In comics studies, sequential art is a term proposed by comics artistWill Eisner[1] to describe art forms that use images deployed in a specific order for the purpose of graphic storytelling[2] (i.e., narration of graphic stories)[3] or conveying information.[2] The best-known example of sequential art is comics.[4]
Although separated spatially on the page, the frames of this comic represent (among other transitions) the passage of time.
Etymology
The term "sequential art" was coined in 1985 by comics artist Will Eisner in his book Comics and Sequential Art.[1] Eisner analyzed this form into four elements: design, drawing, caricature, and writing.[1]
Scott McCloud, another comics artist, elaborated the explanation further, in his books Understanding Comics (1993) and Reinventing Comics (2000). In Understanding Comics, he notes that the movie roll, before it is being projected, arguably could be seen as a very slow comic.[5]
Eadweard Muybridge was interested in what closely-spaced sequential photography could show about motion; his works blur the line between science and art, although they are not proper comics.
Related terms include: visual narrative,[6]graphic narrative,[7]pictorial narrative,[8]picto-narrative,[9]sequential narrative,[10]sequential pictorial narrative,[11]sequential storytelling,[12][13]graphic fiction,[14]graphic literature,[15][12][16][17]pictorial literature,[18]sequential literature,[19] and narrative illustration.[20] The related term sequential sculpture has also been used.[21]
^The term "graphic stories" is variously used as a synonym for either works of graphic literature (cf. Robert C. Harvey, The Art of the Comic Book: An Aesthetic History, University Press of Mississippi, 1996, p. 109; Robert G. Weiner (ed.), Graphic Novels and Comics in Libraries and Archives: Essays on Readers, Research, History and Cataloging, McFarland, 2010, p. 177) or graphic novels (cf. Robert S. Petersen, Comics, Manga, and Graphic Novels: A History of Graphic Narratives, ABC-CLIO, 2011, p. 222); here the former meaning is intended.
^"You might say that before it's projected, film is just a very very very very slow comic!"—Scott McCloud as quoted in Michael Cadden, Telling Children's Stories: Narrative Theory and Children's Literature, University of Nebraska Press, 2010, p. 149.
^Durwin S. Talon, Panel Discussions: Design in Sequential Art Storytelling, TwoMorrows Publishing, 2007, p. 102.
^Ivan Brunetti, An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, & True Stories, Vol. 1, Yale University Press, 2006.
^A term first coined in Italian by Hugo Pratt as letteratura disegnata (see Gianni Brunoro, Corto come un romanzo nuovo. Illazioni su Corto Maltese ultimo eroe romantico, 2nd ed., Milan: Lizard, 2008, p. 225).
^Paul Young, Frank Miller's Daredevil and the Ends of Heroism, Rutgers University Press, 2016, p. 253 n. 7.
^Keith Dallas, American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1980s, TwoMorrows Publishing, 2013, p. 117.
^Shane McCausland and Yin Hwang (eds.), On Telling Images of China: Essays in Narrative Painting and Visual Culture, Hong Kong University Press, 2013, p. 23 n. 12.
^Cf. Elaine H. Kim and Chungmoo Choi (eds.), Dangerous Women: Gender and Korean Nationalism, Routledge, 2012, p. 6: "[Yong Soon] Min's ... visual essay, "Mother Load," features the bojagi wrapping cloth... The first two parts of this sequential sculpture refer to the past and present of ... Korea."
