# Is there a technical term for this sort of drawing (a static image which shows someone's moving...) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 15, 2012, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-technical-term-for-this-sort-of-drawing-a-static-image-which-shows-someones-moving/625192 "2012-06-15T01:16:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bisected8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a4c791/32.png) [@Bisected8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bisected8)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-technical-term-for-this-sort-of-drawing-a-static-image-which-shows-someones-moving/625192/1 "2012-06-15T01:16:48Z")
…through scenery by drawing them in it more than once? For example in a comic they might show The Flash running across a room by drawing the entire room in one panel and adding several pictures (or “ghost” images) of him to show the course he too through it (hopefully that makes sense, I’m having trouble describing what I mean, but I can’t find a good picture of it). Is there a technical term for it? The book “Vanishing Point: Perspective for Comics from the Ground Up” calls it a _strobe shot_, but I can’t find any reference it outside of that. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-technical-term-for-this-sort-of-drawing-a-static-image-which-shows-someones-moving/625192/2 "2012-06-15T01:21:58Z")
Motion blur? ---
**Author:** ![Bisected8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a4c791/32.png) [@Bisected8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bisected8)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-technical-term-for-this-sort-of-drawing-a-static-image-which-shows-someones-moving/625192/3 "2012-06-15T01:29:20Z")
No, I mean something like this image; [http://1.bp.blogspot.com/\_SWcXxYPqxGI/S\_Dt3iGgbVI/AAAAAAAACrY/7eDhay4OO7o/s1600/FLASH-RUN.jpg](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_SWcXxYPqxGI/S_Dt3iGgbVI/AAAAAAAACrY/7eDhay4OO7o/s1600/FLASH-RUN.jpg). Where it’s showing him moving through the traffic in one panel (rather than doing something like having several panels, one for him passing/avoiding each car). ---
**Author:** ![IceQube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@IceQube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IceQube)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-technical-term-for-this-sort-of-drawing-a-static-image-which-shows-someones-moving/625192/4 "2012-06-15T01:31:59Z")
Time lapse? ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-technical-term-for-this-sort-of-drawing-a-static-image-which-shows-someones-moving/625192/5 "2012-06-15T01:35:29Z")
Strobe shot is quite evocative. I like it. After all, it is not as if this is some ossified form of art. The terminology is bound to be somewhat fuzzily defined at least for the next few decades. When there is a college degree program where you can get a BA in Graphic Novel Art, you can be assured that there will be a ‘right’ answer to this question. ---
**Author:** ![Bisected8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a4c791/32.png) [@Bisected8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bisected8)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-technical-term-for-this-sort-of-drawing-a-static-image-which-shows-someones-moving/625192/6 "2012-06-15T01:40:38Z")
But comics have been around for quite some time. Surely there’s a widely used term, if only so a writer doesn’t need to say to an artist “This panel should be one of those things wot has the character drawn into a scene several times so you know he’s moving”? EDIT: And I wouldn’t be surprised if there were degrees in comic book drawing in some form or other. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-technical-term-for-this-sort-of-drawing-a-static-image-which-shows-someones-moving/625192/7 "2012-06-15T01:49:21Z")
> [@Bisected8](#): > > But comics have been around for quite some time. Surely there’s a widely used term, if only so a writer doesn’t need to say to an artist “This panel should be one of those things wot has the character drawn into a scene several times so you know he’s moving”? I don’t know any answers for you, except to remark that you’re right, these techniques have been around a while and are well known in the business. Cartoonists and animators study each other’s works, and earlier generations’ works, and discuss them, so there must be terminology for this kind of stuff. Once upon a time, some years ago, I stumbled upon a detailed book in a library on this. It discussed the imagery and techniques, including various influential cartoonists. One cartoonist of old was Tex Avery (of Droopy fame). Bill Watterson (of Calvin and Hobbes) studied Avery and brought a lot of his stylistic techniques into his cartoons. Sorry I have no idea what that book was (title, author, etc), except to tell you that such stuff is for real. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-technical-term-for-this-sort-of-drawing-a-static-image-which-shows-someones-moving/625192/8 "2012-06-15T02:00:39Z")
This app web site calls it a “sequence shot” (in terms of photography): [http://actionshotapp.com/](http://actionshotapp.com/) If you do a Google images search for “sequence shot”, you get a lot of that sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-technical-term-for-this-sort-of-drawing-a-static-image-which-shows-someones-moving/625192/9 "2012-06-15T02:01:58Z")
My ignorance has been somewhat reduced. The Minneapolis College of Art and Design in Minneapolis, MN offers a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Comic Art. Therefore, this technique is probably formally named. If it isn’t called ‘strobe shot’ then I will consider them to be dunderheads. Dunderheads, all of them! \ ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-technical-term-for-this-sort-of-drawing-a-static-image-which-shows-someones-moving/625192/10 "2012-06-15T02:42:38Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > This app web site calls it a “sequence shot” (in terms of photography): > [http://actionshotapp.com/](http://actionshotapp.com/) > > If you do a Google images search for “sequence shot”, you get a lot of that sort of thing. The pictures I see there are all or mostly cut-and-pasted photos rather than drawings, but still . . . I {heart} that photo sequence of the [flying humpback whale](http://seawayblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/flight-of-batman-leap-of-humpback-whale.html)! ---
**Author:** ![Bisected8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a4c791/32.png) [@Bisected8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bisected8)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-technical-term-for-this-sort-of-drawing-a-static-image-which-shows-someones-moving/625192/11 "2012-06-15T02:43:03Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > This app web site calls it a “sequence shot” (in terms of photography): > [http://actionshotapp.com/](http://actionshotapp.com/) > > If you do a Google images search for “sequence shot”, you get a lot of that sort of thing. It turns up a lot of those images…but there doesn’t seem to be any reference to drawn images. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-technical-term-for-this-sort-of-drawing-a-static-image-which-shows-someones-moving/625192/12 "2012-06-15T02:51:44Z")
You have to be a little careful with “technical terms.” Sometimes there are…but sometimes there aren’t. And they are sometimes not universally accepted. Mort Walker, of “Beetle Bailey” fame, compiled a big list of technical terms…which almost no one pays any attention to. For instance, most of us just call those little drops of sweat that fly away from someone’s head when they’re in a nervous situation “sweat beads.” Walker tried to get us to call them “dewds.” Sorry, Mort, but them’s “sweat beads.” ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-technical-term-for-this-sort-of-drawing-a-static-image-which-shows-someones-moving/625192/13 "2012-06-15T02:53:31Z")
Harrumph! I still think ‘strobe shot’ is superior to ‘sequence shot’ even in the face of your excellent supporting evidence to the contrary. Why? [Rule of Cool](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleofCool) ---
**Author:** ![Bisected8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a4c791/32.png) [@Bisected8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bisected8)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-technical-term-for-this-sort-of-drawing-a-static-image-which-shows-someones-moving/625192/14 "2012-06-15T02:56:10Z")
Interestingly enough, I’m actually trying to find this out for the purpose of a TV Tropes trope page. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-technical-term-for-this-sort-of-drawing-a-static-image-which-shows-someones-moving/625192/15 "2012-06-15T06:57:49Z")
I’m not familiar with the terminology for an artistic context, but for a technical context (an illustration in a physics textbook, say) the term “strobe diagram” is standard. This is because you can produce such an image photographically using a strobe lamp: Set the thing in motion, hold the camera shutter open, and illuminate it with brief flashes of light. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-technical-term-for-this-sort-of-drawing-a-static-image-which-shows-someones-moving/625192/16 "2012-06-15T10:48:19Z")
In my view, there are actually two distinct things going on in that picture of the Flash. One is the multiple images, which y’all have pointed out. I’d highlight the fact that of the multiple images, one is always more clear than the others, and that clear one is the most recent of these time-lapse images. This helps to establish the sequence of the images, which is always helpful, but especially so if the person is moving backwards, or if the moving object does not have an obvious face. But the other effect is the lines, and they can appear even when only a single image is used. Even without a second image displaying a previous image of the subject, the artist can use these lines to show motion, with the lines showing where the subject had been before. In that picture of the Flash, BOTH techniques appear. (When I was around 7 years old, I went for an eye exam, and I was shown the letter “E” and they asked me which way it was pointing. I asked what he meant by that, but he couldn’t answer other than to repeat the question. It was a very stressful event for me. I saw the “E” quite clearly, but I did not know whether the correct answer was “pointing to the right” because the three horizontal lines radiate out towards the right, or whether the correct answer was “to the left” because I also saw it as a picture of a vertical line moving to the left.) ---
**Author:** ![Bisected8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a4c791/32.png) [@Bisected8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bisected8)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-technical-term-for-this-sort-of-drawing-a-static-image-which-shows-someones-moving/625192/17 "2012-06-15T12:12:20Z")
To clarify, I was talking about a term specifically for the use of multiple images this way. In the same sense that the lines are called “speed lines”. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-technical-term-for-this-sort-of-drawing-a-static-image-which-shows-someones-moving/625192/18 "2012-06-15T12:14:06Z")
> [@Keeve](#): > > But the other effect is the lines, and they can appear even when only a single image is used. Even without a second image displaying a previous image of the subject, the artist can use these lines to show motion, with the lines showing where the subject had been before. Wikipedia says this is called [motion lines](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_lines). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-technical-term-for-this-sort-of-drawing-a-static-image-which-shows-someones-moving/625192/19 "2012-06-15T17:37:00Z")
> [@](#): > > (When I was around 7 years old, I went for an eye exam, and I was shown the letter “E” and they asked me which way it was pointing. I asked what he meant by that, but he couldn’t answer other than to repeat the question. It was a very stressful event for me. I saw the “E” quite clearly, but I did not know whether the correct answer was “pointing to the right” because the three horizontal lines radiate out towards the right, or whether the correct answer was “to the left” because I also saw it as a picture of a vertical line moving to the left.) I think the usual way of answering that is to make a hand gesture with three fingers. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-technical-term-for-this-sort-of-drawing-a-static-image-which-shows-someones-moving/625192/20 "2012-06-15T18:09:33Z")
This technique isn’t unique to comic books or other recent art forms. For instance, in Indian miniature painting it’s common to see a single scene with the figure of a particular person or animal portrayed multiple times, to suggest a sequence of motions. Here’s [a description of one such painting in an Indian artists’ workshop](http://www.mytripjournal.com/travel-334436-udaipur-beautifully-decorated-good-eyes-jag-niwas-palace-lake): > [@](#): > > Udaipur is famous for its traditional miniature paintings, which are mural-like paintings mostly depicting incidents from Rajput or Mughal history and legends. […] > > One interesting painting was of a royal hunting scene. It showed three tigers leaping forward to attack. When asked ‘How many tigers were in this picture?" the answer appeared to be an obvious three, but we were told there was only one. The artist was showing three frames of a sequence in one single painting, with only one tiger attacking, in successive frames, like in a movie. I would think that there must be a term for this among historians of this and similar art forms, but I don’t know what it is. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-technical-term-for-this-sort-of-drawing-a-static-image-which-shows-someones-moving/625192.md?page=2)