Panel transitions in Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead

After discussing the wordiness of Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead, it only makes sense to discuss its visual counterpart, by which I mean pages like this one from the third issue:

Kirkman fiddles with these quiet panels that transition from moment-to-moment.  On the one hand, panels without textual components read more quickly, as Kirkman himself frequently notes on the letters pages.*  On the other hand, panels without textual components encourage readers to linger on the images.  When combined with moment-to-moment transitions, then, text-free panels compel the reader to search for minor changes of great significance.  Consider the first two panels above:

Rick is asleep in his tent with his wife and son the first night after being reunited.  From panel one to panel two the only change is a slightly furrowed brow.  While brow-furrowing may not seem significant in and of itself, when combined with what the reader knows about what Rick went through to return to them—having to fight through hoards of zombies to escape Atlanta—the reader can infer, if not the precise content, at least the character of the nightmare that causes Rick's sleeping brow to furrow.  Now compare panel two to panel three:

The furrrowed brow is replaced by a half-open eye.  He is looking not as his wife and son, but at the opening of the tent.  Having been living and sleeping alone in a terrible world has taught him to sleep, as the saying goes, with one eye open.  If something akin to what he was facing in his dreams is closing on him—if, that is, his unconscious mind was alerting to him to a present threat—he might catch it with a glance out of the door.  He is sleeping the light sleep of the perpetually threatened.  Only after he has asceratined that there is no immediate threat does he allow himself to get his bearings:

And only when he combines his realization that, on this occasion, his nightmare was only a dream with the fact that he is sleeping next to his wife and child in panel four can he experience the emotion displayed in panel five:

In narrative terms, it would have been more efficient to jump from panel one to panel five like so:

As with the actual sequence, the narrative remains "Rick wakes up in a tent with his family and is happy."  However, consider what has been lost by removing the intervening panels: the reader doesn't acquire the same knowledge of Rick's attitude to these events.  Not to repeat myself, but what would be lost is the sense of interiority that the reader can acquire via a close study of a character's actions.  A moment-to-moment sequence of word-free panels, then, can have the effect of pulling the reader into closer sympathy with the characters.  It can obviously work otherwise: a more conventional usage would be a fight scene in which moment-to-moment transitions signal the speed and violence of the acts being represented.  But in The Walking Dead these dialogue-free moments help slow down the pace of a book that contains many of those more conventional scenes:

Both this page and the one discussed above represent approximately the same amount of time, but the different modes transitions and the shot distance and camera angle and level remains constant in the first page, whereas on this one it shifts nearly every panel:

• Panel one is a medium-long shot with a low angle of framing (in order to make the zombies look more powerful), allowing the reader to observe Rick and his horse
• Panel two employs a subject-to-subject transition as the camera zooms into a medium close-up of the horse along Rick's eye-sight line, suggesting where before answering why Rick's attention is
• Panel three returns via a subject-to-subject transition to a medium shot with a low angle of framing (to emphasize the power of the zombies), and the change from the medium-long shot to the medium indicates the increased immediacy of the danger Rick is in, as the zombie who was further away is now close enough to be captured in a medium shot
• In panel four, the camera flouts the 180° rule—Rick should still be looking to his right—and pulls in for a medium close-up shot from a high angle of framing (in order to make Rick look more powerless)
• Panel five cuts via a subject-to-subject position to a close-up of the zombie's face as Rick plants his axe in it, suggesting that Rick moved from his prone position to an attacking one very quickly
• Panel six zooms back to the medium shot in panel three to show Rick on the ground looking powerless
• Panel seven holds the same camera distance, but the fact that Rick is now upright demonstrates how quickly he stood up and, because the low angle of framing now tilts the camera up at him, he looks as powerful as the zombie did in panel three

Panels six and seven are classic examples of moment-to-moment transition: the single action consists of Rick getting up and in order to demonstrate how quickly he does so, Kirkman employs a moment-to-moment transition.  But here one problem with McCloud's definitions becomes clear: what constitues a single action?  In the moment-to-moment example linked above, "falling" clearly does; but in his example of action-to-action, swinging a baseball bat doesn't.  All of which is only to say that every determination of what transition is being employed is arguable and therefore must be accompanied by an argument. 

*I can find no example at the moment, but it's a running gag: "First you say you want more fighting, then you complain that it only took you three minutes to read the book." 

Comments

[Christopher Petersen]

Having read the entire series of "The Walking Dead" I've been very much enjoying your critical analysis of the work. Though I've enjoyed the story I've often been frustrated with some of its inane elements, especially concerning the dialogue. But you've helped me to at least somewhat substantially increase my appreciation for this work. Look forward to more.

[Karl Steel]

suggesting that Rick moved from his prone position to an attacking one very quickly
this makes sense EXCEPT for the action itself. Does Rick get up, ax the zombie, then fall back down, and then get up again? That seems to be what's implied by P5...but maybe P5 ought to be (or ought to have been) rotated diagonally. Then we could imagine the zombie looming over a prone Rick, who axes it in the forehead. Zombie falls to Rick's right, and then Rick stands up and pulls the ax out of the zombie in one action. I think this is what 'happened,' but what prevents this from being shown is the rigid grid structure of the panels. Kirkman couldn't rotate the zombie slightly without losing the close up. My sense is that Kirkman experimented with various solutions to the problem of the looming zombie and finally just said 'fuck it,' which means we have to have this weeble wooble Rick.

[Randy Bomer]

From panel one to panel two the only change is a slightly furrowed brow.
I notice one other little thing. In the first panel, his finger is crooked up under his nose, and in the second, it's back down in a fist. That kind of lip stroking is something someone does when they're thinking, not really when they're just sleeping. Tiny, but telling, detail. Thanks for bringing attention to this craft.

[SEK]

Randy: My students made a similar argument in class, actually, and I can't say I disagree. It's absolutely arguable, but there's one other detail in that panel that makes me think otherwise: the shiver. What are we to make of that? Following your argument, it could be because a breeze entered the tent, and he's shivering, which is why he looks toward the flap after pretending to be asleep ... and now I'm convincing myself you were actually correct.

Karl: I missed your comment. Stupid TypePad isn't sending me notices of them -- or they're ending up in my spam filter. That said:

My sense is that Kirkman experimented with various solutions to the problem of the looming zombie and finally just said 'fuck it,' which means we have to have this weeble wooble Rick.

I'm not sure why failed experiment is more probable than deliberate weeble-wobbling. After all, in a scrum, weeble-wobbling tends to be the norm. A consistent camera level and angle actually do a disservice to the constant movement involved in a fight. Think about boxing, which is largely framed from a single distance in order to allow the viewer to see the entirety of the fight. Now, imagine if you wanted the viewer to sympathize more with one or the other of the fighters: how you would do that?

[Karl Steel]

Nice comment, Scott. Answer to your last question you already know: generally the POV of the fighter you want to sympathize with.
In re: this particular fight, I don't think the reading of what happened as down up down and up again works to explain what's happening in the panels. I think he starts leaning on his left arm, ax in his right hand, zombie over him, he thoks the zombie with his ax-wielding right hand, zombie falls down, its weight forcing his right ax-holding arm down, he gets up, leans over his with left arm to dis-brain the ax, and is NOW, but only now, standing and ready. One thing we've learned here: Rick is either left-handed or he's ambidextrous and favors his left hand. A serious geek would make sure this stays consistent through the comic.

The mystery panel is the THOK panel, where you believe Rick's standing, and I believe he's still prone, but the POV is from a peculiar angle, and an angle that's used nowhere else on that page. Hence my reading, and what I ALSO like about my reading is that it's about very much about formal elements and formal constraints (which is really what I think is at stake on this page). Maybe it's not fair to say Kirkman just went 'fuck it,' but there's still something weird going on. I think.

[Ah Um]

Along with Randy's comment about the hand movement from panel one to two, notice Rick's hand moves back in panel three.

Interestingly, we only get a glimpse of his wife's hand (with ring) in the last panel; the other panels imply she was covered up by the blanket.