Teaching Panel Transitions via Craig Thompson’s Blankets
The standard caveat applies: these analyses are designed for freshmen-level composition courses. I repeat: these analyses are designed for freshmen-level composition courses. The wheel will not be reinvented here.
I begin the quarter teaching excerpts from Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics and Making Comics not because all arguments about comic form and content end with the theories contained therein, but because 1) his terms have come to define the debate and 2) they are damn useful in setting up classroom debates. (My students don’t realize that they frequently recapitulate the scholarly arguments inspired by the book, but they do.) The basic idea behind this exercise is to get them to understand that they’re all murderers and the only way they’ll get their heads out of the gutters is figure out how to move from one panel to the next. First I provide the McCloud:
Then I follow it with an example from their text, in this case Craig Thompson’s Blankets:
You’ll note that I haven’t included an obvious example of a moment-to-moment transition here, but that’s because I want them to understand from the get-go that this terminology is flexible. In this case, I would argue that this is moment-to-moment on two accounts: the first would be conventional McCloud, because in the gutter between the those panels the reader must imagine Phil squirm until he can spot the “sharks” on the floor beside the bed. My assumption here is that “squirming” represents “a single action” and Thompson portrays its constituent parts, but my assumption is also an assertion that students can (and tomorrow will be forced to) take issue with.
For example, it could be argued that “squirming” is an indivisible act and that, as such, it cannot be broken down into a series of moments (although the very existence of these panels would seem to indicate otherwise). Here as elsewhere, the poor fit between McCloud’s term and Thompson’s text works to my advantage: something cannot simply be said to be something. It must be argued. The same difficulties arise with McCloud’s next transition:
The problem is right there in the word-picture relation: is the “single subject” of McCloud’s panels a baseball player and a drunk (“person”) or a baseball bat and a drink (“object”)? It may seem like a distinction without difference until you imagine a fourth panel for each example: if the baseball player swings and the fourth panel presents him rounding the bases, the “single subject” had to be him; if the batter swings and the fourth panel presents the bat flying into the stands and injuring a spectator, the “single subject” must have been the bat. Implicit in retroactive determinations of the sort is a more complicated argument about what the meaningful elements within a panel are. Here’s the Thompson I’m pairing with the above:
What is the subject of this panel? Is it Thompson or the blood on his hands? An argument can made be for either (though obviously one is more interesting the the other). I could continue in this vein, but I want my students to figure this out on their own and not simply repeat what I write on the blog. With that in mind, I will simply present the last examples (minus non-sequitur for Thompson-specific reasons I’ll cover later) in the order in which they will appear on the wall. Feel free to knock them (and me) about in the comments. Here goes:
I warn you (and preemptively defend myself): the aspect-to-aspect example requires a stronger argument to make it work, but toying with failure can be a bonding experience early in the quarter, so I ran with it anyway.
Get on time success in 70-513 & 70-663 exams by using our latest and high quality 70-272 and other superb MB6-206 exam pass resources of 70-502.
Dude, what the fuck? Does anybody like these posts? Anybody?
Yes.
Yes.
As a traditionally text-trained historian, I’ve always learned a great deal from SEK’s visual rhetoric analysis, and seeing non-historians’ pedagogy in detail without having to sit through tedious pedagogical theory discussions or long class periods. Also, I like comic books.
But then, I was reading SEK long before he came to LGM, and didn’t start reading LGM regularly until he came.
Also, I did find you great Greek food in a place where none exists … wait, this isn’t helping my credibility, is it?
Yes
Dude, what the fuck? Does anybody like these posts? Anybody?
Dude, I only invited myself to post here, wrote a bunch of posts that angered people, then started writing completely irrelevant shit, so I’m not sure why you think what I write doesn’t belong here, but if you like, I can make you and Farley happy and only write about comics that involve S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s floating aircraft carriers … wait, crap, I think I just convinced myself I don’t belong and offended Farley in one breath. Um, sorry Rob?
You made a very compelling case…
There’s probably at least one decent, meaty post to be written about the evolution of Nick Fury’s role in Marvel Comics over the years, but I’m not the person to make it, since I’m not a fan of how Marvel (and DC, for that matter) have handled their big crossover events in recent years, so I haven’t been paying that close attention.
Yes
Yes. As it happens, I’ll be teaching McCloud alongside Fun Home by Alison Bechdel this semester, so it’s nice to see someone engage with how McCloud does and doesn’t work.
Of course, if you don’t like the post, you could always go about your life. I imagine it consists of you eating a palmful of brie, then declaring, “Dude, what the fuck? Does anybody like this cheese? Anybody?”
Keep that money-back guarantee in mind, sport.
Yes.
I love these posts. Get a grip.
I also love Blankets, so, wooo.
I should read these things, now that I have a university library at my fingertips again.
And yes, I like these ones. (less so the Mad Men ones, but since I’ve never seen the show it’s no surprise that an analysis of each shot bores me. Still, its his time, not mine.)
I’d love blankets more if the main character wasn’t such a misogynist jerk. Also, I like these posts.
Huh?
Well, the book is about him being a recovering Christian, so I think misogyny’s part of the package.
[...] anyone interested in the mechanics of telling a story in comics, Scott Eric Kaufman has a great post up on “Lawyers, Guns, and Money” (the rest of the site is all about politics, so be [...]
This post mostly makes me want to re-read Understanding Comics and Blankets, but that’s cool.
Yes.
[...] Teaching Scott McCloud’s Panel Transitions via Craig Thompson’s Blankets [...]
[...] Teaching Panel Transitions via Craig Thompson's Blankets : Lawyers … [...]