ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses closure, along with the two other key principles of the comic form, the cartoonish representation and the sequential arrangement of individual, framed panels, against a neuroscientific background. Comic stories are composed of visual and linguistic elements that complement one another in the generation of meaning. Cartoonish depiction in comics means a concise depiction which is limited to a few fundamental, iconic characteristics and emotions. The impression of a continual sequential structure through successive individual illustrations occurs when the reader fills the gaps between the depicted objects, forms, figures and language. The depicted people and objects form a chase scene with the man in the foreground attempting to flee. According to the mechanisms of scene segmentation, the reader pieces together the depicted lines, figures, sounds and forms of speech, based on stored empirical content, into identifiable visual and linguistic objects.
