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Page 23 and 24 of Keiji Nakazawa’s graphic novel, Barefoot Gen, Vol. 1: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima (2004, Last Grasp Publications).

In their book, Graphic Design: The New Basics, Ellen Lupton and Jennifer Cole Phillips explain how designers create movement and showing the passage of time, even when working with a 2-dimensional, static medium.

Lupton and Phillips write that motion is created by illustrating change. This notion is demonstrated in many different comics. Specifically, we can see this exemplified in Keiji Nakazawa’s graphic novel, Barefoot Gen, Volume 1: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima. As readers, we understand that each frame represents some passage of time. We read each frame with the understanding that we are taking in the story as it happens. Nakazawa mostly does this by cropping certain frames close in and breaking some frames up. Some images are also repeated to get us to slow down and focus on them. This is seen on page 24, when Gen is biting down on the official’s hand. We see full shot of both Gen and the man, and then we see a smaller frame of only Gen’s face and the man’s fingers. The way Nakazawa does this slows down the story for us.

Nakazawa overlaps lines and shapes to create motion in her graphic novel. This is seen in the fighting scenes when Gen’s sister slaps the official, and then the official’s assistant hits Gen over the head with a rock. She uses lines to illustrate Gen’s sister’s hand swinging around and spiked shapes to make us feel the abruptness of the hand and rock when they hit their targets.

In this spread specifically, Nakazawa illustrates chaos and the movement of bodies by using design elements in a more literal way that is easily understood by the reader.

Avengers #500. Page 6. Marvel Comics. Written by Brian Michael Bendis, Penciled by David Finch.

Since pictures are static and do not change, artist have tried different methods of depicting motion and the passage of time. Both are illustrated using different methods but they also rely on the reader to interpret their meaning.
In this picture from Avengers #500, the Avengers’ base has come under attack and a large explosive has rocked the compound. To depict this explosion, the artist had do show that pieces of the base were flying through the air¬ to indicate motion, and also the passage of time to show the shockwave hitting the Avengers a short time later.
For motion, the artist uses thin lines that emanate from a common point off the scene. There is also bits of debris and dust in the air the could only be there is they had been thrown. The reader can interpret this as motion. She-Hulk’s hair is shown blowing in the wind caused by the explosion, while Hawkeye’s body is arched away as it too is push by the shockwave. The Wasp is also in the picture but there is little around her to indicate motion other than her being suspended up in the air. The artist also used colors to help show the energy transferring. The brighter colors depict actual fire and intense energy, which is concentrated next to the base in the first frame, and streaked all the way through on the second frame.
The passage of time is implied here. In the first frame, the artist drew the beginning of the explosion in the distance with the shrubs and grass in the foreground undisturbed. The second frame show the destructive shockwave up close and personal to the heroes. The reader can then assume that the wave traveled not only the distance to them, but that the time it took to get to them has also elapsed.

While being quite a basic comic, Perfect Example by John Porcellino is a coming-of-age story that represents movement in a static, 2-dimensional space very well.

Being able to portray motion, the movement of bodies, and the passage of time can be a challenge for many artists. Being able to have movements look natural when something inherently doesn’t move can be a challenge, but motion can be both literal and implied. By utilizing scale, transparency, color, layers, and even just changing a position from one drawing to the next, motion can be implied and interpreted by the audience.

A page illustrating a young John Porcellino riding his skateboard through town to a book exchange. (John Porcellino, Perfect Example, Chris Oliveros, 2005)

Take Porcellino’s graphic novel for example.  The first and most important concept that Porcellino uses to represent motion is cropping. We see this used in panels 4 and 6. In both these panels the main character, the author, is placed in the bottom right corner. This placement allows John to appear to be moving into and out of the frame. Placement in general also plays a large roll. In the fifth panel, John isn’t cropped out of the frame, but he is standing on the far right side and is facing the door of the book exchange, indicating that he is moving in that direction.

Porcellino also utilizes repetition. The reader sees 4 panels of John on a skateboard with changing backgrounds, this implies he is moving to new areas and has moved when we see him every new panel. An interesting side observation is that the road background in the first panel is even curved up towards the top left section of the frame, guiding the readers eye in that direction.

Speaking of lines, Porcellino uses them in nearly every skateboard panel. The dotted lines in the first panel act like a stereotypical pirate map, showing the path taken by John. In panel two, the lines act as a puff of air to show a kick off, the lines signify the way our surrounding blur into horizontal-like lines when we move quickly, and so on.

The quote from Graphic Designs: the New Basics that says, “Motion can be implied as well as literal…Artists have long sought ways to represent the movement of bodies and the passage of time within the realm of static, 2-dimensional space” means that while an image may not be moving, the concepts and context clues used by the artist can imply movement which will in turn be interpreted by the reader based on prior and common knowledge.

This is page 75, taken from Picture This, a graphic novel by Lynda Barry. Barry, Lynda, and Kevin Kawula. Picture This. Montréal, Quebec: Drawn & Quarterly, 2010. Print.

As described on page 233 by Ellen Lupton and Jennifer Cole Phillips  in Graphic Design: The New Basics, “Motion can be implied as well as literal…Artists have long sought ways to represent the movement of bodies and the passage of time within the real of static, 2-dimensional space.” This essentially means that within a picture or piece of art, motion can literally seen by drawing in the movement, for example. Yet it also can be implied in a way, using the passage of time, and perhaps different frames and panels to show this type of movement.

This can be seen on page 75 of Lynda Barry’s Picture This. Literal motion is shown in the upper right corner, where Barry has placed a rabbit. The rabbit is positioned and shaped in a specific way that shows the direction it’s facing, as well as the rabbit’s ears flat against its body as if being pushed back by some unseen force. Around and along the rabbit are erratic lines, which with the position of the rabbit and the placement of its ears, Barry is showing that the rabbit is indeed moving. It is perceived easy and most clearly.

Implied motion, on the other hand, is shown differently through seemingly progressing time by using the image of the monkey. The monkey is repeated within the picture, blocking off and scaling four smaller versions of the monkey to the right of the picture. They are then framed separately, yet linearly. Within this repetition, it is seen that the monkey carries the same blanket and looks the same, in some sort of slumbering or meditative state. The scaled monkeys, however, change colors in ways that can arguably represent different times of the day, conveying the progression of time. This motion is more implied so that whoever is look at it must recognize the specific devices and smaller drawn images that help represent this movement of time, that the eye follows the framed monkeys in a certain way and perceive the colors differently.

Page 120 of Lynda Barry’s Picture This

In the book Graphic Design: The New Basics, it says “Motion can be implied as well as literal, however. Artists have long sought ways to represent the movement of bodies and the passage of time within the realm of static, 2-dimensional space” (Graphic Design: The New Basics, pg. 233). This quote can be seen throughout Lynda Berry’s graphic novel as she presents time and motion in so many ways.

For instance, on page 120, in her book Picture This she presents the idea of time and motion by drawing the ballerina and the reindeer as separate aspects creating actions of spinning or the action of growing over time. These images are scaled to a certain size and rotate in different directions so they can move throughout the page into something new. Similar to how these aspects show time and motion they also present repetition as the objects are repeating over and over in a variety of ways. The images only slightly change with every image to create the next step in the action. The drawings are representing the movements that happen in that kind of situation at that time. 

The page is cropped in a way that makes these aspects seem smaller and less important but they Lynda Barry’s way of showing how formstorming has to be used in creating a comic otherwise your mind wanders and you have no clue what to do. Having the images scaled to that size make them move throughout time as if you were with the author as she was thinking about what to write next and what type of character she was going to create.

Tom and Jerry. TV Comic Holiday Special 1970.

According to Graphic Design: The New Basics, motion is a kind of change, and change takes place in time (233). It can either be implied or literal. Looking at the Tom and Jerry comic, it includes some examples of how motion is implied through a two-dimensional perspective. When creating motion, it is important to keep in mind what details need to be added to let the audience understand that motion is being applied in the story. For example, showing motion can be as simple as shown in the first panel, where jerry is faced upside down, followed by different stroke of lines to show the direction of how jerry led to that position. In addition, showing motion can also be done by creating a change in scale, rotation, shape, and position. The third panel is an example of a change in scale, because it only focuses on the two main characters, without any background. The following panel of Tom chasing Jerry represents the basic story of Tom always trying to catch Jerry. The artist changes the position of the characters to give that motion effect of Tom trying to go after Jerry. The fifth panel shows an example of cropping, as another way of creating a change in position. When creating motion in a two dimensional surface, creating “sound effects” through text and using other shapes helps emphasize the effect of motion. One example of this is shown in the first of the last two panels in this comic, Tom is placed diagonally as a way to show the audience how hard he was punched. The artist also included the text “Ker Bam!”, a star shape, and lines to strongly emphasize the punch and the direction of how the other character punched Tom.