ANALYSIS OF THE VISUAL STORYTELLING STRUCTURE OF JUNJI ITO’S HORROR COMICS

• Main Author: Mayang Sari, Diah
• Format: Theses
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/51198
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Comics are one of the sequential art media, namely art forms that use images arranged in a specific order for visual storytelling. Comics have storytelling limitations compared to cinematography, but comics have certain advantages, like the readers can read back and forth and control the tempo of reading. Comic uses diverse features from cinematography such as; using panel to control the tempo, using onomatopeia, word balloon, drawing strokes dan many more. Junji Ito is a horror manga artist who produces many works. His works have been widely adapted into anime and film forms. Ito has several main characteristics that make his work easily recognizable: his drawing style is very detailed and evoke fear by the use of fear of unknown things. Ito also uses fear of things that are very close to daily life. Unfortunately, it is not yet known in detail how Ito's technique of conveying horror stories in the form of visual telling. The researcher examined the structure of visual storytelling as well as aspects that form Junji Ito's horror comics, and examined how artists use the visual and psychological structure of the reader to convey meaning. The structure of comic visual storytelling can be analyzed with a model that able to analyze the elements that build a story, visualization, and aspects of a series of stories (sequences) that are the characteristic of comic media. Researchers used the Zpalanzani-Tabrani and Cohn research models. The Zpalanzani research model examines the intangible aspect, tangible and sequential aspects. The untangible aspect uses Nurgiyantoro's fiction assessment theory, while for the tangible aspect, the researcher used Cohn's comic visual morphological theory. Tabrani and Cohn visual language theories are used to examine sequential aspects. The results of the analysis resulted in a mapping of the repetition pattern of the structure of the visual storytelling of horror comics that can be used as a reference for further research for academics as well as a style and technique reference for comic artists.