Gimme Five

Gimme Five - Senses in comics

Comics are a one-sense medium. Or web comics are, at least. I suppose print comics have a physical touch sensation, as my ink-stained and paper-cutted fingers can attest.

But I'm talking about In-Story sensation. Sight is the only sense automatically being engaged in a comic. Film has an audio component, of course.

Futurama introduced the concepts of "the Smell-o-scope" and "Smell-O-Vision", but we're not there yet.

So to move outside of the one sense in a comic requires us to fake it.

Sound is suggested by dialogue and printed sounds effects or "Onomatopoeia" - words created to approximate sounds. Bang, Crack and Fzzzzz and such.

Even then, it can be easy to forget that these printed approximations are supposed to translate to actual sound for the characters. Some sequences will be eerily quiet to the characters. Some will be uncomfortably loud.

Touch is another big one - through frames and angles chosen, and the characters' facial expressions, we can see the impact of gentle skin on skin contact or the effects of wind and temperature.

Taste and Smell, too - I guess it comes down to seeing the expression on characters' faces to get a picture of what they are experiencing outside of the sense of sight.

Do you think about the "other four" senses when you create comics? How do you engage those senses on your pages? Is there a comic or web comic you thought captured Sound, Taste, Smell or Touch particularly well?

Okay, I'm out. Smell ya later!

-Banes