Unit one: What are comics? Historical overview; How comic are comics? The components of comics; The panel; The gutter; The balloon; The caption; Unit two: Words and pictures; The blend between words and pictures; Semiotics and the idea of the sign; Looking at words; The visual aspect of words in comics; Reading pictures; Pictures in comics; The collaboration between words and pictures; Unit three: Between the panels; Cartoons, comics and language; Cohesion; Repetition; Coherence; Semantic field; Inference: bridging the gaps; Summary 56 Unit four: The voices of comics; Fictional voices: can you hear them? Who’s speaking? Thought presentation: reading the characters’ minds; Voices in comics; Thought balloons; Unit five: The eyes of comics; What does ‘point of view’ mean? Deictics; Unit six: Comics and computers; Comics in computers? Cartoons on your desktop? Words and comics; Artists with mice.