| In the graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegleman, a tale of survival is presented to us in the form of a father's storytelling. The artistic style of this novel feels very hand drawn and written, and the frames for the most part are always neatly in squares. The large connection between all of these frames come in a variety of forms in order to successfully tell his tale. According to Scott McCloud's novel Understanding Comics, there are six main types of panel-to-panel transitions found in comics. In Maus, I have identified at least four different types used. The transitions used usually always follow the same pattern, which I will identify!
#1 Moment to Moment
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| Moment to Moment #1 - most of the scenes where the father and son are talking feature this very subtle transition. Since the father an son are talking in a normal speaking voice with no huge action taking place, the changes are small. |
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| Moment to Moment #2 - Again, the father and son talking with little differences in each panel. |
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| Moment to Moment #3 - The father continues to tell his story with small transitions in the panels. |
#2 Scene to Scene
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| Scene to Scene #1 - When the father's storytelling starts to envelop the scene and we start a flashback, a scene to scene transition is used. Since this entire story consists of flashbacks through storytelling, we see this transition used a lot as well. |
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| Scene to Scene #2 - Where the first three panels make up a Moment to Moment transition, once the flashback is the main point of the stor again we quickly travel through time as a reader. |
#3 Action to Action
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| Action to Action #1 - We move quickly through these scenes using the action to action transition in order to make the stories faster and more fluid |
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| Action to Action #2 - again, the scenes move faster with the action to action transition. |
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| In moments of high stress we see the subject to subject transition used, as it can easily bounce from person to person in order to give an idea of what everyone is going through.
Spiegleman utilizes mostly the Moment to Moment, Scene to Scene, and Action to Action transitions in the same type of way throughout the entire comic. This is not necessarily a bad thing as the familiar setting becomes easy to read as the story becomes more involved and intense. It also keeps the moments of flashback and present tense separate in order to make the story easier to follow along with as well. I have definitely come to realize that more is not always better if you're following a theme, this can make your work flow better and have a concrete pattern that is easy to follow whether you realize it or not. We pick up on patterns easily as humans and this has been an application that has inspired me this semester, along with the importance of simplicity.
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