repetition in comics

[whitecomics]

I just made a blog post about this, hopefully it's not annoying to cross post it here.

whitecomics.co/2022/10/07/towards-a-unifying-theory-of-repetition-in-comics/

I'm curious if anyone has any thoughts on this or can help me think of pages or comics that are interesting in terms of repetition. A few more than come to mind for me, now: the Concrete page(s?) where he crosses the ocean in a hundred panels, Julio's Day (iterating through years as a repetition-based formal constraint), the thrill of a repeated newspaper strip gag that goes away for years and then suddenly is back again. 

[mikesheawright]

First thing that comes to mind is those like three(?) issues of Shaolin Cowboy where he's just killing zombies over and over and over again forever and then gets shot in the head in the end. I think about that sequence all the time and adore that kind of stuff. Repetition with intent is totally mesmerizing to me, especially because I get bored drawing the same characters and backgrounds after a few pages, let alone entire issues.

On the flip side, there are comics where like the artist copies and pastes the same panel 9 times and just changes the eyeballs to look in different places and changes the dialogue and I can't stand that shit. At least re-draw the backgrounds. Repetition can easily be a lazy compensating tool for the boring artist to just fill a page.

[teemcgee]

A very early work by Trondheim and JC Menu, Moins d'un quart de seconde pour vivre, would be of interest - an exercise in formal constraints in which Menu provided Trondheim with eight textless panels and Trondheim rearranges them in different configurations to create a hundred or so strips with dialogue.

[whitecomics]

Thanks both for the suggestions! All really interesting. Mike's complaint reminds me of this Nick Francis Potter comic, which is that idea pushed as far as it can go and therefore maybe interesting? therumpus.net/2014/05/15/spotlight-nick-francis-potter/

I definitely agree with the complaint that repetition can be boring (forget the same panel 9 times, it trips me up when a panel is clearly photocopied just once, especially in cases where it's to create a zoom in effect so the line weights look wrong) and I suppose that's part of why it's become interesting to me - trying to articulate, at least to myself, what makes some instances so compelling and others so rote.

[mikesheawright]

haha yes totally, although each panel is re-drawn here which makes it work for me! if someone is standing still in real life they're still moving a little bit, so they would be slightly different in each panel. it's the photoshop copy/paste look that drives me insane, so lazy. also imagining the act of an artist re-drawing all that stuff is interesting to me. looking for those small variations from panel to panel is good stuff. also the pacing in this Potter comic is real good, the repetition and space works really well as conversational beats. great example!

[daisyjaberi]

Oct 19, 2022 20:06:17 GMT mikesheawright said:

haha yes totally, although each panel is re-drawn here which makes it work for me! if someone is standing still in real life they're still moving a little bit, so they would be slightly different in each panel. it's the photoshop copy/paste look that drives me insane, so lazy. also imagining the act of an artist re-drawing all that stuff is interesting to me. looking for those small variations from panel to panel is good stuff. also the pacing in this Potter comic is real good, the repetition and space works really well as conversational beats. great example!

I look at the boxes around the art alot for small handmade signals and whenever I see marks a little off of the borders I feel very happy

[whitecomics]

I think Jaime (I'm sure there are many others, I just recall him saying it in an interview) rules out his panel borders in pencil but then freehands them when inking. I think that's my ideal panel border aesthetic in most cases.

[mikesheawright]

Oct 29, 2022 14:53:28 GMT whitecomics said:

I think Jaime (I'm sure there are many others, I just recall him saying it in an interview) rules out his panel borders in pencil but then freehands them when inking. I think that's my ideal panel border aesthetic in most cases.

I like a variety of panel border styles, I wish more people took advantage of this opportunity. Different styles straight/rough/wobbly/jagged/etc. can really change the feel of different scenes. I think that's another beef I have with printed Instagram comics is that they almost all have the same panel border to fit the format and when you read them all in sequence it can drone a bit.

[manoopuesta]

Oct 29, 2022 14:53:28 GMT whitecomics said:

I think Jaime (I'm sure there are many others, I just recall him saying it in an interview) rules out his panel borders in pencil but then freehands them when inking. I think that's my ideal panel border aesthetic in most cases.

I've always thought of this to be my ideal for a panel border design, too. However, while re-reading Ivan Brunetti's profile in the book "In the Studio", he mentions his most common approach for panel borders, which is just having them perfectly ruled and geometrical. His reasoning to use this style is that the more perfect the panel borders are drawn, the more invisible they become and whatever content is within the panel can be as fluid as needed without the panel becoming chaotic. And he puts as a good example of this Krazy Kat.

I hadn't pondered before on this much but I find the two options to be valid and interesting enough, one that in which the container is part of the artwork and the other where it just frames it. In fact, I used Brunetti's approach in my latest comic while usually I don't. Not sure this will make much difference in my case, but it was interesting to make the change.

[manoopuesta]

Oct 7, 2022 23:09:18 GMT whitecomics said:

I just made a blog post about this, hopefully it's not annoying to cross post it here.

whitecomics.co/2022/10/07/towards-a-unifying-theory-of-repetition-in-comics/

I'm curious if anyone has any thoughts on this or can help me think of pages or comics that are interesting in terms of repetition. A few more than come to mind for me, now: the Concrete page(s?) where he crosses the ocean in a hundred panels, Julio's Day (iterating through years as a repetition-based formal constraint), the thrill of a repeated newspaper strip gag that goes away for years and then suddenly is back again. 

I was re-reading your article, and I was thinking that the repetition of certain formulas in strips (like the ones mentioned there: Charlie Brown vs. football, Ignatz throwing a brick to Krazy) work for repetition at a very different level, since it is more an emotional one, it is like an inside-joke with a friend that you find very funny but other person without context wouldn't enjoy it as much? It is repetition over time, memory is more important here than the use of space. I tend to enjoy these more, it is like slow cooking. And I don't know where this is going, just my rambling here, hahah

[devin]

Feb 5, 2023 13:56:02 GMT manoopuesta said:

Oct 7, 2022 23:09:18 GMT whitecomics said:

I just made a blog post about this, hopefully it's not annoying to cross post it here.

whitecomics.co/2022/10/07/towards-a-unifying-theory-of-repetition-in-comics/

I'm curious if anyone has any thoughts on this or can help me think of pages or comics that are interesting in terms of repetition. A few more than come to mind for me, now: the Concrete page(s?) where he crosses the ocean in a hundred panels, Julio's Day (iterating through years as a repetition-based formal constraint), the thrill of a repeated newspaper strip gag that goes away for years and then suddenly is back again. 

I was re-reading your article, and I was thinking that the repetition of certain formulas in strips (like the ones mentioned there: Charlie Brown vs. football, Ignatz throwing a brick to Krazy) work for repetition at a very different level, since it is more an emotional one, it is like an inside-joke with a friend that you find very funny but other person without context wouldn't enjoy it as much? It is repetition over time, memory is more important here than the use of space. I tend to enjoy these more, it is like slow cooking. And I don't know where this is going, just my rambling here, hahah

You make a very good point. Umberto Eco, back in the 80s, wrote of his love of Krazy Kat and Peanuts. Like you, he drew attention to the way in which strips attain their poetry through echoes and repetition, building over time.

The piece is behind a NY Review paywall (or you can sign up to their mailing list and get one free read).

I'll quote the relevant bit.

... the author drew an infinite series of variations, based on a structural fact that is of fundamental importance in the understanding of comics in general: the brief daily or weekly story, the traditional strip, even if it narrates an episode that concludes in the space of four panels, will not work if considered separately; rather it acquires flavor only in the continuous and obstinate series, which unfolds, strip after strip, day by day.

In Krazy Kat the poetry originated from a certain lyrical stubbornness in the author, who repeated his tale ad infinitum, varying it always but sticking to its theme. It was thanks only to this that the mouse’s arrogance, the dog’s unrewarded compassion, and the cat’s desperate love could arrive at what many critics felt was a genuine state of poetry, an uninterrupted elegy based on sorrowing innocence. In a comic strip of this sort, the spectator, not seduced by a flood of gags, or by any realistic or caricatural reference, or by any appeal to sex and violence, could discover the possibility of a purely allusive world, a pleasure of a “musical” nature, an interplay of feelings that were not banal.

www.nybooks.com/articles/1985/06/13/on-krazy-kat-and-peanuts/

[manoopuesta]

Feb 5, 2023 15:48:59 GMT devin said:

You make a very good point. Umberto Eco, back in the 80s, wrote of his love of Krazy Kat and Peanuts. Like you, he drew attention to the way in which strips attain their poetry through echoes and repetition, building over time.

The piece is behind a NY Review paywall (or you can sign up to their mailing list and get one free read).

I'll quote the relevant bit.

... the author drew an infinite series of variations, based on a structural fact that is of fundamental importance in the understanding of comics in general: the brief daily or weekly story, the traditional strip, even if it narrates an episode that concludes in the space of four panels, will not work if considered separately; rather it acquires flavor only in the continuous and obstinate series, which unfolds, strip after strip, day by day.

In Krazy Kat the poetry originated from a certain lyrical stubbornness in the author, who repeated his tale ad infinitum, varying it always but sticking to its theme. It was thanks only to this that the mouse’s arrogance, the dog’s unrewarded compassion, and the cat’s desperate love could arrive at what many critics felt was a genuine state of poetry, an uninterrupted elegy based on sorrowing innocence. In a comic strip of this sort, the spectator, not seduced by a flood of gags, or by any realistic or caricatural reference, or by any appeal to sex and violence, could discover the possibility of a purely allusive world, a pleasure of a “musical” nature, an interplay of feelings that were not banal.

www.nybooks.com/articles/1985/06/13/on-krazy-kat-and-peanuts/

I knew of Umberto Eco's love for comics but I hadn't read any of his writing about it. I really liked this article, thanks!

I especially liked this part (about Krazy Kat) where he says:

"In a comic strip of this sort, the spectator, not seduced by a flood of gags, or by any realistic or caricatural reference, or by any appeal to sex and violence, could discover the possibility of a purely allusive world, a pleasure of a “musical” nature, an interplay of feelings that were not banal. To some extent the myth of Scheherazade was reproduced: the concubine, taken by the Sultan to be used for one night and then discarded, begins telling a story, and because of the story the Sultan forgets the woman; he discovers, that is, another world of values."

[whitecomics]

It's very funny to me that I started this thread, forgot about it, and then more recently started a thread on rereading comics. A way to impose repetition even if it isn't in the work at all.

I'm still making my way through the Taschen Krazy Kat collection, and a solid percentage of the strips are simply a recitation of the brick gag with some conceit or variation (more than I realized, from my previous spotty KK reading (an interesting counterpoint to Peanuts, where the football is one of several repeated gags that fall in/out of prominence over the years)). Sometimes those are the strips I like least, because they feel a little lazy or because the joke isn't especially funny, but then certain strips centered around a brick throw are among my favorites. Of course it might be based on my mood, my focus as much as the strip itself.

[maxhuffman]

couldn't fall asleep until 4 last night, so decided to get cute with it and finally finish The River At Night in bed. a masterclass in repetition, variation, visual ryhming, repetition, sequencing, callbacks...

[justareed]

Reading this thread again two other comics came to mind...

Mister O by Lewis Trondheim - Here the protagonist, a little circle fella, tries to cross a ravine, comes up with some scheme/idea, but fails and dies.  This basic story unfolds in one gridded page, and is repeated on each subsequent page unfolding differently each time.

Clover by CLAMP - Throughout this comic lyrics to a song are repeated, with different art each time.  It's major motif that spaces and binds the story.  While the art in the manga does not repeat, the harsh geometric panels feel repetitive against the large amount of white space on the pages.  Sometimes, the smaller panels form an explicit repeating pattern while retaining irregularity in their arrangement or some other aspect.  More broadly though the panels have a feel of repetition akin to music that recognizes itself and repeats while also flowing and changing.

I first read both on these in high school and middle school, respectively.  They're wildly different comics but their repetition and bold structures haunt me still!