Making Comics - Blue Pills

On page 138 Scott McCloud talks about "The Power of words" in Chapter 3 of "Making Comics". In this chapter we learn the importance of words and dialog in graphic novels. We also learn about word/picture combinations and the different types that are used in graphic novels. This page from "Blue Pills" is a very good example of the use of " Parallel Combinations". In parallel combinations the words and pictures don't really connect at all, though their paths may bend toward each other in later panel. While the main character is riding a mammoth and smoking, they are both talking about his inner conflict with his lover and her HIV virus. Mammoths and smoking have nothing to do with HIV, in fact you could erase all of the pictures and redraw the main character having a conversation with an old wise man or a tree or anything really. The Mammoth has nothing to do with the dialog really it is just aesthetically pleasing and it helps understand that he may be having this conversation with himself or in his own mind and that its not a real mammoth he is talking to.