Visual Storytelling - A Corpus Analysis of Domain Usage in American and Japanese Comic Styles

Aug 23, 2026

Visual storytelling includes interruptions to narrative flow, such as dreams or memories, whose interpretation within the story world remains a challenge. Recent research treats these as alternative “domains” rooted in blending theory, reflecting private subjective mental spaces inferred from story-world events. This corpus analysis examines whether alternative domain usage differs between Japanese manga and American superhero comics by analyzing 40 comics from four countries. Results show no cross-style or cross-country differences, and no time-related change in American superhero comics. Links emerge between collage panel framing and alternative domains, and exploratory findings indicate larger panel sizes and more depicted information, with memory recall domains standing out.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages54

Reading Time2 h 16 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Alternative “domains” in visual narratives

Visual language and comic styles (manga vs. superhero)

Research aim and approach (corpus analysis)

Theoretical Framework

Domains

Subjectivity and focalization

Methodology

Corpus selection

Multimodal Annotation Software Tool (MAST)

Results

Cross-style and cross-country comparisons

Relationship with collage panel framing

Panel size and information amount

Discussion

Memory-recall alternative domains

Implications for understanding subjective mental spaces

Conclusion

Visual storytelling: A corpus analysis of domain usage in American and Japanese comic styles Sharitha Hendrika Catharina van der Gouw SNR: 2059227 Master’s Thesis Communication and Information Sciences Specialization: New Media Design Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences Tilburg University, Tilburg Supervisors: Neil Cohn, Bien Klomberg Second reader: Rein Cozijn January 2022 Abstract In visual storytelling, there can be occasional breaks in the typical flow of the narrative, e.g. when a character has a dream or recalls a memory. But how can we interpret these interruptions from the “reality” of the story world? Recent research has argued that these instances are alternative “domains”, and with roots in blending theory they can help us better understand subjectivity in visual storytelling. These domains can be described as (private) subjective experiences of focal characters that can be inferred based on story world events. This corpus analysis aimed to investigate whether alternative domain usage differs across two prevalent comic styles, Japanese manga and American superhero, by analyzing 40 comics across four countries. Contrary to initial predictions, there was no difference regarding alternative domain usage across styles or countries, and no results indicating that usage of alternative domains changes over time for American superhero comics. However, results did show a relationship between collage panel framing and alternative domains. Furthermore, exploratory analyses showed that alternative domains not only depicted more information in panels, on average they also used larger sized panels compared to original domains. Interestingly, domains where characters recall a memory stood out in particular when compared to the other types of alternative domains. An unexpected finding within this research was that the more information was included in a panel, the more recognizable a background was depicted. Overall, these findings can help us better understand alternative domains as an integration of subjective mental spaces within visual storytelling. Keywords: visual language, comics, blending theory, subjectivity, alternative domains Introduction Imagine reading a story, but towards the end, it turns out that everything that you read until then was a dream of the main character. The story context would change, but as the reader you would still make sense of the flow of the narrative. How does that work? Recent work has argued that these occurrences are alternative “domains”. They visualize a form of subjectivity within a new (mental) space and may include one of the following categories: Dream, imagination, memory, foresight, hypothetical or ambiguous (Klomberg, in preparation), see Figure 1 for two examples. But how do those domains work? Looking at similar concepts, like blending theory, can help explain them. By using multiple inputs from everyday life, or a story world in visual narratives, a (private) mental space of a character can be visualized (Fauconnier & Turner, 2002) . These domains are considered alternative domains, compared to the “original domain” or the story world that is expected, and are highly contextual (Klomberg, in preparation). Moreover, they give readers an opportunity to immerse themselves further in a character’s story. Understanding how a focal character’s mind works is a critical aspect of most comics (Mikkonen, 2008), and the usage of alternative domains can help achieve this, together with notions such as focalization. However, there are a lot of dimensions that domains use, including some fundamentals within comics. Figure 1 Two different alternative domains showing: a) Memory in an American comic (Campbell, 1997) and b) Imagination from a Japanese manga (Endo, 2007). a) b) Panels have different levels of showing (or not showing) information or active characters in a story (Cohn et al., 2012), and as elaborated on later, they can also differ in th

FAQs

What are alternative domains in visual storytelling, according to the thesis?

Alternative domains are private subjective experiences of a focal character that are inferred from story-world events, such as dreams or memories.

How does the research test differences between Japanese manga and American superhero comics?

It performs a corpus analysis on 40 comics from four countries, comparing alternative domain usage across the two prevalent comic styles.

What relationships were found between panel framing and alternative domains?

The results show a relationship between collage panel framing and alternative domains, and exploratory analyses indicate that alternative domains tend to appear in larger panels and with more information.

Aug 23, 2026

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