Graphic Novel Terminology
The following terms and definitions are adapted from Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud and serve as key vocabulary for analyzing graphic novels:
- Comics: juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer (McCloud 20)
- Icon: any image used to represent a person, place, thing or idea (McCloud 27)
- Panel: a single frame, or individual drawing, within a comic strip or comic book (McCloud 11)
- Gutter: the space between panels (McCloud 66)
- Closure: the phenomenon of observing the parts but perceiving the whole (McCloud 63)
- Bleeds: when a panel runs off the edge of the page (McCloud 103)
- Captions: these are boxes containing a variety of text elements, including scenesetting, description, etc. (McCloud 138)
- Speech Bubbles: the visual equivalent of quotation marks, serving as a way to represent dialogue in comics and graphic narratives (McCloud 153)
- External dialogue: speech between characters
- Internal dialogue: a thought enclosed by a cloud shaped bubble that has a series of dots or bubbles going up to it
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