Are narration captions necessary?

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SampleGuy

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I notice a lot of graphic novels have narration texts, which explains what is going on and how the characters are feeling. Plus they are use as prologues for the set up of the stories. However, would it be better if a graphic novel has none of those type of captions unless it is the title and dialogue? I also learned the pictures are suppose to be the ones that drive the stories. If that's the case, what's the point of narrative texts?
 

Grigoris

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You're right in that narrative captions should be kept to a minimum. However, they can help establish scenes or locations without having to use the limited panel space or expository dialog to accomplish it. If you can accomplish the same task with panels, colors, and purposeful dialog, then go for it.
 

Lissibith

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I don't mind the boxes used to show the character's inner monologue and thoughts (notoriously so in a book like Deadpool). Sure, some of that can and should be depicted graphically, and the boxes can definitely be overused. But some of it really can be best conveyed with the boxes - I always found the brain balloons too easy to confuse with dialogue for my taste.
 

RedWombat

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Would it be better? It'd be different. Better is a bit loaded--it'd just be different, not necessarily better or worse, assuming it was handled well.

As for the point of them--there are plenty of things that it would be tedious to show with pictures. "Three Days Later" is a useful narrative tag--three days of pictures of the character getting up and going to bed is not going to endear you to the reader. "Meanwhile, across town" could probably be expressed with a zoom out on a town map and pointers, but that'd be rather clunky.

A ten page monologue on how the sunset reminds the character of his boyhood spent on a chicken farm in Tennessee and what he learned about the inalienable rights of chickens is probably going to be excessive.
 

SampleGuy

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I don't mind captions either as long as they don't clog up the panels. In the past, old school comic books had a lot. Now there are some with a few.
 

wotcherH

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I agree with RedWombat, it wouldn't necessarily be better, it would just be different.

It would probably be easier for the author to write the story with narrative captions, though, because they wouldn't really have to include it in the dialogue.
 
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