Depicting Speed in Comics - Part 1

If you've ever watched a movie that has a chase scene in it, then you know it can be pretty exciting, right? A hero driving really fast as he pursues a badguy also driving really fast while they weave in and out of traffic, or an X-Wing fighter zipping through the trenches of the Death Star, or even a kid running away from a group of bullies are all really exciting to watch on the screen.

What makes these scenes exciting is that you are watching objects moving at high speed, and this speed looks even faster through clever editing, camera moves, sound effects, and music. If you don't believe me think about the scene in the first Iron Man movie where Iron Man is zooming through the air being chased by military jets trying to shoot him down. If you've seen this movie, and know this scene, you'll remember it as being fast paced and thrilling. Take a look at the frame below which is taken from that sequence. You can click on any image to make it bigger.

Not so exciting, or fast paced is it? That is because it is a frozen image; a single photo taken from a scene with lots of movement, really short quick shots of action edited together and combined with dynamic sound effects which make the action seem to be moving faster as well as making it more exciting, and a musical score that makes it still more exciting. But looking at a frozen image from this scene, without the sound, music, motion, or editing, it's pretty bland. For one thing you don't really get a sense that Iron Man, or the jets behind him are moving fast at all.

This is what comic book writers, and more especially, comic book artists have to deal with whenever they have to depict a scene that has a lot of fast action, or shows a vehicle, or character moving at high speed. How do you draw something so it looks like it's moving really fast, especially when you can't control how long someone looks at an image, or when you can't play sound effects or music over the scene to speed up the tempo. When you are dealing with images that are frozen how do you make things look like they are going really fast?

Before we get to the comic book part of this let's take a look at some scenes showing speed from movies. All of the scenes I chose used some sort of special effects, whether it was using models and miniature sets, or CGI, or traditional animation, all of these scenes are manipulated to make them then seem like they are depicting incredibly fast action, and each of them use tricks that have been used in comic books for decades, or tricks that can be replicated in comic books.

Back to Iron Man and that same exact scene with the fighter jets. We've agreed that the single image above is pretty boring to look at. Compare it to the frame below which happens within a split second of the one above.

It's still a still frame and still hard to get a sense of how fast both Iron Man and the jet are moving through the sky, but it's a little more exciting that the frame we looked at before. For one reason, the jet and Iron Man are moving across the frame in a diagonal path from one corner towards the other. A diagonal line always adds a level of tension or excitement to a composition. A diagonal line also suggests motion or speed. It does look like things are moving faster than in the first frame.

Now look at the one below.

This frame is even better at suggesting high speed. Why? Again, there is the diagonal angle of Iron Man's pose, as well as that of the jet on the right, which is shooting at Iron Man, creating diagonal lines across the frame. Even the cloud adds a diagonal. The second jet is tipped on its side giving it a more dynamic pose as well. The image is composed so that the left side has more elements, making it seem unbalanced, like the imaginary weight in the frame is all being pulled to the left. Think about what happens when you go around a corner on your bike, or in a car. Your body leans into the direction that you are turning in. By pulling everything to the left the image above creates an impression just like that. Finally, Iron Man is slightly out of focus as if blurred because he is moving by us really fast, or moving so fast that the person operating the camera is having trouble keeping him in focus. 

Finally, from the same movie, take a look at this panel. It's a pretty straight forward side view composition of Iron Man flying from right to left. What gives it a sense of speed are his pose, the boot jets pushing him forward, and the sky in the background is a blur speeding past him from left to right. 

On to our next movie. The following frames all come from the speeder bike chase from Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi.

This is pretty much just like the frame from Iron Man above, only moving from left to right. Notice that the characters and the bikes they ride are in focus, but the background is whizzing past them in a blur of speed.

Again, the characters and their bikes are in focus, while the landscape they move through zips by in a rapid blur. Notice the diagonal composition, which is repeated below.

In this frame, the background is still, while the bike flying closest past us is blurred and stretched out, making it seem like it's traveling at a great speed.

Here, the characters speed towards us, while their surroundings zip backwards past them at a high rate of speed. Notice that the trees to the side of them are more heavily blurred than the trees right behind them. This is what you experience in a car.

The next frames all come from the scene in The Incredibles where Dash is being chased by bad guys through the jungle.

Like the last frame above, the plants closest to Dash, on the right side of the frame, blur past him, while those behind him remain in focus. Notice the diagonal composition made more interesting by the angles that the flying saucers chasing him are positioned in. Also, notice how Dash's hair is being blown back by the wind caused by his speed, and take a look at his arms and legs which are moving so fast they appear as blurs themselves.

Again we have diagonal action across the screen. Dash's pose, where he's leaning forward also indicates he's running fast. This idea is also reinforced by his being blurred, and the long dust trail that he leaves behind him.

Because the images for this movie were created on a computer that means that the frame above was designed to be out of focus on purpose, and not because the cameraman didn't know what he was doing.  On the screen, moving, this edit is really quick and you probably won't notice it's out of focus. Blurring the movement from left to right and making both Dash and the saucer out of focus also makes it seem like they are moving at an incredible rate of speed, as if the camera, or the naked eye, can't keep up with them.

Look at how the ground streaks by underneath Dash. Also notice his legs. They're moving so fast we really can't see them. They don't even appear solid.

Here, Dash is hitting one of the bad guys, over a dozen times in less than a second. Sound effects help get this across in the movie, but here it looks like Dash has about as many hands as an octopus, which indicates great speed, since the illusion is that our eye is registering his hands being in several positions at the same time. The transparency of his arms and hands lets us know that it's because his arms are in motion and not because he suddenly mutated and grew extras.

Like the trails of dust behind him in some of the earlier frames, this one shows Dash's high speed running impacting on his environment. Not only is he creating a wake on the surface of the water, and a plume of spray behind him, but each of those splashes behind him is from one of his foot steps. He's moving so fast that the impact from a dozen steps earlier hasn't had time to settle. He's also moving so fast that each of his steps only touches the surface of the water for a split second, not even long enough for him to sink. What direction is he traveling in across the frame? That's right, diagonally.

Compare the frame below, which comes from an episode of Speed Racer, with third frame from Iron Man up above. Do you notice any similarities?

That's right, this one is heavy on the left side of the frame. Not only does the white car (the Mach V) seem to be pushing its way right out of the frame, but both cars, and the track they drive on, are canted at a diagonal to the right, adding more tension and giving a feeling of motion towards that direction as well. The other diagonal lines on the track, which move front to back and are blurred lend the frame forward speed, as does the blur on the Mach V's tire.

Here we have another diagonal composition, where the surface of the roadway is painted with blur streaks to make it seem like the cars are moving even faster.

Like the frames of Dash running from The Incredibles, the above frame from a Speedy Gonzales cartoon, gets across Speedy's speed mostly by his impact on his environment. We can follow his dust trail all the way back to the distant mountain from which he came. He's moving so fast that the dust from his footsteps hasn't settled for miles. Note the multiple diagonal movements and the streak of yellow behind Speedy suggesting the blur of his hat at high speed. His leaning forward pose also accentuates the idea of his velocity.

If there was ever a series of animated cartoons that depicted high speed action, it's those starring the Road Runner.

Here's the Road Runner moving so fast that you can't even see him. He's simply a blur of clor and motion with a dust trail.

Here, his nemesis, Wile E. Coyote, is moving so fast that his feet, like Dash's arms earlier, appear to have multiplied within a turning wheel blur. Notice that the rest of him doesn't appear to be moving at all.

Here, like the Coyote, you can see the Road Runner's upper body, but his legs are nothing more than a wheel shaped blur. Which character appears to be running faster? Why?

Here the Road Runner has run into the far distance so fast that his dust hasn't even settled in the foreground. Look at all those diagonals too, and and how the road is broken up into seperate lengths over their own different colored bits of terrain. This helps accentuate the sense of distance between the foreground and the background, making the Road Runner seem to be running even faster.

To finish this post, I want to share with you a series of individual frames taken from a split second section of action from the Road Runner cartoon, "Ready, Set, Zoom!" Take a look at each frame in the sequence and see if you can tell what it is in the drawings that makes the action seem to be happening really fast.

In the top frame, we are waiting for the moment of acceleration. We know it's going to happen because the Coyote is sitting on a rocket, and we all know rockets travel fast. Also the rocket is positioned diagonally, which we've already decided adds a sense of speed or motion and excitement to an image, and it is pointed down, which our minds tell us means that it will go faster since it's working with gravity instead of against it. Compare this with the other diagonal compositions in the rest of this post. How many diagonal lines are aimed down? How many are aimed up? 

In the second frame, the Coyote also positions himself in a downward angle while he waits for the fuse to burn down. Notice how his change in position already makes the image appear faster than the first image where the Coyote is sitting upright and facing in the opposite direction to where the rocket is pointed.

The third frame is full of downward diagonal lines. The rocket has taken off so fast that it's already out of frame, leaving only it's trail of fire behind. It's also zoomed forward so fast that the Coyote's hands and feet, which hold the rocket, have launched forward with it, while the rest of the Coyote still hasn't moved, or had a chance to catch up. Notice the exagerated stretched arms and legs. 

The fourth frame is very similar, only the rocket is now much further ahead since we can no longer see its exhaust trail, and the Coyote's body seems poised to suddenly spring back as his arms and legs contract back towards his hands and feet. 

In the fifth frame, the Coyote's body has snapped forward so fast that it's just a blur of brown. Not only that, but his body has not accelerated ahead so fast, that his tail has been left behind, the acceleration pushing most of his fur up into a bunch at the very tip. 

In the sixth frame, the Coyote's body is now almost completely gone, with his tail remaining stretched out behind him.

In the seventh frame, his tail finally snaps forward to join the rest of him. 

In the final frame that is really fast motion we are looking at. The Coyote's body is stretched, and his face is compressed by the gravitational forces being exerted on it from the high rate of speed the rocket is traveling at. 

Take a good look again at all of the images above, and come back for part two where we look at how high speed is depicted in comic books. 

New on DVD

The Super Hero Squad volume 2  DVD goes on sale today. This DVD includes six episodes of the hit tv series, including the first episode I wrote for the show, "Night In The Sanctorum" . The DVD also has a bunch of cool bonus features. You can read more about the DVD here.

Coloring Your Comics

Cartoonist, Brian McLachlan  has posted an excellent instructional coloring tutorial on his blog. He talks about color theory, choosing colors for your characters and their foes, making characters and objects stand out from their surroundings, light sources, reduced pallettes, and other things. Even if some of it is too technical for you, there are still plenty of valuable tips that will help you, not only with your own comics, but any other artwork you make, or even choosing what to wear. You can read it by going here.

Arthur Episode About Comic Books and Graphic Novels

You'll need to check your local PBS listings for the time, but the October 25th episode of Arthur contains a pair of stories centered around comics.

In the first story, "Falafelosophy" author, Neil Gaiman (Coraline, The Graveyard Book) guest stars as himself (himself if he were a cat) he provides inspiration for one of the characters (Sue Ellen it looks like) who is trying to write and illustrate her own graphic novel.

UPDATE: You can watch this portion of the episode by going here.

The second story, "Tales of the Grotesquely Grim Bunny" is a story that centers around the local comic book store.

Anatomy of a Comic Book Page

If you're going to make comic books, especially if you are going to be writing them, then it's important to know what everything is called so you can describe it to your editor and to your artist.

Traditionally, the first page of a comic book was a big full panel which took up the entire page and contained the title of the story, the credits, and a bunch of other stuff. Nowadays, the splash page is not always the first page of a story, sometimes it's the second, third, or even the last page of a story. Some people say it can only be called a splash page if it's the first page. I'm not one of those people. If it has the title of the story and the credits and it takes up the full page, I think of it as the splash page. It's usually a pretty exciting image, too.

This part above is called the title of the story, for obvious reasons. 

Above is what are called the credits. Just like in a movie, the credits give the names of everyone who worked on this particular story and also what their jobs were.

Often times now, comics that contain several shorter stories, rather than one longer one, will place the title and credits in one or more panels on a page, rather than in a single panel page. This is done mostly because a short story doesn't allow for a full panel page due to space. On those stories we usually need all the panels we can get.

This oddly spelled word running along the monster's back is called a sound effect, because it is spelled and written in a  stylized fashion meant to convey a sound. In this case it is the sound of a monster roaring.

A full page panel (or single panel page) which does not contain the title and credit information, and can fall anywhere in a story is NOT a splash page but is simply a single panel page. They are great for showcasing a big dramatic moment such as the one above from SCOOBY-DOO #96. It has another great monster roaring sound effect, too.

A typical page of a comic book looks like the one above. Each of the "squares" or "boxes" no matter what shape it's in is called a panel. Each horizontal row of panels is called a tier. Each panel on a page is called in order, panel one, panel two, panel three, and so on.

The bunch of text at the very bottom of the page is called the indicia. It includes publishing information for the particular issue it's found in. Traditionally this was always found at the bottom of the first page of a comic book (as it is above) at the bottom of the splash page. Now it can be found in different places such as at the bottom of a letters page, or on the inside of the cover, depending on the publisher and the comic book. The publisher adds this information and the writer is not responsible for it.

The blank white space that you find separating the panels are called the gutters.

You'll notice that the first two panels of our sample page don't have gutters between them. Panel one seems to be resting on top of panel two. This is called overlapping panels.

The rectangular boxes you see that have text in them are called captions, or sometimes narrative captions. These contain description of what might be happening in a scene that is not, or cannot easily be conveyed in the drawing such as "Batman is down to his last batarang." They can also tell us the location a scene is set in, as does the caption above, or the passage of time such as "meanwhile..." or "the following day." Sometimes the caption will carry over dialogue from the previous scene, or show what the character is thinking.

These are more sound effects.

The above is called a speech balloon and contains dialogue spoken out loud by characters in the story.

The part of the speech balloon that points to the character talking is called the pointer. It's job is to indicate who is talking.

Balloons that have what looks like a stream of bubbles leading to a character instead of a pointer are called thought balloons. They are often more cloud shaped as well. These show you what a character is thinking. The bubbles pointing to the character thinking are called bubbles. It's rare to find thought balloons in comic books these days. Most people use captions instead.

Go back to our sample page and look at the first panel which shows the city of Townsville. This panel is called an establishing shot because it shows the location where the story (or part of it) takes place. The text that runs sideways along the outside of the panel which reads DCPPG49 is something the publisher has included to keep track of what this story is for. I don't know what this is called, so ignore it. Instead, here is another establishing shot of Townsville from a different story.

Panels, such as the two above, that show a character or object up close, are called close-up shots, just like in photography, or filmmaking.

If you move back a bit and can see more of the characters and their backgrounds, these are called medium shots. They typically show the characters from the waist up, but can even show the full figures. These are often used for scenes in which two or more characters need to appear, either speaking, or performing an action. We get a better sense of their surroundings as well.

A long shot shows a scene from far away. This is often done when the scene, or location surrounding the characters is more important than the characters, such as in an establishing shot which sets the scene for a story. The three panels above are all examples of long shots.

In the sequence above, panel one and panel two are medium shots. Panel three and panel four are close ups. Panel five and six (which actaully form one larger panel) are extreme close-ups. What do these panels in a sequence suggest to you? Why do you think the writer and artist chose to use them like this in this scene?

We can also describe the angles of view chosen for a panel. Above are some examples of what are called a down angle, or bird's-eye view, because you are looking down, seeing the scene much as a bird flying over would see it, from high above the scene. In the third example, the circular panel which overlaps the orange, down angle panel, and the pink medium shot panel is called an inset panel. This is because it is set into another panel. Inset panels are often used to show a detail in extreme close-up of something seen in the larger panel, to bring attention to it in a way that the composition of the large panel does not. 

The opposite of a down angle, or bird's-eye view is an up angle, or worm's eye view. In this view you are looking up at the action from below, almost as if you were watching it from a point on the ground like a worm would see it -- if a worm had eyes. 

Look at the all the different panels shown in this entry. What does the choice of view do for the scenes depicted in each of the panels? Would they be as effective if they were done using a different perspective? Would a close-up be better as a long shot? Why or why not? What does a worm's eye view do that a bird's eye view doesn't, or even a regular straight on view the way we usually look at things? 

Almost everything that was identified in this post will be discussed in more length in future posts, so keep checking back. If you have any thoughts, or questions, please leave them in the comments area below. 

Artwork used to illustrate this post came from:

SCOOBY-DOO #145 (see story title and credits at the top of this page) published by DC Comics.

SCOOBY-DOO #96 "Follow That Monster!" John Rozum: writer, Joe Staton: penciller, Horacio Ottolini: inker, Nick J. Napolitano: letterer, Heroic Age: colorist, Rachel Gluckstern: assistant editor, Joan Hilty: editor. Published by DC Comics.

THE POWERPUFF GIRLS #22 "My Fair Fuzzy" John Rozum: writer, Bill Alger: penciller, Mike DeCarlo: inker, Jenna Garcia: letterer, Dave Tanguay: colorist, Harvey Richards: assistant editor, Joan Hilty: editor. Published by DC Comics.

WALT DISNEY'S UNCLE SCROOGE #210 Carl Barks: writer and artist. Published by Gladstone Publishing, Ltd.

THE POWERPUFF GIRLS #14 "Gone Squiggly" John Rozum: writer, Phil Moy: artist, Ryan Cline: letterer, Dave Tanguay: colorist, Harvey Richards: assistant editor, Joan Hilty: editor. Published by DC Comics. 

SCOOBY-DOO #96 "Another Mystery All Wrapped Up" John Rozum: writer, Robert Pope: artist, Nick J. Napolitano: letterer, Heroic Age: colorist, Rachel Gluckstern: assistant editor, Joan Hilty: editor.

Published by DC Comics. 

SCOOBY-DOO #60 "The Dragon's Eye - part 2: Russian Into Danger" John Rozum: writer, Joe Staton: penciller, Horacio Ottolini: inker, Tom Orzechowski: letterer, Paul Becton: colorist, Digital Chameleon: separations, Harvey Richards: assistant editor, Joan Hilty: editor. published by DC Comics.

CARTOON NETWORK ACTION PACK #39 The Secret Saturdays in: "The Cave of the Cacus" John Rozum: writer, Will Sweeny: penciller, Mike Manley: inker, Heroic Age: colorist, Travis Lanham: letterer, Sean Ryan: editor. Published by DC Comics. 

CARTOON NETWORK ACTION PACK #47 The Secret Saturdays in: "Attack of the Lake Monster" John Rozum: writer, Scott Jeralds: penciller, Scott Awley: inker, Rob Clark Jr.: letterer, Heroic Age: colorist, Sean Ryan: editor. Published by DC Comics.

SCOOBY-DOO #37 "Witch Pitch" John Rozum: writer, Cameron Stewart: penciller, Andrew Pepoy: inker, John Costanza: letterer, Paul Becton: colorist, Harvey Richards: assistant editor, Joan Hilty: editor. Published by DC Comics.

SCOOBY-DOO #92 "The Curse of the Living Statue" John Rozum: writer, John McCrea: artist, Nick J. Napolitano: letterer, Heroic Age: colorist, Harvey Richards: assistant editor, Joan Hilty: editor. Published by DC Comics.