Accessibility
Amber Griffith, 01.13.2023
Making Comics More Accessible
The field of “comics” represents a vast artform with a rich history, featuring many different styles and interpretations depending on the intended audience and the story being told. Regardless of the specific art style or layout a comic uses, they all share the same basic structure: sequences of pictures and words juxtaposed to convey a story.
Comics are a visual medium. As such, additional effort is needed in order to make a comic accessible to people with visual impairment. For a comic to be accessible, you must interpret the visual content on the page into a cohesive narrative that approximates the reading experience for a sighted reader.
Text Transcripts
Comics are generally built on a foundation of both pictures and words. One method to make comics more accessible is to create a transcription, reproducing the text in the panels in a format that will work with assistive technologies like screen readers.
This approach can be a good fit for people who can see the panels but have trouble reading the text. While this may get the basic idea of a comic across, people relying solely on a machine-readable transcription of the on-page text can miss out on a lot of important information that is expressed in the artwork and visual composition of the piece.
Image Descriptions
One common approach to increase accessibility is to write image descriptions for visual elements on screen. An image description is a written caption that describes the essential information in photos, graphics, gifs, or videos. It’s sometimes called alt text as a reference to the alt attribute commonly used in HTML programming to store the information.
Image descriptions are an essential part of accessibility for blind/low vision folks. While writing image descriptions originated out of web accessibility, this methodology can provide a good basis for making comics more accessible.
Writing good image descriptions is an art in its own right. The goal of an image description isn’t necessarily to describe everything present in the image as that may distract from the central message or overwhelm and disorient the person.
Writer and UX designer Alex Chen wrote an article titled How to Write an Image Description where they detail their writing process shown through multiple example descriptions. At its most basic form, Alex breaks down an image into three basic pieces using their object-action-context framework:
The object is the main focus
The action describes what’s happening, usually what the object is doing
The context describes the surrounding environment
What counts as essential often depends on the context of the image and how it fits into the comic as a whole. You as the writer must make the call about how much detail to include based on the genre, emotional tone, and overall message of the source.
Putting the Pieces Together
The full experience of reading a comic book is more than just isolated text bubbles or image descriptions for individual panels. Writing a good transcription means you must give your interpretation of the comic by tying together text and images in such a way that reflects the visual composition of the comic.
Reading a comic is like following a winding rope throughout the pages that weaves between text and images to give the illusion of time, and tell a story. Writers often use the layout of panels, narration, and speech bubbles to guide the reader through the action, and your transcription should reflect this path as well.
Composition styles and standards can vary depending on the origin. Western comic books can follow a very different set of stylistic guidelines than Eastern manga. It’s important as a transcriber to understand the norms and best practices of how to read your source material before you write your own version.
My Transcription Process
What does the transcription process look like? To give an example, let’s walk through the steps I took in making my transcription for Petal to the Mettle by Christa Couture and Georgia Webber.
The first step was to read the comic and annotate it. Knowing that my goal was to transcribe a story that I did not originally write, I wanted to make sure I familiarized myself with every facet of the piece before I wrote a single word. To best do this, I worked from a paper copy so I could take notes.
Annotating the comic took a few passes. On my first read, I read the comic as I normally would to just familiarize myself with the story and the writer’s style. Next, I paid close attention to my experience as the reader, using a red pen to trace the winding path that my eyes took while reading. Because this specific comic doesn’t use clearly defined panels, I went through and broke it down myself into enumerated blocks. Finally, I color-coded the characters to identify any recurring people.
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Clean version of Page 1 of “Petal to the Mettle”
Annotated version of Page 1 of “Petal to the Mettle”
Now that the comic was annotated, it was time to transcribe! First step for me was to create an outline using the numbered block-out and add in the source text before adding any writing of my own.
At this point, I realized that there would be a weird disconnect between the first-person perspective of the narration and the third-person perspective typically associated with image descriptions. To solve this, I decided to write the image transcription from Christa’s point of view. This made my transcription more stylistically similar to reading a novel rather than the objective tone of many image descriptions, which fit well with the source comic. This point of view would also help to bridge the narrative gaps created by non-sequitur panels by creating natural connections by following Christa’s train of thought.
With this new plan in mind, I began writing panel by panel. As I went through each panel, I took care to balance the visual descriptions with the action and the text included to maintain the original narrative. Some panels needed a lot of additional writing to flow well, whereas other panels needed few if any additions.
The process that works for you may depend on what kind of writer you are. I usually make outlines and break things into pieces, but maybe that’s not how you work. As you get a feel for what it takes to transcribe a comic, feel free to experiment and put your own spin on things as you find what works best for you!
Tips and Tricks
When writing your own comics, consider the ways you can make your comic more accessible in addition to transcription. Consider using a larger font size where possible. Numbering your panels can make reading the comic easier for inexperienced readers, and simplifies linking pieces of the transcription with specific panels.
Providing a written transcription of the comic which can be read with text-to-speech tools not only makes your comic more accessible for blind/low vision folks, but also provides an auditory alternative for children, language learners, or people who prefer to listen to the comic like an audiobook.
At the end of the day, there is no one “correct” way to transcribe a comic; yet your book’s unique transcription can open the doors for a whole new world of readers. Happy transcribing!