Comic Transitions and Maus

In Understanding Comics, author Scott McCloud lists six different panel to panel transitions in comics. He defines six transitions from one panel to the next:
1. Moment-to-moment, where relatively little change takes place between the two panels.
2. Action-to-action, where the actions of a single subject are shown.
3. Subject to subject, which transitions between different subjects in the same scene.
4. Scene-to-scene, which "transports us across significant distances of time and space."
5. Aspect-to-aspect, which "bypasses time for the most part and sets a wandering eye on different aspects of a place, idea, or mood."
6. Non-sequitur, "which offers no logical relationship between panels whatsoever."

These transitions help us to understand the relationship between each panel and how we as readers are supposed to view them and interpret them. In the novel Maus, by Art Spiegelman, these transitions are not always obvious to the reader because our brains are  synthesizing their information without even thinking about it! And Spiegelman's work often has panels that are relatively all the same size and shape, which doesn't automatically signal to us that a transition has occurred. We as readers fill in the gaps already!

Moment to Moment transition.

Take these panels here (right), which depicts the main character Artie having a conversation with his father. As you can see, this panel shows moment to moment transition, where there is the subjects Artie and his father hardly change position and there is little left to the readers to have closure on.

Subject to Subject transition

Other times, in Maus, there are subject-to-subject transitions (left), such as  the scene when Artie's father is describing how it was to be a POW of the Nazis. The panels include how they passed the time while imprisoned, which for Artie's father included playing chess with the other prisoners and writing letters to his wife Anja.

Most common in all graphic novels are action to action transitions (bottom center), which are the actions in progression of a single subject.  In Maus, on of the more memorable action-to-action sequences for me was in the POW camp when Artie's father has to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. However as he goes outside to pee, he is shot at by guarding soldiers and must quickly go back inside before he is shot. The sequence of showing all of these actions together draws your mind to show you how actions and time has passed in this scene.

Action to Action transition

All images from Maus by Art Spiegelman, for educational use only. Taken by Rachel.