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Imagery · Drawn & painted

Comic & cartoon

Outlines, speech balloons, character art.

A design choice in Stylogeny’s vocabulary, under imagery: what kind of pictures, if any?

styles make it: 102
as a defining choice: 29
as a usual one: 36
now and then: 37
avoid it: 11

Styles defined by it 29

For these styles it is one of the choices that make the style.

Simplicissimus Satirical Style (Munich)1896–1944 · Central EuropeThe house style of the Munich satirical weekly Simplicissimus, set by Th.
ROSTA Windows1919–1922 · Eastern EuropeHand-stencilled satirical news posters made by the Russian Telegraph Agency during the Civil War and hung in empty shop windows, first in Moscow, then in Petrograd and provincial towns.
Filipino Komiks1929–1999 · Southeast AsiaThe Philippines' newsstand comics magazines, from Kenkoy in Liwayway (1929) and Ace's Pilipino Komiks (1947) to the fall of the Roces titles in the late 1990s.
Ligne Claire (Franco-Belgian Clear Line)1929–present · Western Europe, Southern EuropeThe comic drawing style of Hergé's Tintin and the Brussels school, named 'klare lijn' by Joost Swarte in 1977.
American Four-Colour Comic Book (Golden to Bronze Age)1934–1993 · North AmericaThe American newsstand comic book from Famous Funnies (1934) and Action Comics #1 (1938) through the Golden, Silver and Bronze Ages, and past the Bronze Age's end in 1985 until computer colour replaced hand separations in the early 1990s.
UPA & Cartoon Modern1944–1960 · North AmericaThe modern cartoon of United Productions of America (UPA) and the 1950s films, commercials and books it inspired.
Escuela Bruguera (Spanish Humour Comics)1947–1986 · Southern EuropeThe house style of Editorial Bruguera's humour cartoonists in Barcelona from 1947 to 1986, named the 'Escuela Bruguera' by Terenci Moix in 1968.
Story Manga (Postwar Japanese Comics)1947–present · East Asia, Global / networkedThe black-and-white narrative comic of postwar Japan, from Tezuka Osamu's Shin Takarajima (1947) to the weekly boys' magazines of 1959 and 1968 and the paperbacks that collect them.
Argentine Adventure Historieta (Oesterheld–Breccia)1948–1996 · Latin America & CaribbeanThe adult adventure comics of Buenos Aires newsstand magazines, from Misterix (1948) and Oesterheld's Hora Cero (1957) to Skorpio and Fierro; the humour line of Patoruzú, Rico Tipo and Mafalda is another tradition.
Bonelli Fumetto (Italian Popular Adventure Comics)1948–present · Southern EuropeThe house format of Milan's Bonelli publishing house and its imitators (Tex, Zagor, Dylan Dog, Nathan Never): monthly newsstand paperbacks of 16 x 21 cm with about a hundred black-and-white pages, each a long episode of a serial hero.
Arab Children's Comic Magazines (Samir to Majid)1956–present · Middle East & North AfricaArabic children's comics weeklies, from Dar al-Hilal's Samir in Cairo (1956) to Abu Dhabi's Majid (1979), mixing translated Western strips with house characters by Egyptian, Lebanese, Armenian and European artists.
Shōjo Manga (Japanese Girls' Comics)1958–present · East Asia, Global / networkedThe look of Japan's girls' comics (strictly a readership, not a style), which Takahashi Macoto fixed in 1958 from the lyrical illustration (jojōga) of Nakahara Jun'ichi and the Year 24 Group remade in the 1970s.
Amar Chitra Katha Comics1967–present · South AsiaThe Bombay comic-book series that from 1967 retold Hindu myth and epic, Buddhist and Jain tales, saints, folk legends, the jests of the court wits Birbal and Tenali Raman, and Indian history for children, in English and Indian languages, with well over 500 titles by the early 1990s.
Underground Comix1968–1982 · North America, Western EuropeSelf-published, adults-only comic books from the San Francisco counterculture, made outside the Comics Code on the newsstand comic's format.
Pop Achorado (Peruvian Agrarian Reform Posters)1969–1975 · Latin America & CaribbeanPosters for the Peruvian military government's agrarian reform, made in Lima from 1969 by Jesús Ruiz Durand and colleagues at the state's reform publicity office.
Kinshasa Popular Painting1970–present · Sub-Saharan AfricaA school of easel painting founded in Kinshasa in the early 1970s by Chéri Samba, Moké, Chéri Chérin and Pierre Bodo, largely self-taught painters, several of them trained in Kinshasa's billboard and sign workshops.
Turkish Weekly Humour Magazines (Gırgır to Uykusuz)1972–2025 · Middle East & North AfricaIstanbul's weekly cartoon magazines, from the Aral brothers' Gırgır (1972), which sold up to about half a million copies, through the chain of breakaways that followed it: Limon, LeMan, Penguen and Uykusuz.
Métal hurlant Science-Fiction Comics (Mœbius, Druillet & Les Humanoïdes Associés)1974–1987 · Western Europe, North AmericaThe adult science-fiction comics of Métal hurlant, the Paris magazine founded in 1974 by Mœbius, Philippe Druillet, Jean-Pierre Dionnet and Bernard Farkas.
La Movida Madrileña Graphics1977–1988 · Southern EuropeThe graphics of Madrid's Movida, the post-Franco scene of new-wave bands, fanzines and night life usually dated from the Canito concert of 9 February 1980 and later backed by the city council.
L'Association and French Alternative Comics1990–present · Western EuropeThe black-and-white auteur comics of L'Association, the Paris publisher founded by seven cartoonists in 1990, and the 1990s small-press scene it led.
Bitterkomix (Afrikaans Underground Comics)1992–present · Sub-Saharan AfricaThe Afrikaans underground comics magazine founded in Stellenbosch in 1992 by Anton Kannemeyer (Joe Dog) and Conrad Botes (Konradski), with Mark Kannemeyer (Lorcan White).
Superflat1993–present · East Asia, Global / networkedThe flat, saturated, cartoon-crowded look that Takashi Murakami named in his exhibition and manifesto Superflat (Tokyo, 2000; US tour 2001).
Yuru-chara (Japanese Local Mascot Design)2000–present · East AsiaJapan's local mascots: characters commissioned by prefectures, towns and tourism bodies to stand for a place, named yuru-kyara ('loose characters') by the illustrator Jun Miura around 2000.
Korean Webtoon Graphics2002–present · East Asia, Global / networkedThe full-colour, vertical-scroll comic that Korean web portals made standard in the 2000s and smartphone apps took worldwide.
Itasha (Anime Character Car Graphics)2005–present · East AsiaPrivate cars, motorbikes and bicycles that Japanese fans of anime, manga and games cover with their favourite characters, named by the mid-2000s with the self-mocking word itasha, 'painful car'.
Arab Independent Comics (Samandal, TokTok, Lab619, Skefkef)2007–present · Middle East & North AfricaAdult comics magazines edited by Arab artists' collectives since 2007, at times with a ministry grant or an NGO partner: Samandal in Beirut, TokTok in Cairo, Lab619 in Tunis and Skefkef in Casablanca.
Hong Kong Protest Art (Umbrella Movement to the 2019–20 Protests)2014–2020 · East AsiaThe graphics of Hong Kong's democracy protests, from the 2014 Umbrella Movement to the national security law of 2020, in two linked media.
VTuber Avatar and Stream Graphics2016–present · East Asia, Global / networkedThe graphic kit of virtual YouTubers, streamers who perform behind an animated anime-style character instead of their own face.
Lo-fi Anime Aesthetic2017–present · Global / networked, Western Europe, North America, East AsiaThe look of YouTube's 24/7 lo-fi hip hop streams.

Styles that often use it 36

A characteristic choice: usual in these styles, though not essential.

Styles that use it now and then 37

An occasional choice in these styles.

It often goes with

Choices that the styles making it make more often than the atlas as a whole.

Distortion & exaggerationin 63 of 102
Playful & wittyin 81 of 102
Stylised figurationin 93 of 102
Communal & popularin 77 of 102
Sequential narrativein 50 of 102
Hand-letteringin 91 of 102

Styles that avoid it

Styles that deliberately leave it out.

Other choices in imagery