Blog

  • ComicCon 2015 postscript

    As always, I had a great time at ComicCon this year! I thought my panel on “The scientific study of the visual language of comics” went great, and I greatly enjoyed talking with everyone who came by the booth to chat with me and check out my book. I am also quite thankful to Reading…

  • The non-universality of cartoony images and comics

    There are many who assume that cartoony images and the ability to understand sequential images is universal. The 1978 study “Communicating with Pictures in Nepal” by Fussell and Haaland reports on a study exploring these issues… This study examined the understanding of images by indiivduals in Nepal. The researchers desired to communicate things related to…

  • Review: Unflattening by Nick Sousanis

    Nick Sousanis’ recent book Unflattening has been receiving praise for its freeing message and artistic execution. The book was Sousanis’ doctoral dissertation, and in being a graphic work, it thus embodies its message of attempting to break through the confines of the “flatlands” of received viewpoints that unconsciously pervade the ways we see the world.…

  • New paper on comic page layouts

    I’m excited to announce that my paper, “Navigating Comics II” on people’s preferences for moving from panel-to-panel in comic page layouts is now published in the latest issue of Applied Cognitive Psychology! This project was undertaken by my student (and co-author), Hannah Campbell, for my course on the Cognition of Comics at UC San Diego. This…

  • New paper: Notion of the Motion

    I’m excited to say that my paper, “The notion of the motion: The neurocognition of motion lines in visual narratives” with Steve Maher is now published in the latest issue of Brain Research. It examines the comprehension of motion lines in comics. We show that having no lines is worse than having motion lines, but…

  • Igor Kordey’s “Design of comics”

    This morning I found this very fun post by Designboom about a talk given by the Croatian comic art Igor Kordey about his page design and storytelling. The post and Kordey’s talk are both interesting and entertaining, and Kordey’s pages are simply beautiful. That alone is worth the price of admission. However, what I found…

  • Fall projects and complex theory

    Alas, these last few months have flown by with little time to post. After recuperating from my flurry of summer/fall travel, I’ve been diligently working on a few new projects, especially a new brainwave study. I’ve also been amassing chapters from various authors for my upcoming edited book on visual narrative, on its way this…

  • Using the theory of narrative grammar

    As people have now started reading my book and papers, they’ve naturally started to try to apply my theories of “narrative grammar” to sequential images found in comics. My “narrative grammar” is a model of how the “storytelling” of sequential images is understood, which extends beyond previous approaches like Scott McCloud’s theory of panel-to-panel transitions.…

  • New paper: The grammar of visual narratives

    I’m very excited to announce that I have a new paper out in the latest issue of Neuropsychologia on how the brain understands sequences of images, “The grammar of visual narratives: Neural evidence for constituent structure in visual narrative comprehension.” This was actually one of my dissertation projects, so I’m very happy to finally have…

  • New Paper: You’re a good structure, Charlie Brown

    Wow, big week for new papers! I’ve got another one officially out now in the latest issue of Cognitive Science, “You’re a Good Structure, Charlie Brown: The Distribution of Narrative Categories in Comic Strips” (pdf). This one actually reports on the first studies I did on comics during grad school, way back in 2007! (Sometimes…