Page 10 of Noelle Stevenson’s  Nimona.

In their book Graphic Design: The New Basics, Ellen Lupton and Jennifer Cole Phillips classify time and motion as a linear progression of designs which simulate movement. In their examples they explain that motion can be implied, through cropping, scaling, and other techniques in design. For example, a shape can look as if it is moving on or off the page if it is partially cropped out of the frame. Since it is the job of designers to minimize excess, they recommend that these techniques be used to quikcly get the point across.

Comics in particular are challenged to represent the passage of time in a timely manner. In this page of Noelle Stevenson’s Nimona, we witness a fight between two characters(and a bystander). Instead of showing pages worth of combat, Stevenson shortens the scene with frames of implied combat. The first frame shows us that a wolf is lunging towards man-a motion that is implied by the enlarging of the wolf head over the legs. Later, we can guess that the wolf character has turned into the little girl, and then the teenager, by the repetition of the color orange in contrast with the grey people. By minimizing excessive frames showing the same movements, we can infer the action that is not shown.