ELLIPSE

An ellipse is a jump in time, which may be longer or shorter: one hour, one century, four years, a million years, ... Between one vignette and the following there may be information that is not "told".

There may be several reasons to do this:

1) TO MAKE THE NARRATION AGILE: one normally has a limited space to create comic, so it is essential to be able to hide information whic is obvious.

2) TO HIDE SOME INFORMATION ON PURPOSE: sometimes information is not given, maybe so as to show suspense, to make the reader reflect, may to avoid something negative, ...

EXAMPLE 1:

 

On the first vignette the woman is saying goodbye to the taxi. On the second, the taxi has gone. The birds are flying somewhere else. The cloud has disappeared. Time has gone by. The intention here is to "stop" time, to create the atmosphere for a family encounter.

EXAMPLE 2:

Now we have two pages, and the ellipse is between one and the other. On the last one of the first page the two lovers are sitting on a bench, at night. Then, on the following page, it is daytime. They spent the night together, and he has left. The ellipse lasts approximately one night.

 

PRACTICE

  • Make up an ellipse in two vignettes: a pregnant woman and a 15-year-old son; one dinosaur running happily and a scientist digging up bones; ...
  • Go to a library and pick a comic book you like. Look for ellipses, photocopy them, and cut them out. Stick them on a board and show them to someone.