Blog

  • Cartoony vs. Realistic Images in the Brain

    Choi, Yeojeong, Kim, Takhwan, & Jaeseung Jeong. 2008. “EEG Source Localization during Empathy of Iconic and Realistic Cartoon Characters.” Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM), Melbourne, Australia ,15-19 June, 2008 In McCloud’s Understanding Comics he proposed his theory of “cartoon identification” that cartoony* images are “identified” with better than realistic images. This study (pdf) tested…

  • Consistent reading time for comic pages?

    I had a link sent to me recently asking about this blog post that claims all comic pages regardless of content are read at 3.75 seconds per page. A relevant section: I read in one of Frederik Schodt’s excellent books on manga that a study concluded that readers spend an average of 3.75 seconds on…

  • Congrats to my visual linguists!

    I’m very excited to say a big hearty Congratulations to my research assistant Natalie, who graduated today from Tufts. She put in an incredible year’s worth of work in the preparation stages of a major project of mine, apexing in the online study that many of you all took (thanks from both of us!). Last…

  • Public Lecture in Toronto, May 14th

    For those of you in the Toronto area, I will be giving the first talk in the Visual Thinking lecture series at the University of Toronto on Thursday, May 14th at 5pm. The talk is open to the public and more information can be found here. Here’s the topic of my talk: What is “Visual…

  • Take my Comic Experiment!

    Hey everybody, I once again have another comics related experiment online and would be extremely grateful for your help! This experiment consists of making judgements about various created comic strips, and takes roughly 20 minutes (though at first glance you may think it looks long, trust me, it doesn’t take much time). Participation enters you…

  • Indexing Events with Panels

    A comment on my review of Magnussen’s piece on semiotics in comics asked me to expand on this part: More interestingly, she claims that the “still-images of actions” are also indexical, because they only show a part of a broader temporal whole action. This is probably the most astute observation of the piece, yet receives…

  • Review: Semiotics and comics

    Magnussen, Anne. (2000). The Semiotics of C.S. Peirce as a Theoretical Framework for the Understanding of Comics. In A. Magnussen & H.-C. Christiansen (Eds.), Comics and Culture: Analytical and Theoretical Approaches to Comics. Copenhagen: Museum of Tusculanum Press. pp.193-207 Magnussen’s paper attempts to apply Peircean semiotics to the comic medium, though little of the actual…

  • Random Creative Links

    As I’m coming up on Spring Break here at Tufts, all seems well as we (hopefully) transition into Springtime (hopefully — a Californian like me can’t take much more of this cold before I go batty). Here are a bunch of random links that seem to have fallen my way: Stricken Pot Pie has some fantastic…

  • Faces in comics

    Tan, Ed S. 2001. The Telling Face in Comic Strip and Graphic Novel. In The Graphic Novel, edited by J. Baetens: Leuwen University Press. This study looked at the knowledge of faces and facial expressions in comics assuming that facial expressions are universal and thus comics rely on these universal cues in representation. In the…

  • Tufts Daily Feature

    The Tufts Daily, Tufts University’s student newspaper, has a feature article about me and my work in today’s edition, which is also readable online.