Author’s work RIVER STREET

Compared to architectural drawings, which contain monotonous spatial information, and sequential video text media, which are frame after frame and word after word, comics are much more flexible. Each panel can narrate the movement and possibilities of architectural space by different types and levels, and in the flexible layout readers are given license to took, using their experience and imagination to freely relate and contrast the image text information between panels, giving each specific scene and time meaning.[1]My comic strip of River Street conveys the interplay between different representations of space, time and human behaviour within the same scene and the impact of all three together on the overall scene. In this essay I will use my comic as an object of analysis, combined with examples referenced in the creative process, to explore the narrative of time in the visual space of the comic, both in the larger scene and in the small panels.

The scene I depict is a common riverside street with rows of buildings on one side of the street and a mountain at the far end of the image. The comic page is evenly cut into twelve polyptychs separated equidistantly, and the three period themes displayed in the image can be identified by the colour distinction. The separation here allows each panel to independently emphasise a different space in the scene, and any one of them can become the reader's entry point into that virtual space, offering more possibilities for the layering and depth of the temporal narrative. The comic reflects the interplay of character, time and space, stitching together the different spaces of the same street in the primitive, war and modern peacetime periods of human society, or what can be seen as the spatial and environmental impact of the different times on the street. I have also set up a few content 'coincidences' for the lines of primitive people, soldiers and citizens, linking the different eras of life together and giving the illusion that these characters are talking to each other across time and space in the changing images.

Ware, Chris, “Big Tex”, 1996

King, Frank, “Gasoline Alley”, 1930

McGuire, Richard, ”Here”, 1964

The comic reflects the interplay of character, time and space, stitching together the different spaces of the same street in the primitive, war and modern peacetime periods of human society, or what can be seen as the spatial and environmental impact of the different times on the street. I have also set up a few content 'coincidences' for the lines of primitive people, soldiers and citizens, linking the different eras of life together and giving the illusion that these characters are talking to each other across time and space in the changing images.

The comic's seemingly well-arranged squares give the reader great arbitrariness to read, whether from top to bottom, left to right, or by starting at any point of interest in the image and dispersing around to return to the author's narrative. The main inspiration for the composition and expression comes from Chris Ware's BIG TEX[1], whose panel form and function I referenced, and the comic shows the coexistence of the four seasons in the same scene, a coexistence that is spatial rather than temporal. The change of time is hidden in the withering of plants, the mending of houses and the busyness of the characters. Frank King was one of the first artists to use polyptychs before Ware, experimenting with this cut-out panel to show the correlation between time and space in Gasoline Alley[2], and he has used it many times in his later work as a full-page polyptych, with the entire page shown in the time quadrant of a day. [3]This arrangement narrates the passage of time with different activities of a fixed subject in a context where there is no clear beginning and end, even though there is a progressive temporal relationship within the subject matter of my comic, and the eye does not have to follow a certain logic when reading. As Bredehoft said: "The understanding of vision is never a simple and natural process, but rather a process of construction and chance." [4]This means a free flow of vision and comprehension, with the reader encouraged to zigzag back and forth between images to compare information and construct a complete narrative concept. Assuming that the reader first sees the ruins of the battlefield on the right side of the comic, and then their eyes notice the neat wall next to it that meets the ruins perfectly, they enter another era and can then choose to move to another time when the spaces are connected or look for other spaces that have similar features and conversational logic. Cohn, Foulsham and Wybrow have concluded from their experiments that "participants may not view multiple, simultaneous images in a particular order. They may notice the simpler parts first or approach the overall subject before looking at it more closely". [1] It is human nature to try to get good results in a simple and quick way, in which they may gather information from the most convenient places and then move on to the next stage of the search for comparison. direction and thus indirectly influence the collection of information. [2]

The multi-panel presentation blurs the boundaries between textual space and event time, splitting up the space to suggest the passage of time, and allowing me to make use of a variety of threads in a complete compositional understanding of a large span of narrative. As the panels span a large period and do not follow some linear sequence of images, a stable, complete element is required to tie this information together. While the case is framed in a few specific points in time for one person, my comic timeline is longer than the case and I would prefer to use this technique to emphasise the periodicity of the subject matter. In fact, the space shown in the picture is entirely virtual; the tank, the balloon and the wild man do not co-exist in the form of a patchwork in the picture. The reader actively looks for ways to refine the diegetic space, both for elements within the frame and for elements that are present but not visible. This non-visualised space includes both the virtual space outside the frame and the presumed 'hidden' space within the boundaries of the panel.[1] In my comic, each era is not shown in full, but partial intimation and guides can also satisfy the reader's understanding of the rest of the scene. One connecting thread is the use of colour to correlate different locations in each period, each with its own hue, and the eye falling on any point can also quickly capture its relevance to other panels. The dialogic sense of how things develop can also be used as a connecting thread on its own, as in the case of the child anxiously. reaching for the river and the balloon above the river in another panel, even if the picture is incomplete without affecting the narrative continuity. There is a wide variety of ways to establish connections and the possibility of multiple crossovers.[1]

1.       Andrae, Thomas, Martin Barker, Bart Beaty, John Benson, David Carrier, Hillary Chute, Peter Coogan, et al. A Comics Studies Reader. Edited by Jeet Heer and Kent Worcester. University Press of Mississippi, (2009). http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2tvd9s.

2.       Brown, Kieron. “Virtuality and enhancement in Richard McGuire’s Here(s).” Studies in Comics 8, no. 1, (2017): 69-84. https://doi.org/10.1386/stic.8.1.69_1. 

3.       Cabero, Enrique. “Beyond Linearity: Holistic, Multidirectional, Multilinear and Translinear Reading in Comics.” Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship. 9. (2019): 1-21. http://10.16995/cg.137. 

4.       Cohn, Neil. “The limits of time and transitions: Challenges to theories of sequential image comprehension.” Studies in Comics, no. 1 (2010): 127-147. http://doi.10.1386/stic.1.1.127/1. 

In terms of content, I refer to Richard McGuire’s Here, where I consider his approach to temporal contrast in conjunction with Chris Ware's form of disorderly framing, where proximity often implies a continuity of narrative threads and recurring casts, where a series of scattered temporal panels find a destination in a communal space.[1] In McGuire’s work, the continuity of characters can refer to different ages of the same person,[2] or it can encapsulate people doing similar acts in the same scene at different times, or it can even manifest itself in generations of people who share the same purpose with their actions.[3] To reflect the temporal narrative that the characters give to the scene as clues, I have created images of a mother and child and a soldier. The wartime soldier complains that there is no place on the street where he can rest for a while, the modern mother plans to drive to a camping barbecue with her children on holiday, while thousands of years ago there was a mother and son walking in the same place, a few metres away from a fish roast and a shelter, only their trouble was that it was a long way up the mountain to chop wood and they wish they could fly there on a bird, and then the scene moves on to wartime, where another soldier complains about the noise of the fighter planes The sense of displacement of time is evident in the different characters. The sense of displacement through time is reflected in the contrasting possessions and aspirations of the different characters. The meaning of the images is based on the concept of perception, and the temporal narrative is extracted from the causal changes between images and cognition. [4]Furthermore, this continuity of different characters in a common space flow out of the imagination for each period of the scene, tempting the reader to refine in his or her mind the images that overlap with the scene beyond each time panel. This imagery is an effective complement to the local and overall narrative.

I am not attempting to deliberately bias or affirm the changing trends of human society in this comic, the truth is that I intend to achieve the possibility of reflection and critique through the three narrative methods mentioned above: the arbitrary order of reading, the variety of thread associations, and the continuity of characters. Both living creatures and dead things are fairly visualised in this one page, and the various potential connections between things are captured by the brain with the back-and-forth movement of sight and thought, enriching the conceptual understanding.[1] Even if mankind seems to be moving in a more intelligent and affluent direction, happiness in life and stability in the world are hardly guaranteed. If we look at the cartoon from the opposite extreme, mankind gives up peace to wage war for the greater benefit of the world, eventually the fire will destroy civilisation and homes, and mankind begins to flee and live in the open. Perhaps the three scenes in the picture do not all occur on the same street at the same time, but the hunger, war and wealth that seem to span thousands of years are still unevenly distributed around the world at the moment.

As a globally accessible visual language, cartoons can be used as an expression and research method for architectural and planning spaces by integrating images and texts of architectural spaces in a flexible and easily understood way of communication to meet the required information architecture.[2] Comic representations draw inspiration from the experience of architectural space and can in turn speculate on the narrative of time within that space. For example, in the future, the design and analysis process could refer to McGuire’s comic approach to the inclusivity and timeliness of space for activity, or it could explore the possibilities of place use implied in each panel from the perspective of Ware and King's thinking.

5.       King, Frank, “Gasoline Alley”, 1930

6.       Lesley S. J. Farmer, “Information Architecture and the Comic Arts: Knowledge Structure and Access.” Journal of Visual Literacy, 34, no. 2 (2015): 23-50. http://doi:10.1080/23796529.2015.11674728.

7.       McGuire, Richard, ”Here”, 1964

8.       Neil Cohn, Tom Foulsham and Dean Wybrow. “Reading Without Words: Eye Movements in the Comprehension of Comic Strips.” Applied Cognitive Psychology, 30 (2016): 566–579. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3229. 

9.       Ware, Chris, “Big Tex”, 1996.