In comics, motion lines (or movement lines or action lines or speed lines) is a term that refers to the abstract lines that appear behind a moving object or person to make them look like they're moving quickly. The use of motion lines may have been inspired from both mathematical vectors, which are used to indicate direction and force, and from long-exposure photography, where a camera can capture lights as they move through time and space, blurred along the direction of motion.
Famous quotes containing the words motion and/or lines:
“It is the fixed that horrifies us, the fixed that assails us with the tremendous force of mindlessness. The fixed is a Mason jar, and we can’t beat it open. ...The fixed is a world without fire--dead flint, dead tinder, and nowhere a spark. It is motion without direction, force without power, the aimless procession of caterpillars round the rim of a vase, and I hate it because at any moment I myself might step to that charmed and glistening thread.”
—Annie Dillard (b. 1945)
“Your letter is come; it came indeed twelve lines ago, but I
could not stop to acknowledge it before, & I am glad it did not
arrive till I had completed my first sentence, because the
sentence had been made since yesterday, & I think forms a very
good beginning.”
—Jane Austen (1775–1817)