Patricia M. Kirtley and William M. Kirtley
(Comics 24).
There are 1986 words in the 470 frames of Welcome to the Treehouse
(See Appendix B). Seventy-four percent of them are in speech bubbles that
carry the action of the story and enable the reader to identify directly with
the characters. Fourteen percent of the words are in the background. Sound
effects like “POP” (12), “Wwaahh!” (17), and “Swoosh” (51) lend excitement
and drama to the story,
Twelve percent of the words are in the captions. Even though captions
contain the smallest percentage of words, they are important because they
give the reader the title of the story and set the scene. If the reader does not
get the joke or understand the story, it is most likely due to missed information
to surmount is the tendency of the reader’s eye to wander” (Comics 41).
Characters – boys, girls, pets, monsters, and adults
Barthes calls the obvious meaning the denoted level (65). The viewer
sees polysemous images in the frames of a comic book. Artists call a page
with one frame a splash page. If there is no frame, the artist has a reason,
It introduces the plot and characters. A frame is the literary equivalent of a
paragraph. McCloud notes that the images within a frame act like adjectives
and adverbs (11).
Analysis of the characters depicted in the frames of Welcome to the
Treehouse (N=470) indicate that Balthazar and Franco do not usually use
characters or objects in the background, except to set the scene in the opening
frame. The characters act more like children than superheroes. This, much to
the dismay of committed DC fans.
universe. Boys (39%) outnumber girls (27.4%). The portrayals of cute animals
(21.9%) and monsters (6.4%) exceed the portrayals of adults (4.7%) (See
Appendix C).
All categories of characters appeal to young boys and girls. Boy and
that Baltazar and Franco portray so few adults. The parents of two of the Tiny
Titans, Rose and Raven, are the principal, Mr. Slade and a substitute teacher,
Mr. Trigon, at Sidekick Elementary School. Patterned on evil characters from
the DC universe, Baltazar and Franco portray these adults as being mildly
annoying or overwhelmingly kind. The two girls comment on their fathers,
“This is so embarrassing” (8).
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