What is a Narrative Image?
Takeaway #1 from our 18 Takeaways Preview from our year-long program
Welcome!
In this post we are sharing a small sliver of what we cover in our Year Long Certificate Program. We’ll be sharing 18 takeaways, in a course that features hundreds. But here are some nuggets!
Takeaway #1
A narrative image is the building block of comics, and shows something happening in the present, but implies the past or future.
A narrative image starts with examining the PRESENT. What is happening in front of us, but also moves to imply something about the past or future.
What we ask as creators is, How can we work with what the reader infers? How can we carry the reader from panel to panel, with our storytelling?
This is a quick look at narrative images.
This though lovely, is not a narrative image—>
nor is a character design a narrative image →
but this image has someone DOING SOMETHING in the present … —>
(holding a head up) but also implies the past (what got us here?) AND the future (what’s going to happen next?
Not all narrative images have to be so intense, or capture all THREE periods of time (past, present and future) but good narrative images will be our own building blocks for creating a give and take with the reader’s expectations and interest.
Gary Larson did this in The Far Side, in single panels. Here are three great narrative images…
This one shows us something happening in the PRESENT but also strongly evokes the PAST →
This one gets away with showing as little of the present as possible (no characters, just debris) but a STRONG connection to the past —>
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And this one gives us the PRESENT and the FUTURE —>
Here’s a powerful image from our modern era that captivates in the same way, present, past and future. —>
Takeaway 1:
A narrative image is the building block of comics, and shows something happening in the present, but implies the past or future.
Next week: page compositions
What's Missing from this Storytelling Preview
Week 2, Time through the Panels, in which we look at controlling time panel after panel,
Week 3, Silent Stories in which we look at controlling the experience visually first
and
Week 5, Story Structure, in which we ask What is a story and try to look at many possible answers...
and YOU, in our network learning with the others.
Want to learn more? We’re doing live trainings of all 18 takeaways weekly in summer 2024.
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I'd never thought of it quite this way: that narrative images go beyond the present to suggest something in the past and/or future. This is so simple and smart!