Year: 2004
Type: article
Abstract: Much has been written about the way in which narrative sequences operate in BD, not least by Eisner, and McCloud. Such approaches, despite their subtleties, presuppose a model of narrative in which actions or events are foregrounded as 'figures' against a background setting, enabling the reader to create a hierarchy of elements in the visual and written fields of the BD. In this model, the reader is then in a position to track principle features of the action, while having the freedom to linger over elements of the background. This paper considers the possibility that the figure/ground distinction, like that between narrative and description, while it is a useful normative principle which the reader can bring to his or her processing of the text, requires re-examination in light of certain BD texts. It explores how the reader tracks and identifies meaningful sequences, looking in particular at Trondheim and Duffour's Gare Centrale (1994) and Schelle's La Théorie du chaos (2001).
Source: DalSpace (Dalhousie University)
Author: Teresa Bridgeman
Language: English
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1679391593