Set, Series, Sequence - Imagery as a Communicator

Going back to Will Eisner's Theory of Comics and Sequential Art, Chapter 2 Imagery, Eisner discusses the relationship between the artist, the reader and what is being communicated.

 

Eisner is referring to a cultural code or conventionality. The commonality of experience between the artist and the reader is actually the culturally developed semiotic language that they both share. Depending on what that culture is and what kind of Semiotic language has been developed, the artist can communicate anything from Satire to Tragedy picking from the paradigm of cultural codes and creating a syntagm of imagery for the reader to absorb.

 

So, if the reader is able to understand what is being communicated through the syntagm of symbols and imagery created by the artist, the artist then has effectively communicated something through the use of visual language.