Chapter 3
Language of Comics

Comics may be a form of entertainment, but as a form of art, they have their own languages or to be precise the elements of comic. What makes a comic, comic? In a quick glance, we know that one of important elements are texts and images. But what is the difference than picture books? They are also using texts and images. What makes comics are different are the gutters and panels. Gutters and panels are really important because they are needed to create a sense of time in a space to tell a narrative. The combination of these elements can only be found in comic. All of these elements are fused into ‘a core attribute of comics graphic language: the unique ways in which one “reads” this language’ (Versaci 2007:14). All of these elements, add Sabin (2003:9), does not happens in the words, or in the pictures, but somehow it happens in the between of the two, which is also known as ‘the marriage of the text and image.’

3.1 Texts and Images Conflict
… it involves understanding how the interactions between words and images have been manipulated in order to achieve a story or joke. The appreciation of comicbooks is not possible without the recognition that its language and grammar consist of not one but two elements: words and images (Bongco 2000:46).

Bongco emphasized two most important elements in comic are words and images. Although words and images alone cannot be defined as what makes comic book as it is, but the unique characteristic of semiotic