh reality that images and packaging elicit
the primary reader response. Nevertheless, the
comics medium is a literary/art form, and as it
matures, it aspires to recognition as a legitimate
medium.
The traditional production of comics by a single

individual has, over the years, given way to the
dominance of teams (writer, artist, inkers,
colorists and letter- ers). While the artist/writer
assumes the total storytelling responsibility, the
team, on the whole, is involved and must feel
connected to the articulation of the story.
Writing, as I use it in comics, is not confined to the
employment of words. Writing in comics includes
all the elements in a seamless mix and becomes
part of the mechanics of the art form.
In Graphic Storytelling, the concentration is on a

basic understanding of narration with graphics.
This book will undertake the examination of
storytelling and review the fundamentals of its
application in the comics medium.
Will Eisner
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THIS BOOK OWES ITS EXISTENCE TO THE STUDENTS AT THE
SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS IN New York who attended
my classes in Sequential Art over eighteen years.
Their pursuit of excellence and interest in the
medium helped focus my attention on
storytelling and its role in this literary/art form.
To Dave Schreiner, my gratitude for his skillful and

patient editing. His years of experience in comic
books has been an invaluable aid.
To my wife, Ann, who contributed many hours of

logistical support, my appreciation for her
interest and endurance.

To my son, John, who provided much of the
underlying research needed to but- tress the
postulations common to a book of this kind, my
thanks.
To supportive colleagues, Neil Gaiman, Scott

McCloud, Tom Inge, and Lucy Caswell,
who generously took the time to read the early
dummy and provide me with
thoughtful opinions and advice, my gratitude.
INTRODUCTION
IN OUR CULTURE, FILM AND COMICS ARE THE MAJOR
CONVEYORS OF STORY THROUGH imagery. Each employ
arranged graphics and text or dialogue. While film
and theater have long ago established their
credentials, comics still struggle for accep-
tance, and the art form, after more than a century
of popular use, is still regarded as a problematic
literary vehicle.
The latter half of the twentieth century

experienced an alteration in the def- inition of
literacy. The proliferation of the use of images as
a communicant was propelled by the growth of a
technology that required less in text-reading
skills. From road signs to mechanical use
instructions, imagery aided words, and at
times even supplanted them. Indeed, visual
literacy has entered the panoply of skills required
for communication. Comics are at the center of
this phenomenon.
The rise and establishment in America of this
remarkable reading form in the package we know
as comic books occurred over sixty years. From
the compila- tion of pre-published newspaper
comic strips, comic book material quickly evolved
into complete original stories and then into
graphic novels. This last permutation has placed
more of a demand for literary sophistication on
the artist and writer than ever before.
Since comics are easily read, their reputation for
usefulness has been associated with people of
low literacy and limited intellectual
accomplishment. And, in truth, for decades the
story content of comics catered to that audience.
Many creators are still content with furnishing
little more than titillation and mindless
violence. Little wonder that encouragement and
acceptance of this medium by the education
establishment was for a long time less than
enthusiastic.
The predominance of art in the traditional
comics format brought more attention to that
form than to its literary content. It is hardly
surprising, therefore, that comics as a reading
form was always assumed to be a threat to
literacy, as literacy was traditionally defined in
the era before film, television and the Internet.
In their influential book The Medium Is the

Massage, Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore
point out that societies have always been shaped
more by the nature of the media by which men
communicate than by the content of the
communication. This has been the fate of the
comics. Its colorful and pictorial format bespoke
of simple content.
The years between 1967 and 1990 saw comics

beginning to reach for literary content. It started
with the confrontational underground movement
of artists and writers riding a wave of direct
distribution to the market. This was followed by a
mushrooming of comic book stores which
supplied easy access to a broader spectrum of
readers. It was the beginning of the maturation of
the medium. At last, comics sought to deal with
subject matter that had been regarded as the
province of text, live theater or film.
Autobiography, social protest, reality-based
human relationships and history were some of
the subjects now undertaken by comics. The
graphic novel that addressed adult subjects
proliferated. The aver- age age of readers rose.
The market for innovation and mature subject
matter expanded. Accompanying these changes, a
more sophisticated group of creative
talents became attracted to the medium and
raised its standards.
In this environment, the comic book suffered

from the comments of literary critics who found
it problematic to determine whether comics could
properly deal with serious subjects. This general
attitude adversely affected the climate
of acceptance.
This epitomizes the challenge facing comic book

writers and artists seeking a place in our literary
culture. How far comics can go in addressing
serious themes is an ongoing challenge.
Fortunately, the increase in the number of serious
artists and writers attracted to comics as a career
is testimony to the mediums potential. And it is
my conviction that story content will be the
propellant of the future of the comic books.
With the beginning of the 1990s, the new
literacy became more evident in our Western
culture, and as Paul Gravett of the London Daily
Telegraph observed, There seems to be no limit to
the [comics] mediums ambitions . Those
accustomed to scanning regular columns of type
often have difficulty assimilating the haphazard
captions in comics at the same time as jumping
from image to image. But to a young generation
brought up with television, computers and
video games, processing verbal and visual
information on several levels at once
seems natural, even preferable.
COMICS AS A MEDIUM
Reading in a purely textual sense was mugged on
its way to the twenty-first century by the
electronic and digital media, which influenced and
changed how we read. Printed text lost its
monopoly to another communication technology,
film. Aided by electronic transmission, it became
the major competitor for readership. With its
limited demand on a viewers cognitive skills,
film makes the time-consuming burden of
learning to decode and digest words seem
obsolete. Film viewers experience countless
lifelike incidents of ordained duration as they
watch a screen where artificial situations and
contrived solutions become integrated into their
mental inventory of memories retained from real
life experience.
Film actors are more real than people created
within text. Most important, watching film
establishes a rhythm of acquisition. It is a direct
challenge to static print. Accustomed to the pace
of film, readers grow impatient with long text
passages because they have become used to
acquiring stories, ideas and information
quickly and with little effort. As we know, complex
concepts become more easily digested when
reduced to imagery. Printed communication as a
portable source of ideas in depth, nevertheless
remains a viable and necessary medium. In fact it
responds to the challenge of electronic media by
merger. A partnership of words with imagery
becomes the logical permutation. The resulting
configuration is called comics and it fills a gap
between print and film.
In his fine book Understanding Comics, Scott
McCloud aptly described comics as a vessel
which can hold any number of ideas and images.
In a wider view we must consider this vessel as a
communicator. It is in every sense a singular form
of reading.
The reading process in comics is an extension of
text. In text alone the process of reading
involves word-to-image conversion. Comics
accelerates that by providing the image. When
properly executed, it goes beyond conversion and
speed and becomes a seamless whole. In every
sense, this misnamed form of reading is entitled
to be regarded as literature because the images
are employed as a language. There is a
recognizable relationship to the iconography and
pic- tographs of logographic (or character-based)
writing systems, like Chinese hanzi
or Japanese kanji.
When this language is employed as a

conveyance of ideas and information, it
separates itself from mindless visual
entertainment. This makes comics a story-
telling medium.
NOTE Throughout this book, I use certain terms
which ought to be defined and dis-
tinguished from one another. They are:

GRAPHIC NARRATIVE: A generic description of

any story that employs image to transmit an
idea. Film and comics both engage in graphic
narrative.
COMICS: A form of sequential art, often in the

form of a strip or a book, in which images and
text are arranged to tell a story.
STORYTELLER: The writer or person in control
of the narration.
SEQUENTIAL ART: Images deployed in a
specific order.
GRAPHIC STORYTELLING
AND VISUAL NARRATIVE
CHAPTER 1
THE STORY
OF
STORYTELLING
The telling of a story lies deep in the social
behavior of human groupsancient and modern.
Stories are used to teach behavior within the
community, to dis- cuss morals and values, or to
satisfy curiosity. They dramatize social relations
and the problems of living, convey ideas or act out
fantasies. The telling of a story requires skill.
In primitive times, the teller of stories in a clan or
tribe served as entertainer, teacher and historian.
Storytelling preserved knowledge by passing it
from generation to generation. This mission has
continued into modern times. The storyteller
must first have something to tell, and then must
be able to master the tools to relay it.
The earliest storytellers probably used crude
images buttressed with gestures and vocal
sounds which later evolved into language. Over
the centuries, technology provided paper,
printing machines and electronic storage and
transmission devices. As these developments
evolved, they affected the narrative arts.
CHAPTER 2
WHAT IS A
STORY ?
All stories have a structure. A story has a

beginning, an end, and a thread of events
laid upon a framework that holds the two
together. Whether the medium is text, film or
comics, the skeleton is the same. The style and
manner of its telling may be influenced by the
medium but the story itself abides.
The structure of a story can be diagrammed with
many variations, because it is subject to different
patterns between its beginning and end. A
structure is useful as a guide to maintaining
control of the telling.
Before a story is composed, it exists in the
abstract. At this point, it is still a lot of thoughts,
memories, fantasies and ideas, floating around in
ones head, wait- ing for a structure.
It becomes a story when told in an arranged and

purposeful order. The basic principles of narration
are the same whether told orally or visually.
THE FUNCTION OF A STORY
The story form is a vehicle for conveying
information in an easily absorbed manner. It can
relate very abstract ideas, science, or unfamiliar
concepts by the analogous use of familiar forms
or phenomena.
CHAPTER 3
TELLING A
STORY
There are different ways of telling a story.
Technology provides many vehicles of
transmission, but fundamentally there are only
two major ways: words (oral or written) and
images. Sometimes the two are combined.
STORIES TOLD WITH PRINT
Through the first half of the twentieth century,
print dominated as a vehicle of
communication. While film and the Internet have
challenged its superiority, print will nevertheless
maintain its importance. Stories told with graphic
narration must deal with transmission. This has
an influence on the manner in which the story is
told and will influence the story itself. It is at this
point that the story-teller comes in contact with
the marketplace.
Readers and viewers identify content with its

package. Comics readers expect printed comics to
come in a familiar package. A story told in an
unconventional format may be perceived
differently. The format has an important influence
in graphic storytelling.
STORIES TOLD WITH IMAGERY
For the purpose of this discussion, an image is
the memory or idea of an object or experience
recorded by a narrator either mechanically
(photography) or by hand (drawing). In comics,
images are generally impressionistic. Usually,
they are ren- dered with economy in order to
facilitate their usefulness as a language. Because
experience precedes analysis, the intellectual
digestive process is accelerated by the imagery
provided by comics.
Imagery used as a language has some
drawbacks. It is the element of comics that has
always provoked resistance to its acceptance as
serious reading. Critics also sometimes accuse it
of inhibiting imagination.
Static images have limitations. They do not

articulate abstractions or complex thought easily.
But images define in absolute terms. They are
specific.
Images in print or film transmit with the speed

of sight.
CHAPTER 4
IMAGES AS
STEREOTYPICAL NARRATIVE
IMAGES
A stereotype is defined
TOOLS
as an idea or
character that is
standardized in a
conventional form,
without individual-
ity. As an adjective,
stereotypical applies
to that which is
hackneyed. Stereotype Grant Wood, American Gothic,
has a bad reputation not 1930, oil on bea- ver board, 30
11/16 x 25 11/16, unframed.
only because it implies Friends of American Art
banality but because of Collection, 1930-934,
photograph by Bob Hashimoto,
its use as book
Comic a weapon
art of The Art Institute of Chicago
deals with recognizable
propaganda or
reproductions of human conduct. Its drawings are
racism. Where and
a mirror reflection, it depend on the readers
simplifies and cate-
stored memory of experience to visualize an idea
gorizes an inaccurate
or process quickly. This makes necessary the sim-
generalization, it can beinto repeatable symbols.
plification of images
harmful, or at the least
Ergo, stereotypes.
offen- sive. The actual
word comes from the
method used to mold
duplicate plates
in letterpress printing.
These defini-
tions notwithstanding,
the stereotype is a fact
of life in the comics
medium. It is an
accursed necessitya
tool of
communication that is
an inescapable
ingredient in most
cartoons. Given the
narrative function of the
medium, this should not
be surprising.
In comics, stereotypes are drawn from
commonly accepted physical charac-
teristics associated with an occupation. These
become icons and are used as part of the
language in graphic storytelling.
In film, there is plenty of time to develop a

character within an occupation. In comics, there is
little time or space. The image or caricature must
settle the matter instantly.
For example, in creating a doctor prototype, it is
useful to adopt a compound of
characteristics that the reader will accept. Usually
this image is drawn from both social experience
and what the reader thinks a doctor ought to look
like.
Where the plot is arranged to support it, the
standardized doctor look can be abandoned in
favor of a type suitable to the story environment.
The art of creating a stereotypical image for the
purpose of storytelling requires a familiarity with
the audience and a recognition that each society
has its own ingrained set of accepted stereotypes.
But there are those that transcend
cultural boundaries.
The comics creator can now count on a global

distribution of his work. To communicate well,
the storyteller must be conversant with what is
universally valid.
Certain human characteristics are recognizable

by physical appearance. In each of the above, the
reader evokes a message out of the stereotypical
image. In this example, the stereotype of a strong
man reinforces romantic believability while
an incongruity that provokes humor is conveyed
by using a stereotype of a nerd.
In devising actors, it is important to understand
why the use of commonly accepted types can
evoke a viewers reflexive response. I believe that
modern humans still retain instincts developed as
primordial creatures. Possibly the recognition of
a dangerous person or responses to threatening
postures are residual memories of a primitive
existence. Perhaps in the early experience with
animal life, people learned which facial
configurations and postures were either threat-
ening or friendly. It was important for survival to
recognize instantly which animal was dangerous.
There is evidence of this in the successful

readability of animal-based images which comics
commonly employs when seeking to evoke
character recognition.
In graphic storytelling, there is little time or
space for character development. The use of
these animal-based stereotypes speeds the
reader into the plot and helps the storyteller gain
the readers acceptance for the action of his
characters.
SYMBOLISM
Just as stereotype employs images of people who
can be easily identified in comics or film,
objects have their own vocabulary in the visual
language of comics.
There are some objects which have instant

significance in graphic storytelling. When they
are employed as modifying adjectives or adverbs,
they provide the storyteller with an economical
narrative device.
Computers often use symbols to instruct their

operators. These are derived from objects familiar
to people in a technical society.
Apparel is symbolic. It can tell instantly the
strength, character, occupation and intent of its
wearer. How it is worn may also convey a signal
to the reader.
In comics, as in film, symbolic objects not only

narrate but heighten the emotional reaction of
the reader.
In this story, the selection of a doll and broken

signs evoke sympathy because they are
commonly identified with non-combatants. Left
lying in the snow broken and abandoned, they not
only testify to the innocence of the victims, but
solicit the readers condemnation of the killers.
CHAPTER 5
ALL KINDS
OF STORIES
A wide range of stories can be told in the graphic
medium but the method of telling a story must
be specific to its message.
TELLING STORIES TO INSTRUCT
A process is most easily taught when it is
wrapped in an interesting package . . . a story,
for example. As comics demonstrated the
capacity to marshal technical elements in a
disciplined order, they found ready patronage.
This demonstrates the order of thinking when
an instructional comic is created.
TELLING A HOW-TO STORY
Stories that seek to teach something are usually
structured to center on the process. Skills are
learned by imitation.
A PROCESS IS MOST EASILY
TAUGHT WHEN IT IS WRAPPED
IN AN INTERESTING PACKAGE.
KEVIN HUIZENGA EMPLOYS A UNIQUE APPROACH TO
CARTOONING TO REFLECT ON everything from death to
God to African refugees. While many cartoonists
stories are primarily concerned with character and
plot, what most interests Huizenga is the way the
various elements that make up a comic are
diagrammed on the page and how the reader
processes that information.
Huizenga once worked for a company where he

was responsible for creating visual explanations
and diagrams. This work had a direct impact on
his comics. In this piece, created for the Center for
Cartoon Studies, Huizenga boils down the
essential steps of putting together a comic book.
Huizengas style, reminiscent of old-time
newspaper comics, is easy to read and directly
relates to the subject hes addressing
cartooning.
TELLING THE PLOTLESS STORY
When high-tech layout and visual pyrotechnics
dominate a comic, the result is often a very simple
plot.
To a reader interested in the excitement of
graphic effects or bravura art, this is quite enough.
In fact, a plot with too much density can be an
impediment. In order to successfully satisfy this,
the artist requires from the writer little more than
a plot that centers on a single problem, as in plots
that center on pursuit or acts of ven-
geance. Most often, the solution is so
uncomplicated, violent action and special effect
art must sustain interest. The art becomes the
story, as in tapestries.
TELLING THE ILLUSTRATED STORY
During the mid-1970s, propelled and enabled by
great advances in printing and
reproduction technology, the illustrated story
attracted the interest of comic book artists,
writers and publishers. This format was not new,
but its renaissance offered highly skilled
illustrators and sophisticated writers a
compatible vehicle.
In this form of graphic storytelling, the writer

and artist retain their sovereignty because the
story comes from the text and is embellished by
the art. The leisurely rhythm of this kind of
graphic storytelling allows the reader time to
dwell on the art alone, which is mainly concerned
with itself. The artist can freely use
oil, watercolor, wood engravings or manipulated
photography. The skill demands of these
techniques are often so great that the art might
overwhelm the story.
In the marketplace, however, it makes for a very
attractive package and con- forms to the
traditional idea of a book.
TELLING THE SYMBOLIC STORY
In this story, the fulcrum of the plot is two
symbols, a daisy and a spiked ball. These symbols
serve to establish the premise within symbolic
plot and characters.
TELLING THE SLICE-OF-LIFE STORY
A slice-of-life story generally extracts an
interesting segment from human expe-
rience and examines it realistically.
The storyteller selects an event of interest

which can stand alone. The writer counts on the
life experience or the imagination of the reader to
supply the impact of the story. The readers
appreciation hinges on the telling of it. It requires
that the artist portrays believable acting. Since
characters are dealing with internal emo-
tions, subtle postures and gestures must be true-
to-life, instantly recognizable.
Powerhouse layouts or excessive rendering
technique, which can overwhelm and distract the
reader and dominate the story, are counter-
productive in this form.
Below are the critical elements of a story that

are never made explicit to the reader. In the story
that follows, they are implied and are an invisible
part of the narrative.
WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE

WHAT HAPPENED AFTER
TELLING A LIFE STORY
This story employs a single event in a single day
to define a man and his life. The storyteller is
always confronted with the difficulty of selecting
a revealing incident that will withstand the
readers judgment of what is believable.
POWERHOUSE LAYOUTS OR
EXCESSIVE RENDERING
TECHNIQUE, WHICH CAN
OVERWHELM AND DISTRACT
THE READER AND DOMINATE THE
STORY, ARE COUNTER-
PRODUCTIVE IN THIS FORM.
GABRIELLE BELLS COLLECTION OF DIARY COMICS, LUCKY, IS A
PERCEPTIVE GLIMPSE INTO a young womans life. The
unadorned drawing style, a simple scrawl, make
her coimics look as if they could have been drawn
on the day of the events described, and easily
captures the ebb and flow of her life. The art is
deceptive; it looks refresh- ingly unlabored yet
clearly there is a careful attention to detail, form
and proportion. The simplicity and directness of
the drawing creates an easy intimacy with the
reader that would be jeopardized by a more
bombastic or illustrative style.
CHAPTER 6
THE
READER

To whom are you telling your story?
The answer to this question precedes the telling

because it is a fundamental concern of delivery.
The readers profilehis experience and cultural
characteristics must be reckoned with before
the storyteller can successfully narrate the tale.
Successful communication depends on the
storytellers own memory of experi-
ence and visual vocabulary.
EMPATHY
Perhaps the most basic of human characteristics
is empathy. This trait can be used as a major
conduit in the delivery of a story. Its exploitation
can be counted upon as one of the storytellers
tools.
Empathy is a visceral reaction of one human
being to the plight of another. The ability to feel
the pain, fear or joy of someone else enables the
storyteller to evoke an emotional contact with the
reader. We see ample evidence of this in
movie theaters where people weep over the grief
of an actor, who is pretending while in an event
that is not really happening.
Wincing with vicarious pain when observing
someone being hit is, according to some
scientists, evidence of fraternal behavior, the
work of a neuropsycho- logical mechanism
developed in hominids from very early on. On the
other hand, researchers argue that empathy
results from our ability to run through our minds
a narrative of the sequence of a particular event.
This not only suggests a cognitive capacity but
an innate ability to understand a story.
There is a whole body of clinical studies to

support the conclusion that humans learn from
infancy to watch and learn to interpret gestures,
postures, imagery and other non-verbal social
signals. From these, they can deduce meanings
and motives like love, pain, and anger, among
others.
The relevance of all this to graphic storytelling
becomes even more apparent with the claims by
scientists that the evolution of hominids ability to
read the intentions of others in their group
involves their visual-neural equipment. This
was possible, they contend, because as the visual
system evolved it became more connected to the
emotional centers of the brain. It helps, therefore,
for an image maker to understand that all human
muscles, in one way or another, are con-
trolled by the brain.
Based on the understanding of empathys cause
and effect, we can then come to the fashioning of
a reader-storyteller contract.
THE CONTRACT WITH THE READER

At the outset of the telling of a story, whether
oral, written or graphic, there is an understanding
between the storyteller and the listener, or
reader. The storyteller expects that the audience
will comprehend, while the audience expects
the author will deliver something that is
comprehensible. In this agreement, the burden is
on the storyteller. This is a basic rule of
communication.
In comics the reader is expected to understand

things like implied time, space, motion, sound and
emotions. In order to do this, a reader must not
only draw on visceral reactions but make use of
an accumulation of experience as well
as reasoning.
CONTROL OF THE READER
A major element in the reader-storyteller contract
is the struggle to maintain reader interest. The
devices used in the telling bind the reader to the
storytelling.
For the storyteller this is a matter of control.

Once the readers attention is seized it cannot be
allowed to escape.
The key to reader control is relevance to his

interest and understanding. There are a few
fundamental themes (of which there are
hundreds of permuta- tions) which can be called
universal. These include stories that satisfy
curiosity about little known areas of life; stories
that provide a view of human behavior
under various conditions; stories that depict
fantasies; stories that surprise; and stories that
amuse.
In comics, reader control is attained in two
stagesattention and retention. Attention is
accomplished by provocative and attractive
imagery. Retention is achieved by the logical and
intelligible arrangement of the images.
SURPRISE, SHOCK AND READER RETENTION
Surprise is an often used element in all
storytelling. In the graphic language, the use of
surprise requires stagecraft. In film it is achieved
by a sudden and unexpected happening or
appearance, usually unforeseen. This is
reasonably easy to do because the audience is a
spectator that can see only the events shown
exactly in the order in which they are displayed.
For example, sudden appearance is a
commonly used device to achieve surprise or
shock.
In comics, because the reader is in control of the

acquisition, it is more difficult to surprise, shock
or retain his interest. Sometimes a comics
storyteller may try to use the turning of a page to
achieve a surprise. But unless the reader is
disciplined (does not skip ahead), he can elude the
storytellers
An example of an attempt to surprise the reader
grasp and see what happens next.
Aside from unexpected turns in the thread of a
is demonstrated in the following sequence. The
story, sur-
reader is led
prising
to the
expect
reader
a normal
on a visual
exchange
level
remains a major problem.
between two unimpaired people over several
pages. Of course, there is still the possibility that
In comics, the solution is to surprise the character
by flipping ahead, the surprise will be mitigated.
with whom the reader is involved.
So no attempt is made to surprise the reader
with a shock graphic. It is left to the characters
to act it out.
In this case, we have two surprises. One, we
present a seemingly active, even athletic, man
and reveal only later his infirmity
(speechlessness). Two, we reveal the girl as
crippled only after allowing her to react to his
speechlessness in the manner of a normal
person.
While the contrivance is choreographed, the

reader is involved by the reaction of the
characters. Without those reactions, the surprise
would fail.
DIALOGUE: THE READER AS ACTOR
The comics medium does not have sound, music
or motion, so this requires readers to participate
in the acting out of the story. The dialogue,
therefore, becomes a critical element. Where
dialogue is not furnished, it requires that the
storyteller depend on the readers life experience
to supply the speech that amplifies the
intercourse between the actors.
In depicting a silent sequence of interaction, the

comics storyteller must be sure to employ
gestures and postures easily identifiable with the
dialogue being played out in a readers mind.
READER VS. DIALOGUE
In this sequence, the reader is forced to
participate by supplying unspoken dialogue. In
this case, the last panel supplies all the words
needed. Used often in films, this device has the
effect of compressing a sequence which might
otherwise lose rhythm and credulity. In cases like
this, the reader with some life experience can
supply the dialogue.
DIALOGUE VS. IMAGE
In reality, action precedes words. In comics,
therefore, the dialogue is actually conceived after
the action is devised.
In comics, no one really knows for certain

whether the words are read before or
after viewing the picture. We have no real
evidence that they are read simultane-
ously. There is a different cognitive process
between reading words and pictures. But in any
event, the image and the dialogue give meaning
to each othera vital element in graphic
storytelling.
DIALOGUE VS. ACTION
Because a flow of action immediately takes on a
rhythm, the dialogue must accommodate the
pageantry. Balloons can impede flow by making
unreason- able demands on the readers sense of
realityand the storytellers credibility.
There is a demand on the reader to maintain a
sense of time. When there is an exchange of
dialogue, time passes. Here is an exchange timed
in seconds.
There is an almost geometric relationship
between the duration of dialogue and the
endurance of the posture from which it emanates.
In this exchange, there is a perceived time lapse
between the dialogue and the action. An actor
gets into position and speaks his line. The other
actor assumes a posture before respond- ing. All
this takes place in a matter of seconds.
Here is what happens when the comics

storyteller allows an exchange of dialogue to
emanate from the same image. There is a saving
of space but it is at the expense of credibility.
If there is an applicable formula, it would be to

ordain that the dialogue termi- nates the
endurance of the image. The logic of this is that a
protracted exchange of dialogue cannot be
realistically supported by unmoving static images.
LETTERING DIALOGUE
Given the absence of sound, the dialogue in
balloons acts as a script to guide the reader in
reciting it mentally. The style of lettering and the
emulation of accents are the clues enabling the
reader to read it with the emotional nuances the
comics storyteller intended. This is essential to
the credibility of the imagery. There are
commonly accepted lettering characteristics
which imply sound level and emotion. To a
certain extent, these are intuitive; below, the
larger, bolder text implies greater volume.
STORY MOMENTUM
When the reader becomes involved with a story
and is familiar with the rhythm and action, then
his own contribution to the dialogue can be
expected. The storys momentum enables the
comics storyteller to employ wordless passages
successfully.
In the following sequence, much dialogue is

suspended (in order to accelerate the narrative)
and the reader is expected to supply it.
CHAPTER 7
READER
INFLUENCES
No storyteller should ignore the fact that the
reader has other reading experiences. Readers
are exposed to other mediums, each of which has
its own rhythm. There is no way of measuring it,
but we know that these different media influ-
ence each other.
READING RHYTHM
Broadly speaking, and setting aside individual
cognitive skills, a readers rate of acquisition can
be best described as a reading rhythm. While
readers may adjust their expectations to the
discipline and conventions of comics, there is a
reflexive referral to other media just as there is to
a memory of a real experience.
Comics readers will tolerate the emulation of

another mediums rhythm of narration, but in
printed comics the comics storyteller must deal
with the fact that the medium is still delivered on
paper. This brings into play physical factorsi.e.,
paper does not require machinery for
transmission. The reader is in total control of the
acquisition, free of any manipulation by either the
machine or the rhythm of its output.
PRINT RHYTHM IN PRINT In print, the rhythm of reading
requires images that truly connect in order to
Webcomics (a term for comics displayed on the
more clearly evoke the intervening action.
Internet) provide the storyteller with more
flexibility in the control of the reader, but so far
comics storytellers have largely retained print
rhythms when working digitally.
FILM RHYTHM IN PRINT This emulates film rhythm as its
camera pans or sweeps from image to image.
THE INFLUENCE OF FILM ON READING COMICS
While there seems to be an overt relationship
between comics and film, there is a substantial
and underlying difference.
Both deal in words and images. Film buttresses

these with sound and the illusion of real motion.
Comics must allude to all of this from a platform
of static panels. Film employs photography and a
sophisticated technology to transmit
realistic images. Again, comics is limited to print.
Film purports to provide a real experience, while
comics narrates it. These singularities, of course,
affect the approaches of the filmmaker and the
cartoonist.
Both are storytellers working through their

mediums to make contact with an audience. But
each has a different engagement with its
audience. Film requires nothing more than
spectator attention, while comics needs a certain
amount of literacy and participation. A film
watcher is imprisoned until the film ends while
the comics reader is free to roam, to peek at the
But here is where the paths really diverge. Film
ending, or dwell on an image and fantasize.
proceeds without any concern about the literary
skills or reading ability of its audience, whereas
the comic must deal with both of these. Unless
comics readers can recognize the imagery
or supply the necessary events that the
arrangement of images imply, no com-
munication is achieved. The comics maker is
obliged, therefore, to devise images that connect
with the readers imagination.
The comics maker working in modern times must
deal with a reader whose life experience includes
a substantial amount of exposure to film.
Because film experience (despite the fact that it

is contrived) tends to be retained, the comics
narrator must deal with this experience as if it
were real. It is therefore inescapable that the
elements of storytellingrhythm, problem
resolution, cause and effect, as well as the more
cognitive elementsrelate to the readers
experience as a whole. There is an opportunity
for reader contact here.
One cannot ignore the fact that the television

experience can be aborted with the touch of a
button. The influence of this on attention span
and retention cannot be dismissed.
In comics, it is tempting to co-opt film clichs

that the cinema reader accepts viscerally. Film
often uses the viewers eye as the camera. In this
device, the actors remain in position while the
camera moves in and around their faces or
bodies. Another clich is the presentation of what
an actor sees after he is shown seeing
something. Comics makers frequently are
unsuccessful in emulating this because
they underestimate the amount of space this
requires in print.
In film, sound and dialogue do not occupy visual
space, they are heard at another level. Imitating
film in a comics sequence can make the
sequence hard to read, as the following shows.
FILM SEQUENCE
COMICS SEQUENCE When a comic emulates film camera
technique, it can lose readability. The same event
can be told more frugally, leaving room for the
rest of the story.
HOW COMICS INFLUENCE FILM

Film makers frequently find adaptable ideas in
comics. The comics storyteller is not working with
real time or motion, so he is not restricted in any
way by the reality of his images. The comics
storyteller is free to invent and distort reality by
using caricatures and devised machinery which, in
reality, could not possibly work. The use of
costumed heroes, acceptable in comics, was the
result of the innovative freedom comics
storytellers enjoyed because they were
unfettered by the con- fines of the realism in live
theater or film.
NATIONAL INFLUENCES
Historically, American films, with their broad
international distribution, helped establish global
visual and story clichs. Comics benefited and
rode on their acceptance.
After World War II, each country began to

develop its own cadre of comic book talent. Comic
books were soon published in individual countries
for indigenous populations. French, Italian,
Spanish, German, Mexican, Scandinavian,
Japanese and a host of other artists and writers
create comics to satisfy their own readers with
stories, art and icons that reflect their own
national culture. This has an influence on
storytelling in comics; certain stereotypical
images retain a national character.
There is a strong national influence on any

comics storyteller which makes it difficult to
produce images with a deliberate international
intent. However, the fact that many images
portray universal human posture and gesture
does serve to maintain the viability of the visual
language.
CHAPTER 8
IDEAS
Most stories come from a premise. This is the

basis of the contract with the reader.
The following are some popular story premises:
What if ? Let me tell you about what
happened to Next, my hero is thrown into
this adventure and Have you heard the one
about ?
WHAT IF?
While a major element of storytelling draws on
experience and reality, another source centers on
the fabrication of a problem.
Here are three viable premises for a story. They

touch on fundamental human concernsfear
and curiosity. In these the need to learn about
how one might deal with a threat is satisfied by
the manner in which the protagonist solves the
problem.
For the comics storyteller, the what if formula

provides a narrative with a peg upon which to
hang a contrived sequence of events. It also offers
the opportunity to fashion imagery that does
not have to answer to a reality test.
The following is the opening chapter from Signal
from Space (a.k.a. Life on Another Planet) published
by Kitchen Sink Press in 1978.
LET ME TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENED TO
An audience is always interested in the
experiences of someone with whom it can relate.
There is something very private that occurs within
the reader while he shares the actors
experience. The operative word is share,
because the inner feelings of the protagonist are
understandable to the reader who would have
similar emotions under the same circumstances.
In telling such a story in a graphic medium, it is
necessary to establish credibility. In comics
particularly, a prologue helps to invest the major
character with some dimension. To do this, a
prologue needs to be economical. A long prologue
IN TELLING SUCH A STORY IN A

GRAPHIC MEDIUM, IT
IS NECESSARY TO ESTABLISH
CREDIBILITY. IN COMICS
PARTICULARLY, A PROLOGUE HELPS
TO INVEST THE MAJOR CHARACTER
WITH SOME DIMENSION.
runs afoul of space limitations and a short one
leaves the reader too much to con-
tribute. Stories built around a protagonist often
depend on a prologue to quickly introduce him.
In the following novella, Sanctum, from
Invisible People, a prologue occupies the first four
pages.
NEXT MY HERO IS THROWN INTO THE
FOLLOWING ADVENTURE
In graphic storytelling, perhaps the most
comfortable format is the one in which a
continuing character with well-established
characteristics is plunged into a chal-
lenging adventure.
Here the comics storyteller need only arrange a
set of trials for the hero. In such a story, the
reader does not expect a complex plot or a tightly
woven fab- ric of circumstances. Indeed, the
simpler the problem the better. Action is the plot.
Such a story situation is common to superhero

stories. Action serves the storyteller well
because superheroes are one-dimensional. Given
the fact that this kind of heros attributes are
essentially physicalunlimited strength, vision,
locomo- tion etc.the threat can be in response
to the nature of these characteristics. In this kind
of story, the absence of subtlety in interaction
makes for predictable plots. The comics
storyteller can therefore resort to the novelty of
movie-style graphics. The movie audience
develops a kind of cinematic literacy over time
and will, when reading comics, often anticipate
the outcome of familiar situations. By employing
the images in a special effects style with striking
camera angles the storyteller can achieve
excitement within a banal plot.
BY EMPLOYING THE IMAGES IN A
SPECIAL EFFECTS STYLE WITH
STRIKING CAMERA ANGLES THE
STORYTELLER CAN ACHIEVE
EXCITEMENT WITHIN A BANAL
PLOT.
In the following example, the hero is not
superhuman. He is established as a powerful but
vulnerable fighter. The adventure into which he is
thrown capitalizes on his vulnerability. The tale
centers around the heros ability to prevail.
DID YOU HEAR THE ONE ABOUT
Stories can be hinged on a joke. Structurally, a
joke is the dramatization of a surprise. An
incongruous outcome of an act or speech, it can
be either in dialogue form or presented as an
incident. It is the unforeseen and unexpected
which evokes the pleasure of relief or amusement
that results in laughter.
In telling a joke, the storyteller should

concentrate on staging the action or setting on
which the joke depends. The reader is led up a
path which veers away suddenly. While the point
can be told in one or two written lines, the comics
storyteller must flesh out a scenario that will
accommodate graphics. This is done by
adding background before and after the point.
Vaudeville comedians called this milking a joke.
In this type of story, a prologue is necessary.

This allows the comics storyteller to employ
graphic devices to convey flashback as well as
to intensify the reactions of the individuals
In the following story, the joke is simple. A
involved. Text alone is not enough to sustain the
former hit man attempts to fulfilla contract fifty
ambiance of the graphic narrative. The telling of a
years after the date he was employed to execute
joke with graphics requires that the storyteller
it. In doing so, he dies of a heart attack. His victim
maintain absolute control of the imagery. It
survives unaware that he was about to be assas-
becomes necessary, therefore, to avoid subtlety
sinated by a friend. The joke is in the irony of the
in art and to depend on stereotypes and easily
surprising pity he feels for the hit man, and the
recognized images.
final line, living is a risky business, is designed to
make the point.
CHAPTER 9
THE
WRITING
PROCESS
Writing is commonly perceived as confined to the
manipulation of words. The process of writing
for graphic narration concerns itself with the
development of the concept, then the description
of it and the construction of the narrative chain in
order to translate it into imagery. The dialogue
supports the imageryboth are in service to the
story. They combine and emerge as a seamless
whole. The ideal writing process occurs where the
writer and artist are the same person. This, in
effect, shortens the distance between the idea and
its translation. It produces a product that more
closely reflects the intent of the writer.
In theater or film, the script falls into the hands
of directors, actors, cameramen and other
technicians. In comics, the writing will be broken
down into panels and pages by one or more
artists. In some cases a breakdown or roughly
sketched interpretation acts as a blueprint.
There is a distinct difference between writing for

a book of text and a graphic novel. For one thing, a
type font has no involvement in the nature,
structure or quality of a story. Type does not
translate; images do.
Writing that is translated into graphic

dramatization, whether film or comics,
must adapt to the mechanics of the form. For
example, writing for film or comics is
economical, eschews literary style, and does not
need descriptive passages that evoke images by
analogous prose. The idea is the dominant
element. Often a writer will reinforce the
translation process by supplying depth
In effect, writing
descriptions in the graphic
not intended medium means
to be reproduced, but
writing for the artist. The writer supplies the
rather designed to give the artist guidance.
concept, plot and cast of characters. His dialogue
(in balloons) is addressed to the reader, but the
description of the action is addressed to the
graphic translator.
WRITER VS. GRAPHIC TRANSLATOR
A script for comics that describes the
psychological nuances of a character does so with
the hope that the artwork will adequately convey
such internalization.
Here, for example, is the task facing a

translating artist who must deal with
the following script (panel one, page one) of a ten-
page, high-action crime story built mainly on
pursuit.
PANEL ONE
SCENE
The detective enters from the left. He limps a

bit (an old war wound) and favors the leg. His
craggy face is a tale of years of struggle, pain
and disappointment. His eyes are cold blue
steel and with a swift jungle animal scan,
they sweep the room. This man has killed. He
is seething with rage at the humiliation of
being called in so late to
the case. He masks his anger but not
his twitching jaw muscles .
Show middle distance shot slightly from above

with Commissioner and other offi- cers standing
awkwardly against the office wall.
BALLOON
DICK: Well Sir I got your call. If you expect me

to tidy up a mess, youd better put those
clerks into storage.
COMMISH: Now Dick, this is a very touchy
situation.

The script provides the artist with an internal
view of the detective in the hope that the
character can be limned well enough to imply all
that the writer hopes to convey. But we know
that to portray things like an old war wound,
eyes sweeping the room, seething rage,
humiliation and working jaw muscles may not
be possible in a single middle-shot panel.
What is the writer asking for? Is the writer
willing to permit these characteristics to be
divined by the reader, or is it critical to the story
that they be clearly shown?
The artist is faced with a translation dilemma.
How important are the twitching jaw muscles
and the other subtle characteristics? Indeed, how
much needs to be shown in one panel? It is, of
course, possible to ultimately convey the
detectives persona by small inferences in
successive panels, providing that fast-paced
action does not interfere. Another
accommodation is to insert a narrative panel that
shows the subtle sub-surface characteristics. All
of this depends on space.
As this example demonstrates, graphic narrative

writing must deal with the limitations of the
medium as well as the interpretation of the artist.
Comics is a medium confined to still images,

bereft of sound and motion, and writing must
accommodate these restrictions.
Writers must also factor into their expectations
the skills of the artist. The artist or the writer (or
both) are challenged by the need to convey
internals. Subtle gestures or provocative
postures are not easy to depict without the
continuing movement afforded by film. In this
medium telling images must be extracted
from the flow of action and then frozen.
Another example of writing that runs afoul of
the mediums limitations is the following passage:
The detective dropped gracefully through the

manhole into a space between the crates of
ammunition. He would wait there until the
killers brought their prisoner into a space lit by
an anemic 40-watt bulb at the end of the
room.
His mind rewound. It was Vietnam again. The
Delta was still. He was won- dering whether
the beating of his heart could be heard as he
waited behind the boxes of 50-caliber rounds.
The months of basic back at Parris Island
really hadnt prepared him for this. Ah yes, in
the barriowhere he mis- spent his
preschool yearswas more like it. His big
brother
their taught him
prisoner? Howwell. Paulo, when you
drop from the fire escape, freeze. Do not even
many panels would
THERE ARE
wiggle your ass. You stay in the alley behind
you devote to this?
the garbage can until they come into the light.
In the second INSTANCES
Those T-bones, they can smell you.
paragraph, the reader
is The
case,
doors
invited slam the
to tour
the art becomes only
WHERE
wiped out his reverie.
an illustration
Suddenly he was
mans past. Theres a lot alert. He peered around thein
support
story of the How
text. Here
do is an example of a
fantasy story in which
NARRATIVE TEXT
of box ready to spring. Then, the cold steel mouth
here.
text against
carries the
of an automatic
you keep it from slowing pressing the flashback.
nape of
In doing so it becomes integral to the method of
his neck brought him slowly upright.
the actionthat is,
narration.
IS
keep the
For the story flow
storyteller to translate this narrative to
alive?
graphics, a The
decision third INTEGRAL TO THE
about how to deal with the
paragraph is a problem
flashback must be made during the breakdown
in posture and gesture.
stage. The writer must know that to show a
replay
There of are
memory will require space. Flashbacks
instances
where narrative text is GRAPHIC.
can also slow the action. In this case, the amount
of space,
integral to allocated in the breakdown, will
the graphic.
determine how much narrative to eliminate.
In such a
Imagine for this purpose you are the artist and
you must translate this passage into a graphic
narrative: How many panels would you devote to
paragraph one? Yes, it would be easy to show the
detective dropping through the manholebut
how would you convey the idea that he was going
down to await the killers and
AFTERWORD ON WRITING
Not surprisingly, there often are communication
problems between participants in the process of
graphic storytelling.
In writing for graphic storytelling, the ultimate

judgment of the narrative is made after the work
is translated into art. The writer, therefore, must
be aware of the obstacles on the way to
publication.
When text alone is the vehicle in conveying a

story to the reader, there is little chance of a
misperception. But from text to visual, there is a
high probability of a difference in outcome,
stemming from lack of skill to lack of time. In this
medium, storytelling is not always a straight line
from the mind to the reader. Here is what
often happens.
CHAPTER 10
STORYTELLERS
In the comics medium, the continuing adventure

narrative first appeared in the daily newspaper
strips. This was feasible because until the 1930s,
newspapers dominated popular reading and were
a regular uninterrupted family compan-
ion. In those years, there was fierce competition
on the newsstands and comics,
particularly continuity strips, held the loyalty of
readers. This required storytelling skills.
In 1934, Milton Caniff (in those days most

cartoonists wrote and drew their own strips)
began Terry and the Pirates. This strip went beyond
the daily joke format and purported to be a
never-ending story. Caniff was carrying forward
the adventure theme that Lyman Young began
in Tim Tylers Luck a few years previous. Caniff
not only brought sophisticated art to the medium
but
The his storytelling,
introductory albeit
strip parsed
for Terry out
and the daily in
Pirates
segments, was so sturdy that it was usable
(1934) laid out the cast of characters and set the
material for the aborning comic books.
story track. In later sequences (1935), Caniff
demonstrates his Art
In his book, The brilliant
of the control of R.
Funnies, storytelling.
C. Harvey
Remember, a full day elapsed between each strip,
credits Caniff with virtually redefining the
yet he never lost his readers.
adventure strip by infusing exotic tales with
palpable realism. As a storyteller he enhanced the
traditional formula by incorporating character
development into action-packed plots.
By 1957, Caniffs storytelling had matured, as
this short sequence from Steve Canyon shows. He
demonstrates here a well-controlled flow of story
that sustains its connection between strips. His
plots are played out with panels that are mostly
standard so that they do not intr ude graphically.
This enhances the flow of the narrative and forces
concentration on the actors. In this story, his
action-filled epi- sodes accelerate the rhythm of
the strip yet allow the dialogue to retain its meter.
He uses wordless panels masterfully and
composes them so that they invite the reader to
participate in the acting.
There is a major structural difference between
newspaper storytelling strips and comic books. In
comic books, stories come to a definite
conclusion, a tradition that began when the early
comic books advertised that each story was
complete. A book is free-standing, whereas
newspapers are connected to the pattern of
daily life. In a daily continuity, therefore, the
storyteller need only segue into the
next adventure. Caniff understood that the story
had to emulate the seamless flow of lifes
experiences and that the human adventure
doesnt have neat end-ings. His work shows us
how to tell a story that could make itself part of
the readers daily life.
THERE IS A MAJOR STRUCTURAL

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NEWSPAPER
STORYTELLING STRIPS AND COMIC
BOOKS.
THE SHORT SHORT PLOT
If stories can be extended, they can also be
compressed. The success of such a shortening
lies in the preservation of the essence. The major
theme or plot must be preserved, and the
collateral dramatization is cut to the bone. In this,
the reader supplies the intervening action either
by reflexive deduction or drawing from
experience.
Ernest Hemingway narrated the shortest short

story as follows: For sale, baby shoes, never
used. It would not be hard to write a larger story
around this core. The power of this story lies in
the skill with which the selection of the touch-
stone points are made. They co-opt the reader
and immerse him or her in a sea of memory and
experience. Cleverly, it forces the reader to write
the story. The visual here is designed to evoke a
setting.
THE ONE-PAGE STORY
As early as 1916, George Herriman, the mediums
most innovative storyteller, laid the tracks for the
highly-condensed graphic narrative. With the
Krazy Kat Sunday comics page, he demonstrated
compact story delivery by deploying his images in
a format that would influence generations of
comics storytellers who came after him. The
following is an example of this:
THE ILLUSTRATOR-STORYTELLER
Riding the crest of the wave of adventure story
comics, by 1937 the interest in well-drawn strips
with good art opened up Sunday pages to
established illustrators. Harold Foster, who for
six years had produced a daily strip based on the
popular Tarzan novels, switched to a story of his
own. Prince Valiant is the story of a young knight
in the days of King Arthur. It is peopled with
characters drawn from legend and the books of
Sir Walter Scott.
established Prince
artists to Valiant appeared only a
year after the birth
illustrate IN STUDYING THE
of the comic book, where
stories.
complete stories were being told in the ever-
The format was comic-
refining
related, sequential
but art STORYTELLING
theform. In comic books, the
trend was to have the story told with images and
storytelling depended
dialogue balloons
mostly on text. PROCESS OF
with little narrative prose.
Foster,
Harold however,
Foster, employed
an the practice of
accomplished artist, THIS FORM OF
traditional book illustration. In the literary world,
classic book
illustrated illustration was more highly
his stories
regarded than comics.
with splendid, SEQUENTIAL
well- It did, after all, leave
accommodate this kind of narrative. Prince Valiant
the text example
unmolested.
researched art that left
is a classic The illustration
of narrative newspapers
that
accommodated
a mini- mum of text to
remains steadfastly ART, ONE
this in reverence, hiring
service to the story. well-
It is
carry the thread.
reader friendly.
Shortly after the SHOULD FIRST
In studying the storytelling process of this form
feature
of sequential
began,
art, one
he should first note the
departed from the NOTE THE
composition of each panel. Foster maintained the
partnership of text
narrative dominance of the art by illustrating the
and image
whole principle
of the action. so COMPOSITION OF
He deployed the actors in
unique
a to com-
manner similar ics.
to To
the required stagecraft in a
maintain a comic.
sequenced story flow EACH PANEL.
Throughout his stories, the
under these conditions
main characters remained in the center of action
and Foster
is very avoided An
difficult. highly descriptive prose. Its
brevity
early allowed episode
him to employ art that told a
great deal of story.
demonstrates The effectiveness of Prince
(note
Valiant reliance
the as narrative on illustration is dem-
onstrated by
numbered its visual
panels) his flow. The high degree of
accuracy and
groping detail should
toward a not be regarded as
sequential
purely format it tois a major ingredient in
decorative;
storytelling.
IF STORIES CAN BE EXTENDED,
THEY CAN ALSO
BE COMPRESSED.

MORE ADAPTATION THAN PARODY, R. SIKORYAKS

MASTERFUL COMICS GRAFT CLASSIC literature with iconic
comics while somehow managing to be faithful to
both sources. In this example, Sikoryak
compresses Dantes epic poem, The Inferno
(one of the three canticles that make up The Divine
Comedy), into ten Bazooka Joe comic strips (in and
of themselves an exercise in compression). The
Inferno is bril- liantly boiled down to its essence
while the structure and intrinsic character of
Bazooka Joe is also retained!
THE TOTALLY GRAPHIC STORY
The graphic novel, as we know it today, consists
of text, either narrative or dialogue (in balloons),
integrated with sequentially deployed art. But
early efforts in graphic narrative literature
approached this form with an almost total
elimina- tion of words.
In Belgium, Frans Masereel, a skilled wood
engraver, pioneered in the expan- sion of this
art and employed it as a narrative tool.
In 1927, Masareels Die Sonne was

published in Germany. It consisted of sixty-
three plates.
Masareel was joined by German artist Otto
Nckel, whose wood engravings formed the
basis of Destiny, a more ambitious work
(approximately two hundred plates). This
appeared in the United States about 1930.
The story here was more sophisticated and

the graphic narrative more complex.
A study of the graphic novel form will reveal that
a major burden of narration is assigned to the
artwork. But with the proliferation of the comic
book, the responsibility for the telling of the
story is shared by text and image. The success of
this mix of medium quickly succeeded and the
totally graphic technique quickly gave way to the
familiar graphic novel. A forerunner of the modern
graphic novel is found in the work of Lynd Ward.
He stands out as perhaps the most provocative
graphic storyteller in the twentieth century.
Ward was a successful book illustrator famous
for his brilliant woodcuts. In 1937 he published
Vertigo, a graphic novel narrated entirely with
wood-engraved images. Without a word of text
he succeeds in telling a complete, compelling
story,
thus proving the viability of the form. What is
even more significant is that in over
three hundred pages, Vertigos only concession to
text is the occasional use of signs and posters.
Ward kept the narrative focused by titling each
chapter with a date. He used the entire page as a
panel. Printed on only one side of the leaf, with
each image floating in open space, he obliged the
reader to turn a page in order to get to the next
panel. This gave the reader time to dwell on each
image and gave the storyteller total reader
engagement.
Vertigo was printed as a conventional book and
sold in book stores. It is interesting to note that
this occurred about the time the first comic books
appeared on newsstands. Vertigo was published
by a mainstream publisher.
The story requires the reader to contribute
dialogue and the intervening flow of action
between pages. While this permutation
succeeded in demonstrating the viability of
graphic storytelling, to an audience alien to
comics it could not go very far beyond simply
breaking new ground. Many readers found this
book difficult to read. Some enjoyed the
magnificent effects of his woodcuts. But in the
main, this experiment overlooked the
reinforcement of a balanced mix of image
and text. Ward was obviously not interested in
accommodating the great dependence graphic
storytelling has on a reader already conditioned to
participating in the narrating process. The amount
of action that transpires between these
scenes takes considerable input from the reader
to comprehend. There is a certain visual
literacy that is second. For the practitioner
(writer or artist), Vertigo can serve as a skeleton
upon which to experiment with a story that has
tighter graphic sequencing.
A STUDY OF THE GRAPHIC NOVEL

FORM WILL REVEAL
THAT A MAJOR BURDEN OF
NARRATION IS ASSIGNED TO
THE ARTWORK. BUT WITH THE
PROLIFERATION OF THE
COMIC BOOK, THE RESPONSIBILITY
FOR THE TELLING OF
THE STORY IS SHARED BY TEXT AND
IMAGE.
CHAPTER 11
ARTISTIC
STYLE AND
STORYTELLING
Sooner or later, the subject (or question) of artistic
style surfaces in relationship to the process of
graphic storytelling. The ratio of its importance to
other elements is arguable, but it is an
inescapable ingredient. The reality is that artistic
style tells story. Remember, this is a graphic
medium and the reader absorbs mood and other
abstracts through the artwork. Style of art not
only connects the reader with the artist but it sets
ambiance and has language value. Do not confuse
technique with style. Many artists use crosshatch
stippling, dry brush and ARZAK (SCIENCE FICTION)
wash the way a jazz
musician might use riffs. Style, as we define it
here, is the artworks look and feel in service of its
message.
Certain graphic stories are best told with a style
appropriate to the content, and they often
succeed or fail on that account. This is usually
more of a problem for the artist than the writer,
since it requires an artist to adopt a style
appropriate to the story. There are some artists
who can emulate almost any style, but this
requires the discipline of a forger. Many
contemporary artists engaged in graphic
storytelling have an inherent artistic style
compatible to content. Some are capa- ble of
mastering different styles to accommodate a
story.
Moebius (Jean Giraud), for example,
demonstrates a deliberate change of style for two
totally different story missions:
BLUEBERRY (WESTERN)
THE READER ABSORBS MOOD AND
OTHER ABSTRACTS
THROUGH THE ARTWORK. STYLE OF
ART NOT ONLY CONNECTS
THE READER WITH THE ARTIST BUT
IT SETS AMBIANCE AND
HAS LANGUAGE VALUE.

BRYAN LEE OMALLEYS SCOTT PILGRIM USES A HIGH-

OCTANE, MANGA-INSPIRED STYLE to relate the title
characters quest to win the heart of Ramona
Flowers. A loose and expressive brush line powers
the soap/rock operas story, which pits twenty-
three-year-old Pilgrim against Ramonas seven
evil ex-boyfriends. One look at
OMalleys endearing and sumptuous art and the
reader is instantly bewitched into the storys
spirited spell.
In Maus, Art Spiegelman worked in a style that,
because of its character, delivered story. The
overall look appropriately conveyed the
impression that the artwork was created and
smuggled out of a concentration camp. This is
graphic storytelling.
In his illustrations for Introduction to Kafka, a

graphic biography of the Czech author, Robert
Crumbs natural style succeeds as a narrative.
THE VOICE OF THE STORYTELLER
There is a psychic transmission present in the
best graphic storytelling. It is gen- erated by the
storytellers passion. It carries the storys
emotional charge to the reader. A classic example
of that is Al Capps long-running satirical strip, Lil
Abner. One can feel the intensity and hear the
laughter of the storyteller behind the art. In this
segment of daily strips Capp keeps the high-
voltage story going. The reader laughs even
before ingesting the story, which in this example
is quite thin.
AND THE
STORYTELLER HIMSELF
Invariably, the
storyteller becomes
identified with and THE RESPONSIBILITY
somehow part of the
narrative. The FOR THE SELECTION
uncontrollable elements
in this otherwise OF
disciplined medium,
including style, selection STEREOTYPES,
of stereo-
types, portrayal of PORTRAYAL
behavior. Contriving the postures and gestures of
violence,
a heartbroken
males
character
and reacting to a great
females, for
misfortune, OF VIOLENCE AND THE
and example,
the stems from inside the
resolution of
storyteller. The conflict,
graphic storyteller has to be
unmasks the storyteller. RESOLUTION OF
willing to expose himself emotionally.
The responsibility for
the selection of
CONFLICT
stereotypes,
portrayal of violence
and the resolution of FALLS ON THE
conflict falls on the
storyteller. Bias and STORYTELLER.
values are revealed
through the artwork
because the acting of
the participants in a
story emanates from
the artists private
memory of human
Sentimentalism, Schmaltz, Violence, and
Pornography generally characterize a story and
are ingredients under the storytellers control.
Sentiment is defined as an attitude resulting

from feelings associated with
emotion, idealism and nostalgia.
Schmaltz stems from a Yiddish word for oily or

fat and is associated in
storytelling with exploitive emotionalism and
excessive pathos.
Violence portrays the act of physical struggle.

Pornography, in graphic storytelling, can be
defined as excessive
exploitation of sexual activity to titillate.

Ultimately, storytellers have a responsibility not
only to the reader but to themselves. Stories
have influence. This imposes on the storyteller
certain choices. What effect will the story have?
Does the storyteller want to be identified with
it? What are the limits of moral standards to
which he will adhere?
THE MARKETPLACE
The graphic storyteller cannot escape the
marketplace. A comic is essentially visual, which
makes its package the product. The artwork
influences the initial sale. This is not lost on the
retailer and distributor, who are the final access to
the reader. This encourages the creators to
concentrate on form rather than content.
The market, therefore, exercises a creative
influence. The graphic storyteller, in pursuit of the
market, will give sovereignty to the graphics. The
graphic storyteller interested in the retention of
readership will keep graphics in service to the
story.
AND, FINALLY, THE FUTURE

Ultimately, the graphic storyteller must think
about the future of his medium. An ever-
advancing technology affects the communication
environment.
A capsule history of transmitting graphics
demonstrates the validity of this concern. The
vehicles used have always been and still are in
ceaseless evolution.
I propose, therefore, to conclude this
examination of graphic storytelling by posing the
following questions:

1. Over time, have the stories people tell
been changed by the new methods of
transmission?
2. What has been the role of the image in
human communication?
3. How has changing technology affected
underlying graphic storytelling skills?
4. How many of the classic vehicles of

communication have disappeared as a
result of advances in delivery?
5. How have the Internet and digital

technology altered the audience?

These questions do not have simple answers,
but thinking about them can help develop a
working perspective that is an abiding necessity
to a graphic storyteller.
CHAPTER 12
COMICS
AND THE
INTERNET
The method of transmission has always had a
critical influence on the creation of
communication arts. Comics is a medium that is
especially linked to its method of publication. As
the ever-evolving vehicles of modern
communication respond to social needs by
accelerating the speed of delivery and the quality
of imagery, it affects style, technique and reading
rhythm of graphically told stories.
Digital technology has begun to compete with

print, so mastery of this tool is now worth the
creators attention. With the advent of the
personal computer and the growing culture of the
Internet, readership has expanded. Online graphic
storytelling or Webcomics have grown in
importance on the Internet. Software,
desktop scanners and the stylus are now
essential tools alongside brushes, pens and ink.
The essentials of storytelling, however, remain.
The reading convention of comics is similar in

both print and digital formats. Sequential art
should follow this discipline.
The vertical proportions of the traditionally

printed comic book differ from the
generally horizontal dimensions of a computer
monitor. If a single page is required to fit onto the
computer screen, reformatting is required to
eliminate the need to scroll. Some storytellers
forego the print medium completely, developing
content specifically for the Web.
This decision affects clarity of artwork, legibility

of lettering, typography and other production
facets, until recently the sole domain of the
printed comic book.
DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY HAS
BEGUN TO COMPETE WITH
PRINT, SO MASTERY OF THIS
TOOL IS NOW WORTH THE
CREATORS ATTENTION.
THE INFINITE CANVAS
The infinite canvas allows the reader to follow the
flow of imagery and text by scrolling across a
larger field designed by the storyteller. This
format offers a wide range of image deployment
and panel layout, but also involves participation
by the reader via navigation control.
FURTHER INFORMATION ON
WEBCOMICS
Webcomics have grown to be an important area
for artistic expression on the Internet. Pioneers of
online visual narrative have shown the creative
potential of the Web, while commercial sites
have succeeded in developing business models
flexible enough to showcase the variety of
Webcomic styles and delivery systems
whilst satisfying reader and customer
requirements.
The production of Webcomics takes a certain

amount of technical knowledge
concerning computers, graphic design software
packages and how to publish your work online.
While creators can do all of this themselves,
there are also online communities and
businesses that can assist at varying stages.
Artwork can be prepared for the Web in several
ways: digitizing original artwork (pen and ink
art, mixed media, etc.) or creating the artwork
digitally using specialized software programs like
Photoshop or Painter, or vector-based pack-
ages like Illustrator or Freehand. Other tools such
as drawing tablets and flatbed scanners are also
used.
All graphic files prepared for the Web should be
72 dots per inch (dpi), but as a general rule
original art should be originally scanned at a
higher resolution to maintain quality, then
reduced to 72 dpi and optimized before
uploading.
SUGGESTED METHODS FOR TRANSFERRING DRAWN
ARTWORK TO A COMPUTER
For black and white artwork, scan at 800 dpi or
more, Bitmap format, saving the file as a TIFF
(Tagged Image File Format). This saves the art at
high contrast, leaving only pure black or pure
white pixels.
For graytone or colored art, scan at 300 dpi, in

grayscale format for toned artwork (pencil, etc.)
or RGB format for color art (gauche, watercolor,
etc.), saving the file as a TIFF. This retains all
graytone or color information.
Most coloring and adjustment of artwork is

done using software programs like Photoshop or
Fireworks. These programs can save your final
files at 72 dpi in a variety of formats for viewing
on the Web. The most common file formats are
GIF (Graphics Interchange Format), JPEG (Joint
Photographic Experts Group) and PNG (Portable
Network Graphics).
These final graphics files, generally arranged

using HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), will
be the files uploaded to an FTP (File Transfer
Protocol) site and made accessible via a Web
browser, for example, Microsoft Internet
Explorer, directed to a specific Web address or
URL (Uniform Resource Locator)for exam-
ple, www.willeisner.com.
OBSERVATIONS ON STORY
It is not enough for one who undertakes
storytelling in a graphic medium to allow
the simplicity of technology and artwork to
dominate. An underlying understanding of the
philosophical terrain into which one ventures is
useful when telling stories.
The following thinkers have contributed a body

of useful reference to the art of graphic
storytelling.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL Writing in The Hero with a Thousand

Faces, Joseph Campbell comments on the nature
and the story function of myths. He believes that
myths are a nuclei out of which stories are
fashioned. Throughout the inhabited world, in all
times and under every circumstance the myths of
man have furnished; and they have been the living
inspiration of whatever else may have appeared
out of the activities of the human body and mind.
It would not be too much to say that myth is the
secret opening through which the inexhaustible
energy of the cosmos pour into human cultural
manifestation.
Campbell prefaces this by telling us that shape-

shifting stories, primitive or sophisticated, are
marvelously constant . It is the business of
mythology and of the fairy tale to reveal the
specific dangers of the dark interior way from
tragedy to comedy.
For the storyteller employing the hero to tell his
stories, he advises, the mighty hero of
extraordinary powers who is able to lift
mountains and fill himself with terrible glory is
each of us. Campbell also believes that the usual
adventure begins with someone from whom
something was takenor who feels that there
is something lacking in the normal experiences
permitted to the members of his society. This
person then takes off on a series of adventures
beyond the ordinary to recover what has been
lost or to discover some life-giving elixir.
ROGER D. ABRAHAMS African Folktales by Roger D.

Abrahams reminds us that Africa has had a long
history of storytelling with imagery. This is related
to graphics because sculptures, masks and
postures in dance are used to accompany words
and music to transmit the story. In this way,
unaided by the easy availability of
printing technology, the village historians,
entertainers and philosophers dealt with tribal
education and social conduct.
The author, a specialist in folklore, has some

observations that are pertinent to the graphic
storyteller. He believes, The fable and its
message are one. Stories operate like proverbs, as
a means of depersonalizing, of universalizing, by
couch- ing the description of how specific people
are acting in terms of how people have
always acted. Stories in tribal communities
intend to reflect the agricultural envi-
ronment. They are concerned with domestication
of crops and cattle. Weather unreliability and
scarcity of natural resources lead to hunger and
disease so storytelling often reflects the
importance of potency as a factor in the
proliferation and survival of families. Social bonds
are strained or broken by stealing of food or
neglect of children in times of crisis. Therefore, he
says, no theme is more important or receives
more attention than the building of families or
friendship ties to provide that strength which in
the face of natural disaster or perilous human
responses to it, insures a communitys survival.
The actors who people these stories are

frequently animals whose characteristics are
already familiar to their audience. Dramatizations,
in dance or pantomime, employ imagery in which
masks or costumes that portray animals serve as
storytelling tools. As a result, throughout Africa
there are stories that belong to animals. Mice,
hares, spiders and jackals are regarded as clever
creatures and are featured in stories that attack
or upset rules and boundaries of communal
harmony. Such stories serve as an indirect and
impersonal means of engaging in deep discussion.
LADISLAS SEGY Tribal storytelling often reaches

beyond the oral and employs
art as an accompaniment. African art is a very
clear demonstration of functional imagery. When
art is employed as a language, it submits to a
discipline quite different, but related to primitive
sculpture.
In African Sculpture Speaks, Ladislas Segy points
out a relationship between art and story in
primitive societies. The African, he states,
lacking writingcarried his mythologyhis
literaturein his head, transmitting the legends
orally from generation to generation. Sculpture
was an additional language through which
he expressed his inner life and communicated
with the invisible world. Virtually every act in
their lives had its ritual and every rite had its
appropriate image. The art produced was more
emotional in content than intellectual but was
quite util- itarian, according to Segy. Because of
the function of sculptureparticularly in
masks used in a mime or danceit related to
known stories. Unlike the use of imagery in print,
it was not part of a sequential series but rather
contained the story in itself. This sculpture was
speaking in plastic language. The author attri-
butes the focus of this art form (sculpture) to the
lack of writing.
E. H. GOMBRICH In graphic storytelling, the quality of
art is an unavoidable con- sideration. In Art and
Illusion, E. H. Gombrich discusses some of the
psychological considerations in the evaluation of
artwork. He points to a common belief that
artistic excellence is identical with photographic
accuracy. Thus, he claims, aesthetics has
surrendered its claim to be concerned with the
problems
of convincing representation, the problem of
illusion in art. Referring to great masters of the
past, who were both great artists and great
illusionists, he further points out that the
history of representation became increasingly
mixed up with the psychology of perception. He
observes that the inability to copy nature
stems from the inability to see it. He finds that a
figure drawn by one, ignorant of the structure of
knitting of bones and anatomy, is different when
compared to one who understands these
thoroughly both see the same life but with
different eyes. The true miracle of the language
of art, he tells us, is that it can teach us to see the
visible world afresh and give us the illusion of
looking into the invisible realms of the mind.
FURTHER READING
Understandably, the more recent emergence of
the graphic dimension in modern storytelling has
produced little in our libraries on this discipline.
For the practitioner, however, the understanding
of storytelling itself is worthy of study for it
underlies and precedes the process of narration.

Roger D. Abrahams. African Folk Tales. New York: Pantheon Press,
1983.
Augusta Baker and Ellin Greene. Storytelling: Art & Technique. New
York: Bowker, 1987.
(Storytelling as it is practiced in the United States.)
Joseph Campbell. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton, N.J.:

Princeton University Press, 1949.
E. H. Gombrich. Art and Illusion. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1960.
Norma J. Livo. Storytelling: Process & Practice. Littleton, Colo.:

Libraries Unlimited, 1986.
(The art of storytelling.)
Scott McCloud. Understanding Comics. New York: HarperCollins,
1993.
Michael Roemer. Telling Stories. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield,

1995.
(Narrative technique in storytelling.)
Ladislas Segy. African Sculpture Speaks. New York: Farrar, Straus &
Giroux, 1952.
Mark B. Tappan and Martin J. Parker, editors. Narrative and

Storytelling: Implications for
Understanding Moral Development. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,
1991.
SCHOOLS OFFERING COURSES IN
COMICS CREATION
Center for Cartoon Studies, White River Junction,
VT
Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art,

Dover, NJ
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI
Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah,

GA
School of Visual Arts, New York, NY
NOTE: This list is by no means exhaustive, and is

intended to be a starting point for those looking
for information on comics instruction. The
National Association of Comics Art Educators
keeps an up-to-date list of schools and resources
on its Web site at
www.teachingcomics.org/links.php.
It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
By thy long grey beard and

glittering eye,
Now wherefore stoppst thou

me?
The guests are met, the feast is

set:
Mayst hear the merry din.
He holds him with his glittering

eye
The wedding-guest stood still,
And listens like a three years

child:
The Mariner hath his will.

The wedding-guest sat on a
stone:
He cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient

man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

from The Rime of the
Ancient Mariner
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
WILL EISNER (19172005) IS UNIVERSALLY
ACKNOWLEDGED AS ONE OF THE GREAT masters of comic
book art, beginning as a teenager during the birth
of the comic book industry in the mid-1930s.
After a successful career as a packager of comic
books for various publishers, he created a
groundbreaking weekly newspaper comic book
insert, The Spirit, which was syndicated worldwide
for a dozen years and influenced countless other
cartoonists, including Frank Miller, who wrote and
directed the major motion picture based on it. In
1952, Eisner devoted himself to the then still
nascent field of educational comics. Among these
projects was P*S, a monthly technical manual
utilizing comics, published by the United States
Army for over two decades, and comics-based
teaching material for schools. In the mid-1970s,
Eisner returned to his first love, storytelling with
sequential art. In 1978, he wrote and drew the
pioneering graphic novel A Contract With God. He
went on to create another twenty celebrated
graphic novels. The Eisners, the comics industrys
annual awards for excellence (equivalent to the
Oscars in film), are named in his honor.
The Will Eisner Library
from W. W. Norton &
Company
Paperbacks
The Plot
Completed in the last month of Will Eisners life,

The Plot: The Secret History of the Protocols of the
Elders of Zion unravels one of the most
devastating hoaxes of the twentieth century.
This masterpiece, which Eisner regarded as his
most powerful, examines historys most
dangerous wave of anti-Semitism hatched from
an outrageous and propagandistic plot by
Russias secret police in 1905.
ISBN: 978-0-393-32860-8
Minor Miracles
In Minor Miracles, Eisner returns to the New York

City of his youth to tell four improbable tales
filled with love, loss, hope, and wonder. He sets
out to make a case for the existence of wild
coincidence and outrageous fortune in the
miracles of the everyday.
ISBN: 978-0-393-32814-1
Price: $17.95
128 pages
A Family Matter
Dropsie Avenue: The Neighborhood
In Dropsie Avenue: The Neighborhood, Eisner

graphically traces the social trajectory of this
mythic avenue over four centuries, creating a
sweeping panorama of the city and its waves of
new residents, whose stories present an
unending story of life, death, and resurrection.
ISBN: 978-0-393-32811-0
Price: $16.95
186 pages
Invisible People
To the Heart of the Storm
To the Heart of the Storm is an award-winning

account of Eisners life as a young man while on
deployment during World War II. He examines his
family culturefilled with poverty, anti-
Semitism, and proud heritagein a stunning
work of autobiographical confession.
ISBN: 978-0-393-32810-3
Price: $17.95
208 pages
Will Eisner Reader
The City People Notebook
In The City People Notebook, a sequel to his best-

selling New York, Eisner examines three facets of
city life: time, space, and smell. He brings to this
task a lifetime of memories and encounters,
consummate with his proven ability as a keen
and sensitive chronicler of the urban landscape.
ISBN: 978-0-393-32806-6
Price: $16.95
96 pages
A Life Force
The Building
In this deeply felt and moving chronicle, Eisner

explores the collective psychic memory that a
landmark leaves behind when it is destroyed. The
Building is both a ghost story and a testament to
the best of human qualitiesa melancholy look
at how we treat the past and a robust affirmation
of life.
ISBN: 978-0-393-32816-5
Price: $16.95
96 pages
New York: The Big City
The Dreamer
The Dreamer, perhaps one of Eisners greatest

autobiographical works, is based on the early
years of his own career. Special annotations in
this edition describe how Eisner helped inspire
comics as we know them today by training some
of the pioneer writers and artists of this true
American art form.
ISBN: 978-0-393-32808-0
Price: $16.95
54 pages
Life on Another Planet
A Contract With God
A Contract With God is Eisners first in a

revolutionary series of graphic novels that
defined the medium and forever changed the
history of sequential art. Channeling his
childhood memories of New York in the 1930s,
Eisner depicts the lives, dreams, and trials of the
residents of a Bronx tenement.
ISBN: 978-0-393-32804-2
Price: $18.95
208 pages
Hardcover Compilations
Will Eisners New York: Life in the Big City
Life, in Pictures: Autobiographical Stories
Life, in Pictures: Autobiographical Stories (The

Dreamer, To the Heart of the Storm, The Name of
the Game, The Day I Became a Professional, A
Sunset in Sunshine City) offers readers a rare
glimpse into Eisners family history, working life,
and his early days as the innovator of a new art
form: the graphic novel. Indeed, the work shows
the great arc of American life over the last two
centuries as well as the personal, but no less
dramatic, story of Eisners own experience.
ISBN: 978-0-393-06107-9
Price: $29.95
496 pages
The Contract With God Trilogy: Life on

Dropsie Avenue
Instructional Textbooks
Comics and Sequential Art
Comics and Sequential Art is Eisners landmark

manual on graphic storytelling. Used by authors
and artists in every medium, Pulitzer Prize
winner Michael Chabon calls it the kind of work
that begins with the modest project of describing
some principles of artistic construction but that
somehow ends up describing the world itself.
ISBN: 978-0-393-33126-4
Price: $22.95
192 pages
Expressive Anatomy for Comics and
Narrative
GRAPHIC STORYTELLING
AND VISUAL NARRATIVE

Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative

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What are some of Will Eisner's notable works?

What are some of Will Eisner's notable works?

What are the different types of books published by Will Eisner Studios?

What are the different types of books published by Will Eisner Studios?

The

Will Eisner Library

OTHER BOOKS BY WILL EISNER

SCHOOLS OFFERING COURSES IN

The original editions of this book and its first

While Eisner was solely responsible for the

In keeping with the authors wishes, we have

The effort of artists to tell stories of substance

About that time, Lynd Ward also began

Comics are essentially a visual medium

The traditional production of comics by a single

In Graphic Storytelling, the concentration is on a

To Dave Schreiner, my gratitude for his skillful and

To my wife, Ann, who contributed many hours of

To supportive colleagues, Neil Gaiman, Scott

The latter half of the twentieth century

In their influential book The Medium Is the

The years between 1967 and 1990 saw comics

In this environment, the comic book suffered

This epitomizes the challenge facing comic book

When this language is employed as a

GRAPHIC NARRATIVE: A generic description of

COMICS: A form of sequential art, often in the

All stories have a structure. A story has a

It becomes a story when told in an arranged and

Readers and viewers identify content with its

Static images have limitations. They do not

Images in print or film transmit with the speed

In film, there is plenty of time to develop a

The comics creator can now count on a global

Certain human characteristics are recognizable

There is evidence of this in the successful

There are some objects which have instant

Computers often use symbols to instruct their

In comics, as in film, symbolic objects not only

In this story, the selection of a doll and broken

Huizenga once worked for a company where he

In this form of graphic storytelling, the writer

The storyteller selects an event of interest

Below are the critical elements of a story that

To whom are you telling your story?

The answer to this question precedes the telling

There is a whole body of clinical studies to

THE CONTRACT WITH THE READER

In comics the reader is expected to understand

For the storyteller this is a matter of control.

The key to reader control is relevance to his

In comics, because the reader is in control of the

While the contrivance is choreographed, the

In depicting a silent sequence of interaction, the

In comics, no one really knows for certain

Here is what happens when the comics

If there is an applicable formula, it would be to

In the following sequence, much dialogue is

Comics readers will tolerate the emulation of

Both deal in words and images. Film buttresses