Comics and Time

As stated by Robertson and McDaniel in their exploration of the various roles that Time plays in contemporary art, "a multi-episodic format is one ancient method used in narrative visual art" (Robertson, and McDaniel 115). The most obvious power of this format is the ability to expand a narrative through several events, especially when using a representing multiple actions by a single subject. Each episode depicts a moment in time (often with subjects in action, already allowing a narrative), and when viewed in sequence, a complete story can be depicted. Robertson and McDaniel cite comics as the most frequently seen of multi-episodic forms today (115). Comics themselves portray the movement of time in many different ways. The most obvious of these being what is shared by all forms of episodic art, the time that passes between frames or episodes--unseen time. The time between frames is, of course, variable based on the perceived difference in temporal locations of each frame. In comics, however, time can also be passing within an episode, as well, with the introduction of word-bubbles; "words introduce time by representing that which can only exist in time--sound" (McCloud 95). The order in which the word bubbles are read is very much the same order as we always read text, from top left to bottom right. Multiple events can be depicted within a single frame (McCloud 95-97), and the flow of these events (at least most effectively, in our culture) follows that same path, meaning that is the direction which time is flowing within a single episode. We see now that Robertson and McDaniel are not entirely accurate when they state that the multi-episodic approach contrasts with Western painting's method of representing a narrative within a single image (115).

Comics, as well as other multi-episodic approaches, offer a great freedom in movement through time that other artistic mediums do not. Robertson and McDaniel explain the power of Heide Fasnacht's work, such as her scupture Demo (2000), is that they freeze quickly fleeting moments of time, ones which, "... according to Nancy Princenthal, 'fall at the threshold of visibility, in the realm of things that, while not imperceptible, are more or less impossible to visualize in any stable, conventional way'" (Robertson, and McDaniel 112). This is true, but only at the expense of every other event in the nearly-imperceptible movement. In Comics, the viewer is free to observe each event for any length of time without the removal of previous or future events. The moment being observed remains at present as long as the viewer is observing. The level of detail (at least however much the artist includes--which may be limited, but such is also true of Fasnacht's, and all, work) can be scrutinized and appreciated for an indefinite amount of time. The passage of time flows at whatever speed pleases the viewer. Given complete control over time by the medium, the viewer is free to jump ahead in time or return to a previous time simply with a turn of a page. The past becomes the present again when returned to for re-observation. The reader even has the power to read each frame in a random sequence, scrambling all passage of time in the narrative. We see that Comics is one medium that allows what British artist David Hockney is searching for: "'I've been trying to figure out ways of telling stories in which the viewer can set his own pace, moving forward and back, in and out, at his own discretion'" (Robertson, and McDaniel 128).


Robertson, Jean, and Craig McDaniel. Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2010. 110-149. Print.

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. 1st ed. NewYork, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1994. 94-117. Print.