Abstract
Conventional wisdom suggests that we read comics in the West in a Z-path pattern, the pattern that we use for standard written text: left to right and downwards. In The Visual Language of Comics, Neil Cohn recognised that there are layouts that encourage readers to deviate from normative Z-path reading, with blockage layouts leading the way; blockage is where ‘several panels are stacked vertically next to a panel that runs the whole distance of the vertical panels.’ In Cohn’s work, readers who had reading experience with comics tended to read the vertical panels before continuing horizontally. Examining 10 comics that have been popularly recognised as influential, this research looked for patterns that comics tend exhibit in blockage layouts, finding five patterns that might condition experienced comics readers to engage blockage-path reading: breaking and bridging; gradual object movement; sequential actions; transition from or to an embedded narrative; and terminal-initial ellipses.