Chapter 5 Summary and Analysis

"Expressive Anatomy" examines the most universal image in sequential art, the human body. The body and gestures and postures are stored in the artist's memory as a non-verbal vocabulary. Images can trigger both recall and emotion. The artist's skill determines how successfully the commonality of the human body is conveyed. Early on, repetitive glyphs are created to create code that can be memorized and deciphered. Eisner illustrates by showing early cave drawings, Egyptian friezes, and finally hieroglyphics, which become a usable, written language. "Body language" is a modern attempt at codifying the wide range of postures and the emotions they reflect. Comic book artists draw on an inventory of gestures readers understand. Skill is required to select the proper posture or gesture. Body posture and gesture have primacy over text in comics. Gestures are "almost idiomatic" to specific regions or cultures...