Spider-Verse as Semiotics: How Color & Line Choices Speak
Source and Significance Blog Post - 5
What this post does (and why)
Iâm using a single lens- paradigm vs syntagm (the style options available vs the way theyâre combined) alongside Barthesâ denotation â connotation â myth - to read how Into/Across the Spider-Verse turns style into language. Iâm looking at halftone dots, motion lines, and the red/blue palette not as decoration but as signs that tell us about identity, heroism, and belonging. In short: what we see (denotation) sets up what we feel (connotation) and what the film quietly naturalises as truth (myth) (Barthes, 2009; Chandler, 2002)
Evidence: six frames where style = sign
1.Halftone vs clean render - Miles vs Gwen
At the denotative level, the films look like comics in motion, halftone textures, inked contours, hand-drawn motion lines, even deliberate CMYK misregister. Those forms carry connotations- Milesâ grain and sketch signal process, DIY, becoming and Gwenâs watercolor pastels suggest grace, interiority and emotional clarity (McCloud, 1993; Barthes, 2009).
2 Red/blue palette tension
Color plays a clean semiotic game. Red punches urgency, risk, public action; blue holds thought, doubt, private feeling. When saturated reds invade a blue field, it isnât just âprettyâ it stages a binary opposition inside the frame: duty vs reflection. That opposition is a paradigmatic choice (which palette?) made legible through syntagm (how color, pose, and camera combine over time) (Chandler, 2002). 3 Motion lines & onomatopoeia (Bagel)
Motion lines and onomatopoeia push action into language: symbols that announce âspeed/force/directionâ with no dialogue. Theyâre placed at beats where cause-and-effect must read instantly a leap, a catch, a swing , so the syntagm (timing and placement) turns a stylistic option into a clear sign (McCloud, 1993).
4 CMYK misregister under stress
When color channels separate during stress, the film sneaks in an indexical tell: identity is wobbling now. It reads as anxiety without stating it. Here the myth peeks through: being a hero isnât a stable essence ,itâs a negotiated practice, visible in the âerrorsâ and edge-noise of the frame (Barthes, 2009).
5 Ben-Day dots in the environment
Ben-Day dots fold the page into the world, collapsing medium and diegesis. Connotation: heritage and belonging- the universe owns its comic lineage as lived reality. The resulting myth is elegant: heroism is learned in public, through a shared visual language; you donât hide the medium you learn to speak it (Bolter and Grusin, 1999; Barthes, 2009).
6 Gwenâs pastel âdripâ world (feeling as environment)
Gwenâs world externalises emotion: the environment repaints with her inner state. Denotation: color shift. Connotation: empathy and control. Myth: true power is emotional clarity - the world becomes readable when you are.
The short read: denotation â connotation â myth
Taken together, these cues make a consistent semiotic system. On the denotative layer, Spider-Verse looks like a printed comic animated: halftone, line, motion text, color channels. On the connotative layer, those forms speak character: Milesâ gritty dots imply unfinished identity; Gwenâs pastels imply interior poise; red/blue pairings stage duty vs reflection. The syntagm - how these selections are combined across frames builds beats where action is read as language (motion lines, Bagel) and stress is felt as process (CMYK drift). The myth that gets naturalised is that heroism is not a fixed look but a constant negotiation between impulse and care, public sign and private feeling (Barthes, 2009). In other words, style is sign, and meaning arrives from both the paradigm (what choices are available) and their combination (how theyâre arranged) (Chandler, 2002). Thatâs exactly the toolkit outlined in our semiotics session: signifier â signified, denotation â connotation â myth, and structured oppositions. Conclusion
I learned that style isnât garnish: halftone, motion lines, and palette work as signs that carry story even in silence. Mapping denotation â connotation exposes the filmâs myth, changing how I read every frame. Paradigm vs syntagm is a practical tool what matters less is the menu of styles and more how theyâre combined; tiny shifts (where a red accent lands, when a CMYK drift appears) can recode meaning without changing the model. Indexical tells like slight channel misregister communicate state faster than dialogue by pointing to something happening now. Finally, Iâm watching for naturalised ideology (e.g., red = duty, blue = reflection): spotting these patterns is the step from enjoying a look to reading a language the core gain of a Barthes pass
References
Barthes, R. (2009) Mythologies. London: Vintage. Bolter, J.D. and Grusin, R. (1999) Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Chandler, D. (2002) Semiotics: The Basics. London: Routledge. McCloud, S. (1993) Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: William Morrow. Miller, P., Ramsey, B. and Persichetti, P. (2018) Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse [Film]. USA: Sony Pictures Animation. Dos Santos, J., Powers, K. and Thompson, J. (2023) Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse [Film]. USA: Sony Pictures Animation.