Cartoon features

The cartoon, also called comic, comic strip, cartoon, graphic novel or sequential art, is an artistic and journalistic genre that consists of a series of illustrated vignettes, with or without accompanying text, which read in sequence make up a story. For example: Maus, Mafalda, Akira.

The cartoon is known as the ninth art in the classification of Fine Arts. Although its origins are uncertain, numerous studies explain that Egyptian hieroglyphs would be a first form of expression similar to this artistic genre.

Although there are precedents in Europe and Japan, certain sources maintain that the first cartoon of the story is "Yellow Kid", which was published in 1895 in the United States, by the author RichardF. Outcault. It was a satirical character who wore a yellow crocodile with political messages written on it as a wink to the reader. Others consider that it appeared in Germany, with the work "Max und Moritz" by Wilhelm Busch, in 1865.

• See also: Comic books

What are the characteristics of a cartoon?

• Function. The functions of the cartoon can lie in parodying reality, entertaining the public or transmitting a message to the reader for a pedagogical or instructional purpose.
• Support. Comics can be done on paper or in digital form (e-comics or webcomics), either as a strip of comics, a full page cartoon, a magazine or a complete book.
• Gender. The comics are arranged based on various thematic genres:
  • comic or satirical. Look for the laughter of the public, either in order to entertain or with a political intention.
  • Of love. It tells stories of a romance, usually in a comedic or dramatic tone.
  • Of adventures. It exposes fantastic travel stories, in challenging environments that a hero must go through.
  • Science fiction. Recreate futuristic environments in which the consequences of technology provide reflections aesthetic, political or social interest, such as spatial chronicles, new forms of life, among others.
  • Police. It narrates detective stories in which the perpetrator of a crime is hidden, which, in the end, is revealed.
  • erotic or pornographic. It relates certain types of more or less explicit adult content.
  • Horror. It narrates events or events of terror and suspense.
  • Sleeve. It is a Japanese variant of the Western cartoon industry, characterized by a particular narrative style.

• Composition. The comics are made up of the following elements:
  • vignettes. They are boxes in which the action is represented in an illustrated way and that serve to distinguish it from the rest of the blank page. They can be of different sizes, even cover the entire page, and are located sequentially. Between one vignette and another, a time interval is considered to have elapsed, not always of the same length.
  • Gussets or cartridges. They are rectangular boxes, usually in a horizontal position, which are always placed outside the vignette or between two different ones. They are distinguished from the cartoon balloon since they explain what happens in the cartoon.
  • Illustrations. They are drawings that convey to the reader the events of history according to the imagined reality. They are found within the vignettes and are of greater importance because they represent the facts that are sought to be highlighted. They can be from simple and cartoonish drawings, to realistic illustrations similar to a photograph, depending on the artistic style of the author.
  • Fumetti or snacks. They are the text balloons that allude to the different representations of speech (of the characters or the narrator) in the visual story, which make it clear who is saying what. They are not always present in the comics. Before being elaborated, they are reflected in a script. The balloons whose outline is drawn in the form of a cloud indicates that the text inside is about a character's thought. On the other hand, the balloons with a corner indicate that it is a spoken text. There are also balloons with several corners, which indicate that the text is said by several characters at the same time.
  • Expression lines. They are the conventional graphic characters that accompany the illustration and refine what is expressed, adding meanings that are difficult to express visually such as movement, sensation, emotions, etc. They are conventional and universal in nature, although there is a Japanese side (heir to manga) and a traditional Western side.
  • onomatopoeia. They are the verbal expressions of the sound of things, widely used in the cartoon.
  • Story or anecdote. It is the general theme of the work, whether it is an extensive story like a novel, in installments like a magazine or a comic gag with a few vignettes.
  • character texts. They are the words that are collected inside the speech bubbles, except that they are presented outside to indicate that the tone of voice has risen. All texts are usually written in capital letters and typographic differences, in size or thickness, serve to highlight a word or phrase, and qualify the intensities of the voice.
• narrative structure. Comics, like any type of narrative, present the story in a certain order: Introduction, knot and outcome. A storyteller sets the story and gives it continuity.
• Space. Comics are usually divided into two distinct spaces:
  • Space of the story or fiction. It corresponds to the space occupied by the vignettes, in which an aspect of the story to be developed is developed.
  • page space. It corresponds to the space called “lane”, which separates the vignettes. It is the one that determines the reading time, since it represents the sections of the story that is narrated and that link the plot to the end.
• mixed language. The comics link verbal language with iconic language, that is, they join words with pictures.

Publication formats of a comic

• Newspaper strip or comic strip, charged and cardboard. They are short-lived comics, characterized by having critical content. The comic strip criticizes social values, chargé contemporary people and things, and cardboard to daily situations.
• one-shot and miniseries. They are comics of medium and long duration. one-shot it means that it is a complete story in a single edition, unlike the miniseries, which is spread over several editions but with a limited duration.
• comic, graphic novel and fanzine. They are comics published in graphic media. The comic (a term that has its origin in the Spanish magazine TBO) is a traditional comic book magazine, aimed above all at children. The graphic novel is a comic book with a single, longer story. For its part, the fanzine is a comic book magazine edited by fans with reduced circulation. It differs from prozin because the latter refer to professional journals of the genre.
• Webcomic and e-comic. They are comics available to be read on-line. Its difference lies in the fact that the webcomic is generally a publication designed solely to be read in internet, so it has a specific design that adapts to the screen, computer, tablet or phone intelligent. On the other hand, the e-comic is a cartoon made on paper that is then digitized.

What are the steps to make a cartoon?

The five steps to make a comic can be summarized in the following points:

• Drafting of the script. The first step is to think about what you want to tell and how, and begin to establish the events that will occur in a certain sequential order.
• Physiognomy of the characters and settings. The second step is to carry out the graphic conceptualization of the protagonists of the story and the place where the events will take place).
• sketch production. The third step is to prepare the outline in which the bullets are already and in which it is indicated what each one will show.
• Location of bullets. The fourth step is to label the vignettes, that is, place them in their final places and locate the illustration that will be inside.
• Incorporation of texts and graphic details. The fifth step is to add the text that was previously written in the script, adjusting it if necessary, and finish incorporating the graphic details that would have been pending to complete the meaning of the cartoon.

comic examples

1. Sunday. It is a children's comedy weekly published in Barcelona between 1915 and 1916 by José Espoy. It is considered the first Spanish comic. Among its authors, it is worth mentioning Joan Llaverías, Opisso, Pal, Apa, Donaz, Junceda, Lisette, among others. Sunday it was a publication ahead of its time, due to its high artistic and technical level.

1. Mutt and Jeff. It is a daily comic strip from the United States, translated in some Spanish-speaking countries such as Benitín and Aeneas, created in 1907 by Bud Fisher and continued by Al Smith, Ken Kling, Ed Mack and George Breischer. It was so popular that it was published for seventy-five consecutive years.

1. Mafalda. It is a newspaper strip created by the Argentine graphic humorist Quino, pseudonym of Joaquín Salvador Lavado Tejón, from 1964 to 1973. The protagonist is a girl who is the "mirror of the Argentine middle class and progressive youth" who is concerned about politics, the fate of humanity and world peace, and rebels against the world left to her by the Adults.

1. garfield. It is a comic strip created by Jim Davis, starring a homonymous cat, fat orange, with black stripes and a peculiar attitude. He loves to eat lasagna, sleep, watch TV and make fun of the other pet in the house, the dog Odie, and his owner Jon.

1. Maus: A Survivor's Tale. It is a graphic novel published in installments between 1980 and 1991 in the magazine Raw Made by American cartoonist Art Spiegelman. The novel has almost three hundred pages and was published in two volumes: My father bleeds history Y And that's where my problems started, later united in a single volume. The story is an autobiography of the author himself, and a biography of his father, recounting his life as a Polish Jewish Holocaust survivor. The book uses resources of the fable to represent the different human groups as different types of animals: Jews are mice, Germans are cats, non-Jewish Poles appear as pigs.

1. Akira. It is a manga of more than two thousand pages composed by Katsuhiro Otomo between 1982 and 1990. It was a resounding success all over the world. It is the basis for the Japanese animated film of the same name and both works were instantly recognized as classics within their respective genres.

1. Macanudo. It is a series of comics published since 2002 by the author Liniers (pseudonym of Ricardo Siri) in the Argentine newspaper La Nación. It is a strip of innocent, bizarre and intelligent humor, with multiple characters, among which Enriqueta and her cat Fellini, Martín and Olga, the goblins, among others, stand out.

1. TheSpirit. It is a comic series created by Will Eisner in 1940 and originally published in the Sunday supplement of some American newspapers. It tells the adventures of a masked vigilante who fights crime with the help of his friend Dolan, the city's police commissioner. The stories are presented in a wide variety of genres, from straight crime drama and noir to light adventure, from mystery and horror to comedy and horror stories. love.

1. The Eternal. It is a science fiction comic created by the Argentines H. g. Oesterheld and Francisco Solano López. It was published in Weekly Zero Hour from 1957 to 1959, but had many sequels and reissues. The plot focuses on an alien invasion suffered by the planet Earth, who attack through a toxic snow storm that kills most of the humans. The resistance survives in a devastated Buenos Aires, led by Juan Salvo, the Eternauta.

1. X Men. It is a series of comics created by Americans Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, whose first appearance emerged in September 1963. It narrates the adventures of a group of mutants, a subspecies of humans that are born with superhuman abilities and powers activated by the "X-factor" gene. Led by Charles Xavier, they fight for peace and equality between humans and mutants. It is part of the superhero saga of the Marvel Universe.

Interactive test to practice

Follow with:

• discontinuous texts
• figurative art
• literary hybrids
• types of literature