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Flickers & Tintypes Motion, one still at a time.

Section · 3 entries

Comics Panels

How early newspaper comics carry time from panel to panel and steer the eye across a page, read on public-domain original art, with any reading path marked as editorial analysis rather than eye-tracking data.

  • Little Nemo ink drawing, panels 4 to 8: a starry ball at night, a balloon dropping its basket, Nemo landing over a city

    Comics Panels

    Little Nemo: A 1906 Board Numbered Out of Row Order

    How to read a Little Nemo in Slumberland page: McCay’s board dated Oct. 14, 1906 numbers its 8 panels. After panel 4 they send you down to 5, not across to 6.

    Picture credit

    "Little Nemo in Slumberland: "I don't like this, one little tiny bit, not one tiny weenie bit", 1906 (National Gallery of Art 142153), panels 4 to 8" by Winsor McCay — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Winsor_McCay,_Little_Nemo_in_Slumberland_-_%22I_don%27t_like_this,_one_little_tiny_bit,_not_one_tiny_weenie_bit%22,_1906,_NGA_142153.jpg — CC0 1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/); modified: cropped to panels 4 to 8 (the bottom tier), 4:3, and scaled from 3000 to 1600 px wide

  • French Liberty – British Slavery, hand-colored etching: a thin man in a red cap at left, a heavy man carving meat at right

    Comics Panels

    Speech Bubbles: Gillray Was Drawing Them in 1792

    A speech bubble holds spoken words in an outline that points to the speaker. A Gillray print of 21 December 1792 has two by this site’s count, one per panel.

    Picture credit

    "French Liberty – British Slavery, hand-colored etching, published 21 December 1792 (Metropolitan Museum of Art 1976.602.27)" by James Gillray — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:French_Liberty_%E2%80%93_British_Slavery_MET_DP818494.jpg — CC0 1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/); modified: scaled from 3645 to 1600 px wide; nothing else changed

  • Dream of the Rarebit Fiend ink drawing, panels 4 to 6 and 10 to 12: a car on end, rearing, tilting in the air, nose down

    Comics Panels

    Dream of the Rarebit Fiend: 18 Panels of One Bucking Car

    A 1907 Dream of the Rarebit Fiend board, read panel by panel: signed Silas, a McCay pseudonym per a Library of Congress note, with a street that barely shifts.

    Picture credit

    "Dream of the Rarebit Fiend: Bucking Automobile, 1907 (National Gallery of Art 142155), panels 4 to 6 and 10 to 12" by Winsor McCay — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Winsor_McCay,_Dream_of_the_Rarebit_Fiend_-_Bucking_Automobile,_1907,_NGA_142155.jpg — CC0 1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/); modified: cropped to panels 4 to 6 and 10 to 12, 4:3, trimming the foot of panels 10 to 12, and scaled from 1916 to 1600 px wide