Graphic Novel Vocabulary

This is text that contains information about a scene or character.

• frame

• caption

• speech bubble

• thought bubble

This is text that contains communication among characters.

• panel

• caption

• speech bubble

• thought bubble

The purpose of the gutters is to

• show what the characters are thinking.

• slow the reader down.

• confuse the reader.

• show passage of time.

draws the comic based off of the script

• writer

• penciler

• emanata

• bleed

contain information about a scene or character

• captions

• thought ballooons

• dialogue word balloons

• frame

lines or boxes around a panel(s)

• frame

• sound effect

• captions

• border

contain characters' verbal communication between each other

• captions

• thought balloons

• dialogue word balloon

• emanata

images that run outside the border of the panel

• gutters

• frame

• penciler

• bleed

contains what a character is thinking

• captions

• dialogue word balloons

• thought balloons

• caption

describes the way some images draw the eye more than others, creating a definite focus using color and shading in various ways

• emanata

• bleed

• graphic weight

• penciler