The narrative functions of sound-symbolic words in comics and graphic novels

ABSTRACT

A story in a comic book employs different visual elements such as images, text, speech balloons, caption boxes, symbols, and sound effects. These elements work in harmony to convey the narrative to the reader. The Sound-Symbolic Words (SSWs), popularly studied as onomatopoeias, represent various sounds to enhance the visual narrative. This paper presents an analysis of examples from popular comics and graphic novels to provide an understanding of SSWs beyond their usage for conveying sound. It investigates the contribution of SSWs to carry forward the narrative, thus bringing SSWs to the forefront at par with image and text. This study attempts to redefine the role of SSWs and their significance in visual narratives. Various narrative functions of SSWs are identified and named as temporal-marker, spatial-marker, action-marker, emotion-marker, and identity-marker. The analysis helps to draw inferences about represented sound and its importance in printed comics. The study opens up possibilities for comic book artists to deliberate on the idea of SSWs as a narrative element and to implement them creatively to produce better visual narratives.

KEYWORDS:

• Comics studies
• visual narratives
• sound symbolism
• narrative function
• narrative markers

Acknowledgments

I extend my gratitude and thanks to Daphne Taranto for helping in the proofreading and language refinement for the present article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Neil Cohn in Visual Language of Comics discusses suppletive panels as panels that are used as signs to replace any other events (like fight cloud for fighting, hearts for romance and so on), p.52.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Subir Dey

Subir Dey is an Assistant professor at Department of Design, IIT Delhi, India. His research areas are visual communication, comics studies, visual semiotics and visual language.

Prasad Bokil

Prasad Bokil is an Assistant professor at Industrial Design Center, IIT Bombay, India. His research area includes visual language, design semiotics and design research.