Comics : the (not only) visual medium

Comics studies tends to privilege the visual, and some scholars, like Scott McCloud believe that comics are solely visual. However, as Ian Hague has noted, the idea that comics are a solely visual medium is not only incomplete but does not align with what the sciences of perception and embodied cognition tell us. This paper seeks to build upon Hague's work by calling attention to and analyzing comics which exist without or with little visual imagery. These comics can be sorted into two primary categories, audiocomics and tactile comics. As these comics were created for people who have partial or no sight, existing guidelines and standards for creating aural and tactile imagery for people with partial or no sight are used to analyze the comics' success in achieving an experience that is easy to understand and also utilizes the medium's strengths. The comics are then analyzed as a whole in order to determine areas for improvement and additional experimentation.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Comparative Media Studies/Writing

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• Lord, Lacey (Lacey Gwen)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Edward Schiappa.

• Humanities.
• Comparative Media Studies.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/106761

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/106761