A Simple One Panel Cartoon (Or Is It A Comic?)

Comics Vs. Cartoons again.  Theoretically, Comics as form is "sequential art."  More than one panel.  Time passes, even if it is just a moment, between those panels.  So, time moves, there is transition, movement in the sense of movement through time.  We have comic strips like Superman, Peanuts, and Shoe all on the funny pages of our newspapers.  We have comic books like Superman again, X-Men, Spider-Man, Rasl (have to plug Jeff Smith's Rasl).  Comics do not need to have words or dialog but there is a presumption of sequence, i.e., sequential art.

And then we have Cartoons.  Cartoons can mean the animated cartoons of Bugs Bunny, Tom & Jerry, Duck Tales (personal childhood favorite), or Bob's Burgers (currently loving that show, by the way).  But it can also mean a one-panel illustrated piece of art, perhaps with a caption or thought/speech balloon.  Think political cartoons, this time on the opinion page of our newspapers.

But what about The Far Side?  One-panel, sometimes with dialog, sometimes with a caption, but it's a comic strip, right? Or a comic.  Or is it a cartoon?  What about the below?

Not my finest work I will grant you, but it fits in with my discussion with myself.  One panel, not multiple panels, but there are two speech balloons.  Does the presence of two speech balloons or dialog of any kind imply movement through time?  Does that make it sequential art despite there being only one panel?  I don't know.  I did this piece with pen and brush on the left hand side and brush only on the right. This was done to give the left hand subject a more detailed, gritty look.  Brown as a color is gritty like dirt.  The reddish-orange color used on the left is an earth tone, maybe even a color connoting blushing due to embarrassment? Whereas blue, done in sharper more flowing strokes has literally a "cooler" feel to it: cool blue colors, cool people, cool music notes hovering in the air.  Does the color choice and its change from left to right denote movement in time or space, making it sequential?  I don't know.

It is possible that the whole comics vs. cartoons definition is solidly figured out, and I am just behind the times, but it wouldn't be any fun just writing down a definition, right?