RAGE OF ANGELS 1.3

Rage of Angels 1.3

The Elements of Narrative Art pt. 2

Floating & Detached Narratives

At its most basic, narrative art is composed of two components, the visual and the narrative, both of which are to be found in the image or images employed. The visual component is processed spontaneously in the right brain while the narrative component is compiled cumulatively by the left in order to construct what is often referred to as the story. Depending on the complexity of the story being presented, it is possible (and in some circles preferable) to deliver it intelligibly utilizing only this muted aspect of narrative embedded directly into the images themselves.

Even a cursory glance over the development and proliferation of narrative art in human culture suggests, however, that the evolution of a second kind of narrative strategy utilizing text, opens up a new range of potential complexities that could not be sustained by the use of embedded narrative alone. It also opens the door to an even more pronounced hostility between the visual (right) and narrative (left) aspects of the work as the linear language centers of the brain are further stimulated by the introduction of words. When the narrative component is restrained to what is embedded into the image, one finds both hemispheres of the brain entrained in creation of a complementing interpretation of its meaning. Though there is a marked difference in the way that the two brains interpret the particular portion of the image that corresponds to their function, they are still contemplating, in essence, the same unified image.

FLOATING NARRATIVE

In contrast, text, unless specifically prepared to behave otherwise, is always separate from the image or images that it accompanies. The relationship between the text and the images in narrative art is not complementary but openly hostile. To the right brain, its contribution to the piece is nonsensical and offers nothing but irresistible demands upon the left brain to abandon its primary function of interpreting the embedded narrative component to focus entirely upon the text. In recognition of the difference between these two types of narrative (visual and textual), we can describe text as being a non-embedded or floating narrative.

Given the enormous pressure that it places on the basic transaction between left and right brain, it should come as no surprise that the floating narrative can exert remarkable influence on the interpretation of the work as a whole. On the positive side, it is capable of sustaining narrative strategies so complex as to seem alien to the embedded narrative alone. Conversely, the greater the demands that text places on the left brain in implementing these strategies, the less that hemisphere is able to focus on the embedded narrative. If left unchecked, text can overpower the dual function of the visual component and essentially grind the right-left brain synergy to nothingness. As a result, narrative art that uses text must do so with extreme caution or run the risk of becoming unbalanced and thus fragmented.

DETACHED NARRATIVE

Due to its polarizing nature, text is historically the most recent variable added to the narrative art equation. Ironically, many scholars mark the beginning of comics as a tradition with Rudolphe Töpffer's codification of techniques to narratively fuse text to images as in this example.




Here, Töpffer transparently copes with the conflict between the word and image by separating them with a black line, giving priority over to the visual and embedded narrative components by placing them physically on top of the floating narrative. He further undermines the authority of the text by making a stair step out of the line, drawing the reader's eye to its jagged contour as a means of constant reminder of the floating narrative's subservient position to the images. The eye is led by the suggestion of motion in the sequenced panels to absorb all four in succession before returning to the first panel to take in its textual accompaniment and, perhaps, the image again for an assessment of the relationship between the text and the image. This is not suggest that this is the only way this page can be read but it is the reading facilitated by the structure of the page itself.

When a floating narrative is willfully disengaged from the images it accompanies, it is best described as being detached. Detached narratives enjoy the fullness of the written word's pliancy as whatever may first be conquered by the latter is easily appropriated by the former. They may be personal, offering to the reader interior insights of one or more characters within the story not unlike the soliloquy in theater. Sometimes their function is expository as they work in tandem with the visual component to create a more rich and believable environment for the story. Other creators use them to carry on a conversation with the reader, the characters, or both. These three examples are nothing but distant neighbors on a continuum of detached narrative strategies that have been largely developed in the last three hundred years. This particular type of floating narrative was the most common prior to the 20th century. It is still regularly used in every narrative art tradition though it is more often employed in tandem with other kinds of floating narrative.

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