Notes on comic layout

Ok, my friend Tong Bui said he would like for me to discuss how to arrange the flow of a sequential page. So I thought I would share a bit of my tips when I am doing a page. I work for Avatar Press but I cannot show pages right now so I will do the next best thing and show you 2 pages from the samples I did that got me the work.

So, there are some common things people will tell you about how to ensure your comic pages flow correctly. And I will be the same.

The first thing to keep in mind when doing pages readability is key. You want to make sure that when you are designing pages what is happening is clear. You want to avoid confusion in your panels, the moment the reader has to step back and try to understand what is happening, the flow of the story is gone.

In this page I tried to keep clear what is happening. It starts with a person in silhouette is approaching a woman in a  graveyard. (In the first page I established she was in a graveyard.)  Then we find out the person is a zombie/undead thing. He bends down and grabs her. I wanted to make sure you knew what was happening. Imagine if the flow was broken and you didn’t know what the guy was, or that he was moving toward her, if he had grabbed her. The tension would be broken.

Next is direction. This is a 2 point issue.

1: Page direction. In American comics we read top to bottom and left to right. So when you are laying out a page try to follow that direction. When Panel 1 is to the top left and Panel 2 is top right and Panel 3 is below center. You know your flow. But if Panel 1 was top left and panel 2 is center left and Panel 3 comes up into Panel 2, the direction gets lost.

2: Action direction. When you are doing action direction, try to keep that moving the same way. In Panel 1 the man in shadows is moving left to right, Panel 2, he is moving left to right, Panel 3, he is moving left to right, Panel 4, he is moving left to right. This helps create the feeling the action is moving along in a normal flow. If he was moving left to right, then right to left, it would feel like he turned and is moving away now.

 

Now when you are breaking the basic grid layout of panels the rules of direction must be stuck to even closer. The panels still mover top to bottom and left to right. But there is another direction trick used here. In panels 1-3 the line of action is basically moving in a straight line. But then it drops down into panel 4, and the shape of the panel and her action forces the eyes or the reader to move right to left, because I wanted to keep the eyes moving and not looking around to see where to look. Then your eyes drop down to Panel 5 and we go back to the left to right flow.

I like to use when laying out is using contrast. Spots of black and whites help create a rhythm and harmony. Panel 4 is a great example. Looking right to left, we have a spot of black behind the tombstone, then white, then black of her hair, then white, then the black to the left of the man’s arm. You can also use the black and white to lead the eyes. In the first page in Panel 4, we have the black of the trees and the negative space of white ‘pointing’ at the man’s head. Then the black of his face leads to his arm, which leads to the woman.

And I will share one other tip, when you are doing a page, there is often times where you can’t or shouldn’t bury the page in details. Sometimes over working a page or panel can be too much. I usually try to have one anchor panel to really put my most dynamic, most worked panel. This is the page’s anchor. Page 2 Panel 6 is my anchor. It is my most dynamic and detailed panel. Next it panel 3 because it has some establishing work. After that I kept the overall work on the panels more simple. Remember, no matter how amazing you are, no one will remember all your pages and panels. So try to give at least one panel that is as awesome as possible so they have something to remember.

So that is what I have for right now. If there is anything else you would like me to cover, just ask!

Thanks!

Dwayne