The picture that a drawing appears in a story is known as a vignette. Thus, the vignette is a graphic narrative format that combines two elements: the representation of a drawing and an explanatory text. The person who carries out this type of creation is known as a cartoonist, but other terms are also used as a graphic artist , caricaturist or illustrator.
In relation to the origin of the term, we must place it in the Middle Ages in France. Until then, copyists or amanuensis decorate some pages of books with drawings of curls and wickerwork, this ornamental element was known by the word vignette, which means vignette.
Stories told in this format have two possibilities:
1) a designer who is at the same time the narrator of a story;
2) a separate designer and narrator do creative work together.
Anyway, the vignette is situated in the journalistic tradition, as well as in the comic book culture.
In graphic humor
In most newspapers there is at least one section dedicated to graphic humor. The creator presents a small story related to the present in a vignette. Its content shouldn’t necessarily be humorous, but there is usually an element of atypical view of reality . Vignette
Graphic humor vignettes can take other approaches. Thus, some of them are aimed at children, others have a spicy content or are related to sports . Regardless of their theme, journalistic vignettes can be presented in a single illustration or also in several, in the latter case they are called strips.
The comic book culture
Comics have two historical backgrounds. Since antiquity there were already illustrations that told small stories, the Egyptian hieroglyphics. In the medieval world there is also another precedent, the medieval altarpieces. Both can be understood as the first vignettes.
From the 18th century onwards, the tradition of the written press began, in which drawings were incorporated to tell stories about reality. In the 20th century, a new publication, the comics, appeared in Europe and America. The term initially used was the comic strip and as time passed it became a mass phenomenon.
Originally, these publications were aimed at children and young people, covering superhero stories, but gradually began to appear in publications for all ages and with various themes (political, social, erotic, etc.). Although the content of the comics can be analyzed from any type of perspective, there is an element that remains in force, the use of the vignette.
