Why are comics and poems alike? Line and direction p3

ALWAYS HORIZONTAL

Safeguarded by a really strict monk order, horizontality is, rarely broken in text with exception of a few covers and titles. Graphic editorial design won’t allow that much. Either because of tradition or because we; the readers can be really particular about what’s comfortable when reading. Europeans say sans serifs are the ultra comfort. Me, short sighted and astigmatic to top; I can’t read anything without serifs. It is easier for me to complete by Gestalt a shape that has bolder strokes in a side than a series of lines my mind will confuse with a block¹.  

BALANCE

I have already started talking direction. Horizontality. Verticality. It all starts with balance. What’s the most usual position for a human body to be in balance?

Standing up! Or asleep in bed. Horizontal or vertical, balance is all about what we do without falling. And yes, I’m speaking strange terms in a blog about writing fiction. No arches, no genres, no metaphors. Visual direction.

… Then, the most stable shapes out there are | y _. Any shape deviating some grades from that and we will have unbalance. Unbalance is a disaster! It means STRESS. Consequently, it creates an illusion: movement. Shapes breaking this convention seem to be about to fall, therefore, we think they’re moving. Unbalance is the trick to create movement whenever we’re dealing with image.

That can’t happen in poetry? By creating spaces, we create movement. Spaces can break the balance if we know how to break it. Of course, the rest of literature media is not as forgiving when altering the balance. Text is boxed into a “text frame” with blank spaces called margins —oh, we’re seeing the contour—or columns.

Text, text has to be encased into balance or we will panic.

Remember, this is nonsense and “Together, the physical and the psychological are relative and not absolute²”.

Have fun thinking if you’re to use straight, wavy or broken lines. Have fun breaking balance. Pasto kalo.

1. And I challenge anyone who says I’m crazy to read in a smartphone Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. The typography is gray and sans serif. If any of you can really read that in the default size given by Google Drive… Otherwise, start respecting the dull Times. ↩︎
2. Donis A. Dondis. A primer of visual literacy. 1973, MIT press. ↩︎