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April 2, 2021
The nature of time within comics is both controlled by the creators, the artist and writer, but also the reader. Despite being an artefact with a specific amount of content, such as page count or panel count, this is augmented by the content of each of these pages or panels. Ranging from the image content, known as the pregnancy of the panel, as well as dialogue. While the creators decide and create the content on the page, it’s the reader’s choice that leads to passing time and duration.
While comics, particularly American superhero comics, are unique in their artform and in how the reader interprets the progression of time, other mediums, particularly ones based in the idea of choice, can borrow elements from comics. An ideal candidate for explaining this in terms of a video game is that of the Final Fantasy franchise. Particularly in its first nine main line entries. Specifically in Final Fantasy IV (Square.1991), Final Fantasy VII (Square.1997) and Final Fantasy IX (Square.2000). Specifically, these entries within the Final Fantasy franchise will be compared to Superman comics in terms of how dialogue is handled.
Within comics, speech gives comics a tangible understanding of time within its panels. By introducing speech, especially in the form of dialogue, the reader has a clear idea of the approximate time frame of a panel, this can come from reading the dialogue out loud (Cohn.2013). How this dialogue is conveyed to the reader determines how the dialogue is related to time. Elements such as Speech Bubbles or Thought Balloons are what is referred to as Carriers (Cohn.2013), this is due to how they carry information on the page to the reader.
Diagram Explaining the anatomy of a word balloon. Diagram based on a page of Zero Hour: Crisis in Time (1994)
With a speech balloon, as pictured above, they can be broken down into components. These consist of the carrier, the tail, the content and the root. The carrier is the form the ‘balloon’ takes. This could be a caption, a speech balloon, or even a thought bubble. The content is the text housed within. In the diagram above, this appears as ‘Excellent. Looks Like Earth’s Distant Past. You Don’t Miss a Trick, Hunter’ (Jurgens & Fosco.1994:03). The purpose of a carrier, in this instance a speech balloon, is to convey to the reader that someone is speaking and what is being said. It is important to remember that there are various forms of carrier that creators can use to express carious ideas of dialogue, each of which is portrayed in a different manner and gets across a different relationship between the content and the root. The different appearances of the carrier signify a different type of relationship between the root, the dialogue, and the world around them. These changes in carrier can signify whether speech is quiet, loud, or even whether the characters within the story are able to hear and acknowledge them.
Page from Superman #10: The Super Menace of Metropolis (1987), depicting Superman’s hearing picking up multiple audio elements from around the DC universe. (Byrne.1987:07)
Within the image shown above, we see Superman reacting to multiple audio inputs. In context, his Super hearing is going haywire, causing him to hear an overwhelming amount of voices from miles away. This effect is actually connected to the rest of the comics DC were putting out at the time, as the dialogue chosen for the background comes from various comic issues being published that month. Emphasising the fact that Superman is hearing the DC world as it is at that point in time. Superman’s thoughts appear as a thought bubble, featuring the words ‘Deafening… Maddening… Don’t Know How Much More of This I Can…’ (Byrne.1987:07). This is very clearly a carrier connected to Superman as it has a tail connecting to a root. The tail appearing as a serious of bubbles connecting Superman to his thoughts. However the dialogue behind is clearly more solid than the carrier containing Superman’s thoughts. Taking the form of speech balloons, symbolising they are outwardly audible to those near. However, they lack a tail indicating a root. Implying that while they are audible, it is unclear as to which direction they are coming from. This adds to the sense that the sound is consuming Superman’s sense of space and overwhelming him.
This idea of the carriers shape denoting audibility to the characters around is connected to Neil Cohn’s notion of carriers fitting into two categories. Root Aware (RA) and Adjacent Aware (AA) (Cohn.2013:35). A carrier can be a mixture of these two categories. This includes both Root Awareness positive and negative (+/- RA) as well as Adjacent Awareness positive and negative (+/- AA). If a carrier is Root Aware, then the source of the dialogue is fully aware of it. However, if the carrier is not Root Aware, then the source is unaware. An unaware root would include radios and televisions that project a sound but are not consciously making the sound. For a carrier to be Adjacent Aware, then the sound being produced can be heard by the characters around, the characters are able to listen to it and are aware. In the example of a radio, a carrier coming from it would be Root Unaware, but Adjacent Aware (-RA/+AA). In comics, this allows the creator to signify to the reader clearly who is speaking, if they are speaking out loud, and if the characters around them are able to hear them.
With the Final Fantasy franchise, the need to convey dialogue through text has been fundamental from the franchise’s first incarnation up until the ninth entry of the franchise. Final Fantasy X (2001), being the first entry on the PlayStation 2, introduced voice acting into the franchise, limiting the need for dialogue boxes.
Opening Moments of Final Fantasy VI (1994) depicting Biggs talking to Wedge and Terra.
As the basic functionality of a text box was to simply convey to the player that something was being said, dialogue within Final Fantasy was simply conveyed as a box at the top or bottom of the screen depending on space. To signify who was talking, the character’s name appeared first, followed by the dialogue. In the figure above from Final Fantasy VI (Square.1994), we see this clearly. The dialogue box appears at the top of the screen, in the signature blue of the franchise. The character speaking in this case is Biggs, and his dialogue is ‘Ah, yes…. Our witch’ (Square.1994). While the dialogue is clearly shown, it is unclear which of the three figures on screen is speaking from a still image. The dialogue box does not change weather the dialogue is being spoken out loud, or if it is an internal thought. The progression of this dialogue is also entirely dependent on the players interaction. Much like the reader’s choice as to move from one panel to the next. The dialogue within the first nine Final Fantasy games does not progress without the player pressing a button, usually ‘X’ or ‘A’ depending on the platform. With Final Fantasy IX (Square.2000) however, the franchise used its last entry prior to the introduction of voice acting, to borrow elements from comics.
Scene from Final Fantasy IX (2000), showing an example of a speech balloon within the game. In this case, Beatrix talking about Garnet to Zidaine, Freya, Vivi, Steiner, Thorn and Zorn
From the image above, we can see that Final Fantasy IX decided to augment the traditional dialogue boxes, instead adapting the comic book carrier system. The carrier in this case is very clearly a speech bubble, giving the viewer/player a clear sense that dialogue is being spoken, while also providing a tail towards a root. In this case, the tail is clearly pointed to the character of Beatrix. While the character name is still included within the speech balloon, the tail makes it clear that the name is a holdover from the previous system. The inclusion of comic’s carrier system also allows for a more nuanced understanding of the information within the carrier. Thoughts as well as audible dialogue can be understood through using the RA/AA system.
Bibliography:
Byrne, J. (1987) Superman #10: The Super Menace of Metropolis. DC Comics: Burbank.
Cohn, N. (2013) Navigating Comics: An Empirical and Theoretical Approach to Strategies of Reading Comic Page Layout. Frontiers in Psychology. [ONLINE] April 18th. Available from: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00186/full [Last Accessed: 16/03/2021]
Parish, J. (2017) The Trials, Tribulations, and Trial Mode of Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age. [ONLINE] June 29th. Retronauts. Available from: https://retronauts.com/article/421/the-trials-tribulations-and-trial-mode-of-final-fantasy-xii-the-zodiac-age [Last Accessed: 16/03/2021]
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Cover Art: https://www.deviantart.com/nikunja/art/Final-Fantasy-VII-Crisis-705816904
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