The act of recalling or creating emotional or sensual effects using panel arrangement, mark-making and colour.

In Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud discussed comics’ ability to evoke ideas and relatability, and emotional and sensual responses, through icons, symbols and linework. (Chapters 2 and 5).

This page is an expansion on what McCloud discussed, and categories the types of evocative devices comics creators use to evoke the five senses, as well as the abstract or bodily experiences that readers may or may not share with the creator.

Evocation is achieved through artistic representation, in the form of mark-making or the arrangement of panels. It is successful when it transforms 2D representations on a flat surface (experienced only through the eyes) into something that engages other senses AND the reader’s empathy.

Mark-making: the act of making marks on a surface. Different types of lines, dots, textures and shapes can be produced by how the person renders a single mark or a collection of marks.

Due to its usage of all the five basics of comics, the infinite varieties of representation available, and the ability of mark-making to contain both the outer and inner worlds of experience, evocation is the largest and most powerful device in comics.

The examples I give here are only a fraction of the magic that comics exploits.

Sound Evocation

In ‘Rhythm’ I brought up ‘evocative rhythm’, and used the example of panels going up and down in tandem with a horse’s galloping. This also subtly evokes sound — the sound of its rising and falling hoofsteps. Da DA dup.

The most common and obvious use of sound evocation is in lettering and speech balloons, in the form of onamotopoeia. Or as we call it, sound effects (SFX). For example,

When a character SHOUTS:

When a character is whispering:

Or when a character takes an obnoxious sip of bubble tea:

Different sounds are evoked by altering the shape, density and texture of linework, and playing with the space between words or between words and the edge of speech balloons. When these different sounds are combined together, it creates atmospheres. By combining my three examples above without any other additional information, we can easily evoke the atmosphere of a chaotic classroom.

The shape and size of speech balloons can evoke all types of sounds in different volumes and contexts. Here is a cheatsheet:

Some balloon shapes that evoke tone. Lisa Harald.

Other lettering and balloon devices are further explained in the library.

Kinesthetic Evocation

The grace of a dancer, again the rocking of a boat in choppy seas. Comics can evoke motion in a flat, 2D space by using different varieties of linework.

Several lines that evoke motion.

The undulating flow evokes the motion of dancing. M.Y MAVI.

Underwater. Stand Still Stay Silent, Minna Sundberg.

Besides the shape of the linework, its density can also indicate speed (or how the weight of an object influences its speed].

A car drifting. Its speed is indicated by the motion lines. Black Jack, Osamu Tesuka.

An alternative way of depicting motion is through smears. This is a device originating from animation. Afterimages of an object are reproduced. Whether they maintain integrity or undergo distortion depends on the intensity of the action.

A character falls down the stairs in a circular motion. Happy Hooligan, Frederick Opper.

Sensory and Experiential Evocation

Linework (and colour) can evoke the surface texture or feel of an object. For example, a fruit, the heaviness of fabric, the glossiness of hair.

Several types of screentones and markmaking are used to evoke the drippiness of egg yolk, the oiliness of the bun, the rough linen of the napkin, and the woodiness of the table. Delicious in Dungeon, Ryoko Kui.

How an object’s attributes impact another can also be evoked.

Astro Boy, Osamu Tezuka.

But comics can do more than external sensations: it can also evoke what an object or more interestingly, an emotion or experience, feels internally. The stomach-churning rocking of a boat in choppy seas, the brightness of sour lemonade, the stabbing pins and needles of anxiety. By using evocation in this way to pair emotional and life experiences with other senses, via the conduit of a visual medium, comics art takes on the function of transformative metaphor.

Daredevil: Born Again, David John Mazzucchelli.

Abstraction of the experience being in conversation. conversational maladjustment, Rosaire Appel.

Heralds Issue 3, James Harren.