Narration is the process of telling a story: the way events are presented in the text has an impact on the reader’s understanding of the story. The characteristics of different media affect narration. Comics is a spatio-temporal medium, which means it is a combination of temporal elements of language and spatial elements of images. It takes time to read temporal forms of art (e.g., literary texts), while spatial forms of art (e.g., paintings) can be read in the blink of an eye.
The narrativity of comics is linked to both the temporal and the spatial aspects of the medium. Narration can become manifest in verbal signs, as in captions, where the narrator speaks directly to the reader mostly in order to make brief comments on the action. In some cases, as in silent comics, narration happens exclusively through visual elements. Since comics are sequences of images, the medium’s narrativity is in many ways similar to narration in film. The narrator’s figure and voice are not very well defined and often disappear, as these media quote the speech of the characters in a direct mode. The images define the reading experience to a greater extent than the voice-over narration in film or the captions in comics. For an informative case study on the issue, see Edward Branigan’s analysis of the dynamics of narration, focalization, exposition, takes and composition in a sequence of Nick Fury comics.
