Meaning from movement: Blurring the temporal border between animation and comics

Abstract This article is informed by my current research in the communicative potential of animated elements within digital comics. Drawing on the writings of Thierry Groensteen and Barbara Postema, I adopt the viewpoint that comics are a complex system in which individual signs and multiple codes combine and interact to communicate meaning. From this foundation, I propose that animated movement can add additional layers of signification, contributing connotative meaning to mostly denotational images. Within the article I recognize that attempts to incorporate animated elements into digital comics have often inadvertently illustrated the difficult relationship and potential incompatibility between cinematic animation and the specific conventions of comics. This discord can be attributed to competing temporal qualities; cinematic animation is a linear time-based art form while time in comics is illusory and implied largely through space. Eschewing a cinematic approach to animation, my research builds on an observation by Daniel Goodbrey (2013) that animated elements are most successfully employed within panels as short animated loops. Unlike linear animated sequences, the indefinite timing of loops does not challenge comics’ temporal code. As exemplars of this more harmonious application of animation to the comic form, Jen Lee’s ThunderPaw: In the Ashes of Fire Mountain (2012–16) is discussed alongside my current studio work, Tepid Waters (Gowdy 2017), a digital comic in which the use of illusionistic movement is secondary to animated elements that communicate on symbolic or connotative levels.