McCloud pt.2

Even though many students have already blogged about McCloud's "The Right Number", I thougt it had enough in it to warrant some more notes.

http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics2/trn/

McCloud uses both "narration" and "speech" bubbles in this comic, as well as an interesting amalgam of the two. He also places text within the frames, but with no bubble at all, perhaps to emphasize the artwork and the importance of the moment, bringing the narration out of its hiding place, but freeing up more room fr the illustration as well. This technique first occurs on panel twenty.

The most interesting or at least unconventional use of bubbles occurs on panel thirty one, when the narrator is relating something Jodie actually said. Since he is narrating it as well as drawing it as it happened, the dialog is both a closed bubble AND has a speech "wing" or "leg" denoting that the words also came from Jodie at the time this scene took place. Word up, Holmes.

In the opening panel, we have narration. This isn't someone's inner monologue in response to an event or during a conversation, but rather the voice of the narrator setting us up for his story, unattached to the Beginning on panel six, some actual dialogue bubbles appear. These are used to show speech which actually took place. Rather than writing, "Most nights would find me in the library, leaning on a desk and chatting up this nice girl Jodie, who worked there..", McCloud draws the scenario and writes the words, using both narration and speech bubbles. I know McCloud uses the term "balloons" not "bubbles", but this is my blog, and I think the term "balloons" is less accurate. Also am I selling "dialogue" wrong? spell checker says it should be, "dialog", but that looks wrong to me. Am I just being pretentious?