The Patron Saint of Superheroes

I drafted this blog post back in 2015. A version of it ended up in my 2017 book Superhero Comics, before my layout analysis evolved further in my 2021 Creating Comics: A Writer’s and Artist’s Guide and Anthology (co-written with Leigh Ann Beavers based on our college course) and then in my 2022 The Comics Form: The Art of Sequenced Images.

In 2022, I summed things up this way:

“All framed images can be analyzed rhetorically since there is always a relationship between content and frame. Framing rhetoric divides into three categories: “the placement of the subject in relation to the center of the frame (centered or off-centered); the aspect ratios of the frame and the subject (symmetrical and asymmetrical); and the frame and subject size relationship (proportionate, expansive, and cropped or broken)” (Gavaler 2018: 215). Also, frame and subject may align horizontally and vertically, or they may diverge (for example, with the subject filling the frame diagonally because the subject’s ground is tilted relative to the rectangle of the frame). Frame and subject also may or may not each align with the horizontal and vertical edges of a rectangular page.”

Adding:

“Like viewpoint, framing produces a range of semi-representational qualities by placing a subject in relation to the frame which does not exist in the diegesis. Images often follow what Tversky calls “a center–periphery organization,” where subjects at or near the center area of an image appear more significant than subjects that are off-centered or cropped (2010: 509). Subjects that appears to break and therefore protrude beyond a drawn frame also gain significance, an effect relatively common in the comics medium but impossible in film since the edge of a film image is an actual edge and not a drawn frame. The relationships between multiple subjects depicted within a single image are similarly affected, since a centered figure will seem significant relative to an off-centered or cropped figure.”

In 2021, I focused on framing from an artist’s perspective, identifying two main approaches:

The first section of student examples features images with frames that match the subject’s proportions. That tends to be the default setting. We tend to draw tall figures in tall frames and wide figures in wide frames. That’s fine, but the uniformity can get boring. So find interesting contradictions, ways that the frame and the subject can be mismatched instead. If the figure is wide, what happens when you use a tall frame? Either you have to crop the subject or you have to shrink it, creating additional space within the frame to fill with additional subject matter, expanding background or surrounding content. You can misalign too, using the frame to crop content that could be centered but isn’t.

The second section includes a range of intentionally mismatched framing choices. They all appeared in our students’ comics, so they are mismatched for specific reasons—often to convey a negative connotation in the story situation. A centered, proportionately framed subject creates an impression of balance and control. De-centered, cropped, and disproportionately framed subjects seem less balanced and less in control. Choose accordingly. 

And I originally wrote here in 2015:

In his Comics and Narration, comics theorist Thierry Groensteen describes “regular page layout,” meaning pages with rigid panel grids, and “rhetorical layout, where the size (and sometimes the shape) of each frame is adapted to the content, to the subject matter of the panel”. Groensteen goes on to discuss relationships of panels to each other, especially “irregular” layouts that have “no basic structure,” but he does not relate them to subject matter. So his “rhetorical” layout may be the same as any “irregular” layout.

However, Groensteen’s definition—the size and the shape of a frame is adapted to its content—does describe an essential type of framing. In fact, it defines all types of framing, since a frame always has some sort of relationship to its subject matter. This is true whether panels follow a rigid grid or vary radically, because the frame-subject relationship has to be analyzed one panel at a time.

Comics theorist Benoit Peters also describes layouts in terms of panel and content relationships, arriving instead at four categories: 1) conventional, in which panels are all the same size and shape regardless of content; 2) decorative, in which panels vary in size and shape but not in relation to content; 3) rhetorical, in which panels vary in relation to content action only; and 4) productive, in which panels vary in relation to content in general. But again, since the size and shape of a panel always relates somehow to its content, the four categories are misleading. A frame could be all four simultaneously—or at least conventional, rhetorical, and productive, since only decorative stipulates that a frame is unrelated to subject. But it is unclear in what sense form and content could not be related since content exists only in form. Peters is instead describing a creative process in which an artist selects a layout in advance and then adapts content to it. After the page is drawn, however, the layout cannot be “decorative” any more than a sonnet’s meter and rhyme schemes can be said to decorate its words. Form and content are inseparable.

To analyze framing then, we need to divide two overlapping issues. The size and shape of a frame may relate to its subject. And the size and shape of a frame may relate to other frames. If a frame is larger than all other frames on the same page so that its subject is emphasized over the subjects of the smaller frames, that is an effect of layout. But the apparent size of a subject in relation to its frame is independent of layout. This is an effect of individual framing only. Analysis then requires two approaches:

Layout rhetoric: how a layout of multiple frames relates the subject matter of each frame to each other. As discussed in the previous section, any framing quality that distinguishes a frame from other frames also distinguishes its content.

Framing rhetoric: how a frame relates to its subject matter. Framing may be broken down into two broad categories according to the aspect ratios of the frame and subject (symmetrical and asymmetrical) and five subcategories according to frame and subject sizes (proportionate, expansive, abridged, misaligned, broken).

 Symmetrical framing: the proportional relationship between the frame’s height and width (its aspect ratio) matches the aspect ratio of the subject. Although the frame and subject may be very different shapes (for example, a human form with extended limbs within a rectangular frame), measuring from the subject’s furthest points produces roughly the same ratios.

Symmetrical and proportionate: the subject and frame have similar ratios, and the subject fits inside the frame. Because content and frame are balanced, the effect draws no attention to their relationship and so appears neutral. This is the default framing style in superhero comics. A frame-subject relationship is significant to the degree that it varies from this norm.

Symmetrical and expansive: the subject and frame have similar ratios, but the subject matter is smaller than the frame, so the panel includes surrounding content. The effect is spacious.

Symmetrical and abridged: the subject and frame have similar ratios, but the subject is larger, so the frame appears to crop out some of the subject. The effect is cramped, as if the frame is too small.

Symmetrical and misaligned: although the subject and frame have similar ratios and the subject appears as if it could fit the frame, the frame appears to crop out some of the subject while also including surrounding content. The effect is of a misaimed camera.

Symmetrical and broken: the subject and frame have similar ratios, but the subject is larger, with elements of the subject extending beyond the frame. The framing would be misaligned if the subject stopped at the frame edge. The frame-breaking elements are often in movement or otherwise expressing energy, implying that the subject is more powerful or significant than the frame.

Asymmetrical framing: the frame and the subject have different aspect ratios.

Asymmetrical and proportionate: although the subject fits inside the frame, because of their dissimilar ratios the panel also includes surrounding content along one extended dimension.

Asymmetrical and expansive: because the subject is smaller than the frame, the panel includes surrounding content, and because of their dissimilar ratios, the panel also includes additional surrounding content.

Asymmetrical and abridged: the subject is larger than the frame in one dimension, creating the impression of the frame cropping out content, and because of their dissimilar ratios, the panel also includes surrounding content along one extended dimension. The effect is an image placed in the wrong shaped panel.

Asymmetrical and misaligned: although the subject appears as if it could fit inside the frame, the frame appears to crop out some of the subject while including some surrounding content; and because of their dissimilar shapes, the panel also includes additional surrounding content. The effect is of a misaimed camera.

Asymmetrical and broken: the subject is larger than the frame, with elements of the subject extending beyond the frame edge; because of their dissimilar ratios, the frame-breaking elements further emphasize imbalance.

An image may also be unframed. If unframed, an image may use surrounding panel frames as a secondary frame. An unframed image also implies a symmetrical and proportionate frame by remaining inside the undrawn borders. Multiple implied frames may appear in a single row. Interpenetrating images eliminate the illusion of implied frames by combining two or more unframed images so that elements appear to overlap. A content element of one image may serve as a framing line for an adjacent image, making a diegetic frame. Finally, if a frame contains only words, it is a caption panel, which tend to be smaller and subdivided from larger panels. Secondary frames, implied frames, diegetic frames, interpenetrating images, and caption panels may be analyzed in the same rhetorical relationships of size and aspect ratio as drawn frames.

Because a majority of comics, including essentially all superhero comics, are drawn in a naturalistic mode, framing also creates three-dimensional effects through reader perspective or point of view. Where frames establish an image’s height and width, perspective creates an illusion of depth. An image is often divided into three planes of increasing distance: foreground, middleground, and background. In superhero comics especially, an artist may foreshorten a subject or part of a subject, making it appear to be closer to the reader by disproportionately expanding its dimensions. Generally, the subject is more significant the closer it appears. Subjects on the same plane will more likely appear equal. This is partly because closer subjects typically occupy more image space, though larger, more distant subjects that occupy more image space may also appear more significant than smaller, nearer subjects.

Angle of perspective may also influence a reader’s perception, altering a subject’s significance by looking upward, parallel, or downward. A subject drawn higher in the image space and so above another subject may appear more significant too, and generally the more centered a subject it the more important it is, while off-centered subjects may seem literally and figuratively marginal.

Finally, consider image and frame orientation. The depicted plane may be parallel with the frame, or it may be tilted. Because parallel framing is the norm, tilted framing may create a sense of disorientation. In rare cases, the plane may be so tilted as to be perpendicular (see The Authority and House of M). Frames are also typically drawn as rectangles parallel with the page edges, but they may also be tilted or perpendicular in relationship to the page.

That’s all really abstract, so check out some examples:

Nick Fury’s body fits inside the full-height column but intrudes into the second column. The unframed panel is symmetrical and broken.

With the exception of the top right close-up (which is asymmetrical and misaligned), each panel shows Beast’s whole (or nearly whole) body, which is drawn to fill the shape of the panel, and so is symmetrical and proportionate. 

Wolverine’s body, however, does not entirely fit; his feet, part of his arm, and the top of his head are cropped. The column panel is symmetrical and abridged.

The top panel is asymmetrical and proportionate (because the two figures make a square not a rectangle, leaving a lot of space to the left and right). The second panel crops the face (part of the lower lip and both eyebrows are missing) but includes a lot of surrounding space, so it’s asymmetrical and abridged, as is the third. The last is symmetrical and proportionate.

The first panel is asymmetrical and proportionate (or partly misaligned depending on whether you consider his elbow primary content). The second column is drawn as if too thin to contain all of Flash’s face, so the panel is asymmetrical and abridged. The last is asymmetrical and proportionate.

The top panel is asymmetrical and proportionate, with detailed elements of the wall in the foreground.  The bottom left panel contains Spider-Man, but with ample additional space all around the figure, so that non-essential elements of the city landscape are included in the frame. The panel is symmetrical and expansive.

The bottom, page-width panel includes its two primary subjects, Batman and Alfred on the balcony behind him, but the angle and distance includes additional content, including the entire moon, distant buildings, and the wall below the balcony. The panel is symmetrical and expansive.

The second row includes a face with a corner of an eye and mouth cut off. The panel, however, is large enough to include those complete features, but the subject has been drawn off-center to produce the cropping effect. The panel is symmetrical and misaligned.

The face in the bottom left panel is cut off at the mouth, even though the subject matter could be drawn higher in the panel to include the entire mouth. The panel is symmetrical and misaligned.

The top right panel content could be composed to include Cyclops’ face, but instead his head is more than half out of frame. The panel is asymmetrical and misaligned.

The top panel is wide like the subject matter of the street and so is symmetrical and proportionate. The subject matter of the second frame (the heads of the passenger and the driver visible through the car window) fit the frame, but the frame shape extends to the left to include the reflection of a building in a backseat window, so the panel is asymmetrical and proportionate.

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The width of the second panel of “Avengers Mansion” also includes several distant buildings, the front yard, and fence–elements included as if the wide panel shape requires a view of more than the primary subject of the mansion front. The panel is asymmetrical and proportionate.

Not only is the subject of the Hulk much smaller than the frame, the frame itself is shaped so that it must include more than the subject. The panel is asymmetrical and expansive.

The shape of the full-width panels of  the second and third rows extend beyond the subject of the two figures. The panels are asymmetrical and expansive.

Batman’s leg extends beyond the frame, as if his movement was too fast for the frame to capture. The hand in the final frame also breaks the panel border, again emphasizing action. The panel is asymmetrical and broken.

Every panel of the fight scene but the last is symmetrical and broken. The last is symmetrical and misaligned, cutting off Bucky’s chin while leaving space above his head.

The second row begins with a symmetrical and expansive panel; the second panel is symmetrical and proportionate; and the third symmetrical and abridged. The sequence suggests physical and psychological intensification, but exclusively through framing since the Hulk’s expression remains essentially unchanged.

The first panel of a figure stepping through a door is symmetrical and proportionate. The next symmetrical and expansive panel includes its subject matter (the individuals in the classroom and the classroom itself) but also the darkened top of (presumably) a bookshelf. The spaciousness contrasts the cramped effect of the subsequent panels which are mostly asymmetrical and abridged, except for the second which is symmetrical and abridged.

And I’ll leave it at that for now, but expect further application in future blogs.

Tags: Thierry Groensteen