ComixTalk

For several years I wrote several articles and a periodic column called “Comic Theory 101” for the online magazine ComixTalk which featured short, sometimes quirky articles looking at the intersection between comics and linguistics. To archive these, I’ve now turned them into blog posts which are collected here. Enjoy!

  • Art vs. Language

    Art vs. Language

    This article was originally written for my periodic column at the online magazine Comixtalk in July 2004. In my last article, I wrote about the problems facing the designation of the “comics medium as art,” and the value of changing that conception to one viewing the “comics medium as a language” – visual language(VL). In this piece, I’ll explore…

  • Interactive Comics

    Interactive Comics

    This article was originally written for my periodic column at the online magazine Comixtalk in February 2005. Sometimes, when people hear my proposal that the “comics medium” is literally a visual language (VL), I receive a response of disbelief stating something like, “What, do you expect people to carry around little pads of paper so they can ‘talk’ in…

  • Comic Theory 101: Passing Judgment

    Comic Theory 101: Passing Judgment

    This article was originally written for my periodic column at the online magazine Comixtalk in January 2006. By now, most readers of this site know that I have been developing a theory that sequential images can actually be a language. Combined with written language, this visual language is found primarily in the cultural artifacts that we all…

  • Comic Theory 101: In Place of Another

    Comic Theory 101: In Place of Another

    This article was originally written for my periodic column at the online magazine Comixtalk in October 2005. One of the most famous theories that Scott McCloud set forth in Understanding Comics was that of “closure.” He stated that this was the phenomenon by which people’s minds “fill in” what occurs between two comic panels. Now, in other writings of…

  • Comic Theory 101: Seeing Rhymes

    Comic Theory 101: Seeing Rhymes

    This article was originally written for my periodic column at the online magazine Comixtalk in June 2006. As you probably know, I’ve been expounding on a theory that sequential images can actually be called a language — a visual language — which emerges along with text in comics. In this article, I’m going to take a…

  • Comic Theory 101: Visual Poetry

    Comic Theory 101: Visual Poetry

    This article was originally written for my periodic column at the online magazine Comixtalk in November 2006. In this column I’d like to continue our discussion of the potential for visual language poetry that I began way back in my last column, with visual rhyming. At the end of that column, I created a visual poem by…

  • Comic Theory 101: Too Many Twos

    Comic Theory 101: Too Many Twos

    This article was originally written for my periodic column at the online magazine Comixtalk in March 2006.

  • Comic Theory 101: Loopy Framing

    Comic Theory 101: Loopy Framing

    This article was originally written for my periodic column at the online magazine Comixtalk in March 2007. by Neil Cohn and Tym Godek Over the years, some graphic elements have become synonymous with “comics.” Foremost among these are speech balloons, thought bubbles, and panels. While they seem pretty straightforward in their meaning, these fairly ubiquitous signs…