In order to understand how webcomics fit into the Literary spectrum, it is important to understand a few key terms and phrases. The following is meant for use as a general introduction to comic terminology. Since these phrases do not only refer to webcomics, but also to general comics, the term ‘webcomics’ will be used interchangeably with ‘comics’.
Webcomic: Any comic that is available for reading on the internet. Some webcomics are also available in traditional mediums such as books and newspapers. These paper versions are no longer webcomics, though the internet accessible version is still considered to be a webcomic. These can be iterative, use animation, or simply be read like an ordinary comic.
Complex narrative: Comics with plots extending beyond just a few panels or strips. This type of narrative typically contains character development, back story, and subplots. Due to the story elements of these types of comics, they have huge literary potential.
Simple narrative: Comics with short plots typically finished within a strip or a couple of strips. This type of narrative usually leads up to a joke, the punch line of which is delivered in the last panel of the strip. The comics available in the Sunday newspaper are simple narrative comics. A common element of this type of comic is that they begin en medias res, expecting that either the audience is familiar with the characters from reading previous strips, or that the characters themselves are only important as a mode of carrying out the punch line.
Encapsulation: When drawing and writing a comic, an important step is determining what scenes to depict in each panel (a divided section of the over-all page of the comic, even if the comic is set up in a one-drawing-per-page format). It is common for the comic artist to select “moments of prime action from the imagined story” to portray happenings and move the narrative along (Duncan 131). The decision on what to capture in each panel depends highly on “how much exposition is required, how much action, what must be depicted in order to prepare for subsequent events,” and other considerations that a novelist may ponder over when determining what to include in each paragraph of a book (Duncan 132).
Symbols: As any literature-oriented individual knows, symbols are important in stories and general literature. In comics and webcomics, symbols are just as important. However, in comics and webcomics symbols are not only limited to dialogue expression alone. In addition to being included in text, symbols exist within the images themselves. In their book The Power of Comics, Randy Duncan and Matthew J. Smith use an example of a sequence metaphor to demonstrate the importance of imagery symbolism in comics. They state that a sequence metaphor is taking two images that seem unrelated and juxtaposing them to give both images a combined meaning. For their example, they speak about a comic featuring an ace fighter pilot in WWI being juxstaposed with an image of a medieval knight to show that the fighter is a modern day knight (Duncan 134).
