Artis Sequentis Principia Mathematica

[[AOD]]

I've started a new blog which details a few of my theories concerning sequential art, restating what I think are the fundamental structures defining sequential art in a very precise, mathematical manner. It's essentially an extension and generalization of my theories about flow. It develops several axioms about sequential art, and my goal will be to deduce all the other theories from these.

Fair warning: the prose style is extremely dense!

Full Text (in current form): http://principiasqa.blogspot.com/

Video Series:
Introduction:
Part I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfT_pv8mbJs
Part II http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sQuea2Kemk
Outline:
Part I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmLxbVHDq98
Part II http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbpEuAAd6kM

Epistemology:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ1Sn7d2nYA

Thread Rules:

DON'TS:

1) Ask about whether I will continue gaming videos. This is answered in each of my video series. I will never do another gaming video, so it is pointless and futile to as.

2) Post like a fool. I want to engage in an intellectual discussion.

DO:

1) Ask questions, give critiques and feedback.

2) Try to use your brain.

@~[AOD]

[Ashan]

... That's... uhhh... well.... ummm... mathematical.... ellipses...
I think I missed something there.

[RikunFrances]

What is this I don't even...
But so seriously, why delving so much into such a simple thing and turning it into molecular formulas and mathematical logic? I don't understand the math so well as I'm only in Pre-Calculus but still...
When all is written and done out what will it accomplish? It's not simple English, it's more like the kind of stuff I would only say when trying to explain a reaction between two things in a lab. The knowledge is just sitting there and nobody without a good...associates degree in math/science would be able to reap the reward from it all. Nor would half those people be making comics at that!

On an almost unrelated note, if I'll be able to speak as smartly as that when I'm done with my studies for Pharmacy and Chemical Engineering, I am so ready.

[[AOD]]

My agenda is to put the house of Sequential Art on solid foundations, using mathematical principles to show, deductively, the pure, logical structure of inference vis-a-vis visual symbols embedded in layouts. I became frustrated with the hand-wavey explanations of the likes of McCloud and felt the need to set things straight.

@~[AOD]

[Dollop of Mayo]

This is kinda going all the way in the other direction tho jeez

That being said it's still interesting; the bits I more or less understand anyway

[RobinLSL]

I'm quite curious about this and will definitely take a look at it when I have the time and courage...
Actually the title is what made be decide not to unsubscribe even though you asked about 42 times to do it :p

By the way, do you know what's happened to your Youtube channel? On my computer, it's mostly white with pretty much nothing except for the featured video showing. And that's really bugging me.

[[AOD]]

I did that on purpose

@~[AOD]

[RobinLSL]

I did that on purpose

@~[AOD]

Okay then. You must have your reasons! Lucky talkhausers for having actual links to all the parts though XD

[morsel/morceau]

This is quite interesting. The Panel Sequence Theorem is particularly ingenious, deducing an ordering of the panels (obvious and intuitive) as a necessary consequence of the ordering of the elements (unobvious and unintuitive), and its corollary,"Given t=m, the Axiom of Completion implies P1 = Pm.", which neatly includes single-panel comics under the umbrella "sequential art", along with comic-strips and graphic novels.

There are some things I'm not convinced by, however.

Fundamental to the nature of sequential art is the concept of sequentiality - that of a passage of time.

Is the sequence truly a consequence of time? This seems contradictory to the fact the sequential nature has been deduced from a sequence on the elements, any number of which belonging to the same panel belong to the same moment in time. Furthermore, is there any necessity for different panels to belong to different moments in time? We could imagine two character's faces in different panels, a speech-bubble bridging the panels, one talking, the other listening, both panels representing the same moment in time. Similarly, do later panels need to be subsequent to earlier ones? What about flashblacks? Should not the ordering of the panels/elements be considered independent of considerations of time, rather being imposed by the demands of the narrative?

Let me address the question of why we must axiomatize sequential art. The world of sequential art is a type of craft, hence it lies at the intersection of art and writing, the boundary inhabited by design and technical illustration. Art without writing is static, is frozen: a statue has no movement, a painting has form but does not change in time; writing without art is invulnerable to physical analysis, trapped within a world of symbols, metaphor, language and grammar. Taken alone, each are equally timeless and resistant to analytical techniques, but the demands of craft, when taken together, bring them down to a zone where they are amenable to logical treatment.

In the definition of sequential art you give, writing does not seem to be a necessary element. Rather than it being the addition of writing which distinguishes sequential art, it is the imposition of an ordering (narrative, as before). Another point is this regard, remembering the corollary to the Panel Sequence Theorem, is why should not a painting or photograph (or any sequence of such) be regarded as sequential art? Are you not stepping beyond the "mechanisms which animate comics"? [my italics]

[Dan]

Whoa I thought you died

[[AOD]]

I am alive.

In the definition of sequential art you give, writing does not seem to be a necessary element. Rather than it being the addition of writing which distinguishes sequential art, it is the imposition of an ordering (narrative, as before). Another point is this regard, remembering the corollary to the Panel Sequence Theorem, is why should not a painting or photograph (or any sequence of such) be regarded as sequential art? Are you not stepping beyond the "mechanisms which animate comics"?

That is what I mean by "writing". There being a narrative implies that there is writing. Thus, while paintings and photographs standing alone are not sequential art, sets of still images in narrative sequence, are. This is merely to make it so that wordless sequences in comics are still included in comics, rather than each and every panel of every layout requiring some sort of text in order to be classified as such.

@~{AOD}

[Dan]

Not you I meant morsel but hi anyway

[morsel/morceau]

Not you I meant morsel but hi anyway

Hey

That is what I mean by "writing". There being a narrative implies that there is writing.

I'm not sure what you mean. What about the oral tradition? What about narrative painting- the Bayeux tapestry, the Books of Hours, Hogarth?

Thus, while paintings and photographs standing alone are not sequential art, sets of still images in narrative sequence, are
@~{AOD}

Can't I impose a narrative sequence on the elements of a photograph? ('every picture tells a story'). How does this conflict with the definition of sequential art? I honestly can't see it.

[[AOD]]

Well, you could, I suppose, but that wouldn't make it sequential art, would it? Either way, as I said, it was only a way to safeguard against wordless sequences not being parsed by the logic, which is essential to understanding comics. To expand and argue about the definitions to analyzing things like the Bayeux tapestry or legends and tales is philosophical, and is irrelevant to my goals of axiomatizing comics.

@~[AOD]

[rubberfishy]

Honestly I'm not following this 100% aod, but are you saying you can't have a narrative comic without text? because I've seen quite a few examples proving you can.

[x0_000]

This is certainly an interesting approach. However, speaking as someone who regularly deals with pure mathematics, there are some things you should improve. (Note: I've only digested the axioms. I'd prefer getting clarifications on the axioms before trying to read the rest since they ARE the foundations of the theory.) For the axioms, you should properly motivate them, since you're clearly trying to abstract the essentials of comics. From glancing at the other sections, you need to do this for them too. When you prove a result, explain what the result means and why we should care. I would like to understand what you're doing and check for rigor, but without motivating the choice of axioms what you're doing is little more than pushing symbols around.

You use some suggestive naming, like

1.1.2.1) First Corollary to the Axiom of Elements. Any given element e_t is a true, atomic proposition.

and

1.1.2.2) Second Corollary to the Axiom of Elements. By nature, any given element in e_t must also constitute a well-formed formula (herewith abbreviated as wff).

which are terms normally reserved for the domain of propositional/first-order logic. Are you suggesting that we''ll be manipulating these elements e_t like logic formulas, so expressions like e_1 AND e_2 or e_1 IMPLIES e_2 are going to be meaningful at some point later?

Now I have a few questions about the axioms:

1.1.1) Axiom of Layout. L ⊆ ℝ^2 bounded by a finite, simply-connected border B. All objects contained within L are considered part of the Universe of Discourse.
1.1.2) Axiom of Elements. E is the t-tuple consisting of all elements e_t in L.

So, L is bounded, (probably connected?) subset of ℝ^2, but then you say E is the t-tuple consisting of stuff in L. What exactly are the e_ts? If they're the points in L then you have a problem since most of the time L won't be finite. This would be a good place to motivate the axiom.

Finally, you only provided 1 definition, which really just disguised the axioms. The idea behind abstraction is to take ideas we understand, and capture their properties in a definition that doesn't use an ambient environment. From what I can guess,

1.1.1) Axiom of Layout. L ⊆ ℝ2 bounded by a finite, simply-connected border B. All objects contained within L are considered part of the Universe of Discourse.

I'd assume you're trying to abstract the concept of a page here. In this case, I'd change that into a definition, and say something like

1.1.1) A page is a subset L ⊆ ℝ2 bounded by a finite, simply-connected border B. [etc.]

Speaking of definitions...

1.1.5) Axiom of Completion. et ⊃ f .

You didn't define f? Or are you defining f to be something satisfying et ⊃ f for all t?

fake edit: Ok I just read some more and you define things a bit after. This would be less confusing if you put it before or immediately after the axioms.

oh god wall of text

[[AOD]]

Wow, okay, that is some of the help I was looking for. Thanks!

-f is taken to mean 'falsehood'. In truth tables, f is a column of F's. I need the final element to imply that the parsing of the layout should terminate.
-And yeah, L is meant to be a "page", but since there's comics that are, like, every single panel on one single long scrolling infinite canvas, I don't want to separate things into separate pages, and just treat the Layout (L) in total as one big collection.
-e_t's are the elements in a layout, discrete objects that stand for propositions in the propositional calculus. The essence of the system is to treat anything in a page-- a drawing,a speech bubble, etc.-- as an elemental proposition with a truth value.
-- These propositions are statements about atomic facts in the head, i.e. ideas we have about the comic, represented visually on the page as objects in sequence.
-The motivation of the system comes from the fact that the elements are, by context of it being comics, treated as an ordered, finite set, with the relation that each successive element implies the next.

It's disorganized right now, and kind of more of a sketch of what I want to get at. Actually at the moment I am really more trying to put most of my ideas down on the page and see if it's all consistent. I should probably put the motivations behind it at the beginning. I will eventually, but it's a pain in the ass to go in and copy-paste and switch the posts around right now because I'm lazy.

Rubberfishy: No, I meant the opposite of what you are saying.

!~[AOD]

[x0_000]

-f is taken to mean 'falsehood'. In truth tables, f is a column of F's. I need the final element to imply that the parsing of the layout should terminate.

You should add that in then

-And yeah, L is meant to be a "page", but since there's comics that are, like, every single panel on one single long scrolling infinite canvas, I don't want to separate things into separate pages, and just treat the Layout (L) in total as one big collection.

Here's the beauty of abstraction. If you define L to be a page, when you think of concrete instance here (like the infinite layout) this definition may not seem adequate, but calling it a page gives a suggestive idea of how to think of L: something that contains elements of a comic.

-e_t's are the elements in a layout, discrete objects that stand for propositions in the propositional calculus. The essence of the system is to treat anything in a page-- a drawing,a speech bubble, etc.-- as an elemental proposition with a truth value.
-- These propositions are statements about atomic facts in the head, i.e. ideas we have about the comic, represented visually on the page as objects in sequence.

This still confuses me a bit. What is the advantage of treating these objects as truth values? Can you give a concrete example (i.e. use an actual comic) of why this is useful? Examples are good. Concrete examples are even better. You should add them to help the reader understand why these seemingly abstract definitions will be useful in the future. Heck, you could analyze an existing comic and point out techniques you use that you want to abstract as proper motivation.

-The motivation of the system comes from the fact that the elements are, by context of it being comics, treated as an ordered, finite set, with the relation that each successive element implies the next.

So maybe you want to change your axioms a bit. Maybe you don't even need the concept of a page. For example, I could create the following definition: A comic is a finite, ordered, sequence of elements (e_t)_t. If e_i immediately precedes e_j, we say e_i implies e_j. An interesting thing about this definition is that we abstracted a lot of things; for example I could feasibly take a movie, and with the right choice of e_ts I could make it a comic under this definition. (I'm throwing this out mainly as an idea of how to proceed.)

[[AOD]]

That's pretty brilliant, because one of the things McCloud wrote in Understanding Comics was that comics were a way of stretching out sequences of time on a still page, like a filmstrip. A film strip is just a sequence of related still images, but when played, seem to animate together into a moving image. And, according to McCloud, the reader does this process when interpreting a comic page. So, in this light, you could cut and paste a filmstrip from a movie onto a page and it'd be a comic basically.

@~[AOD]

[[AOD]]

Not really mathematical, but I tried to design a logo or symbol for the book. The top one is "alpha sigma pi mu" (or ASPM), in sort of a Hindi-flavor and the bottom one sort of goes for a more abstract look, replacing the sigma with an integral sign.



I think it looks kinda nifty. =)

$~[AOD]

[morsel/morceau]

I would like to understand what you're doing and check for rigor, but without motivating the choice of axioms what you're doing is little more than pushing symbols around.

This is what I was trying to say in my much more awkward manner.

That is a nice design AOD, but the pedant in me has to tell you (I wish I could shut him up), that translating Artis Sequentis Principia Mathematica into Greek would give you completey different letters (even mathematical becomes logistikos, for example).

I'm not trying to shit on you though, I'm interested in seeing where you go with this.