Making Comics? Consider these questions...

Find your own answers to these questions

To determine the tone and pacing of a comic, there are a number of questions that need answers…

Whaddya say, ready to answer a few questions?

Let it never be said that I’ve got THE answers. I just know how I’ve answered a few in the past, with the help of my co-creators, such as Scott Gray on Big Shoulders #1!

The answers for the following questions are what will determine the tone and pacing of your comic:

1. How many panels are in the average comic book page?

2. What’s the panel average for your story’s genre?

3. How many and how often should your tale feature full-page splashes?

4. What’s the maximum panel count you’re willing to push on a page? And what’s the rationale, are you trying to create speed and urgency, or trying to slow a scene down?

5. Is narration necessary here? If so, is there a clever way to disguise exposition with visual flourish or an ironic means of delivery?

6. How often will a page’s final panel usher us directly into a new setting, or could we move settings mid-page?

7. What’s a standard word count for a page? How about a panel? What % of panels ought to feature no words?

8. How often will a single panel feature the dialogue of more than two characters? Why and what specific scenarios?

And so on, and so on…

Perhaps you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed by all these questions?

Lost in a kaleidoscopic in-between, from THREE PLANES #1 by myself and David Omar Lopez.

How ‘bout we just answer ALL of those questions in one go??

I’ll warn ya though, the following answer will only be making things even more difficult…

Here’s the answer to ALL of the above questions.

Ready for the bomb?

There is no right answer to any of these questions.

I mean… maybe the first two, sure (go ahead, scroll up and read those two again…). But even the answer to those two would be misleading. As many of the GOATs are offsets way to either side of those averages.

The trick of comics, as with so many artistic endeavors, is that the rules are meant to be broken.

The answers to all of the questions up top DO matter very much to you and your comic book story. Rhythm and tone is defined by the conscious effort you put into answering all of these questions for yourself.

Also? The more deliberate effort you put into your answers, the more this intentionality will be felt by the reader. A cadence of word and / or panel count across the pages is a rhythm. Word choices and beats of irony, cruelty, cute-turns of phrases or levity, this all amalgamates into your tone.

And the kicker: an artist can reinforce such intentionalities. On the other hand, their line work, color work or lettering choices could pull directly against that same intent, either to great ironic effect in certain cases or, most often, to the detriment of the script. Consider how each line, each font or each palette might add or detract from your tale’s tone and cadence.

Of course, at this ‘decision making stage’, a sharpened understanding of what’s ‘normal’, and having practiced or even perfected fundamentals, will only help you ‘break’ the rules more effectively.

Let’s consider some particularly rad examples, after a quick word from our sponsor: The love of comics.

Comics Interlude - Why are there so many great BATMAN Comics?

• Note: Batman: Dark Patterns, Batman & Robin: Year One (also discussed here!) and Absolute Batman offer three utterly unique flavors of bat. Who knew that ‘bat’ made for such a versatile cooking ingredient, anyways?

• Also, don’t sleep on Boy Wonder by Juni Ba!

• Fair warning: I might NEVER shut up about Hayden Sherman’s work in Absolute Wonder Woman and Batman: Dark Patterns. So get used to hearing it.

  

  Hayden Sherman creates a mystery to unravel with each new layout. Look closely at every page and find the patterns and intentionality. Writer Dan Waters also weaves a tale directly into composition after composition.

And now, back to the show…

Okay… here are a few fun examples to consider:

Robert Kirkman is arguably the king of western, page-turning epic comic series. And you know something interesting about his two most notable works, INVINCIBLE and THE WALKING DEAD?

Yes. Both are addicting 100+ issue epics that have sucked millions of readers in for the long haul, inspiring even non-comics readers to spend dozens of hours with their nose in those collected editions. But also? WALKING DEAD features just about zero narration. Same with INVINCIBLE, which utilizes narration only on very rare occasions for flashback sequences. There’s nary a caption box to be found in either of those series. Think that’s a coincidence or an accident?

Or might this be a decision that helps drive the pacing? Perhaps this even serves to make these books feel more… cinematic?

Do the scripting choices here keep the focus on the action?

From Invincible #1 by Robert Kirkman and artist Cory Walker

Yeah. With no narration to read over this action, the events here are fast.

This example is literally from the first sequence from Invicible’s first issue, in which the creators got pages turning right along. For a great many readers, these choices (along with fantastic storytelling by Kirkman, Walker and later, series mainstay Ryan Ottley) held that momentum they had established from jump.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in comics land, but still on the continent of capes books, let’s make an intentional effort to sloooow down for a beat, stake out a perch and let’s brood with Batman for a minute:

Batman stories tend to thrive on narration boxes, as they’re perfect for a brooding noir-drenched hero’s batty exposition, as the hard-boiled detective breaks down his case. And it doesn’t always have to have a high word count to be effective (especially when artist Hayden Sherman is also on the case):

Meanwhile, on another storytelling continent altogether, a biographical comic is usually going to take narration even further. There’s a reason biographical comics (and non-fiction more broadly) are genres not typically associated with comics. It’s not a medium well suited for info dumps and high word counts. That said, creator Dave Chisholm found innovative ways to bend the medium to the genre when he created ‘MILES DAVIS AND THE SEARCH FOR SOUND’.

Click on any of these images for a link to this amazing hardcover!

As this tale chronicles a legendary music artist’s distinct sound, writer / artist Chrisholm ups the difficulty in his project, as this biographical tale is told via a medium entirely without sound. Mr. Chisholm broke all sorts of ‘best practices’ to directly account for these would-be concerns.

One best practice in a biography is to, ya know, tell the reader a bunch of stuff about the subject. But, if the right imagery conveys a moment or feeling, perhaps imagery as profound as finding a sound all your own? Well, just get out of the way and let that imagery lead the way. Chisholm accomplishes this beautifully, creating wordless moments you can nearly hear through the page.

When you take a look at the examples below, consider how the right layout can be built not just to be home for an exposition dump, but how the layout itself can so greatly reinforce the messages being expressed, all while holding the attention of the reader, especially when there is a fair bit of narration on the page:

Comics, man. Comics.

Speaking of which…

Here’s some proper #MakingComics news: David Omar Lopez and I have been holding out on you. Our comic, THREE PLANES? You ain’t seen nothing yet.

You didn’t think The Bridge was all by her lonesome, did ya? Say hello to The Warrior.

This is a tale about being caught between worlds… quite literally, and it is in ‘The In-Between’ where two of our heroes first meet.

We have a whole mess more to share this month. Including more introductions.

We’ve been working on this book for a while now, as we made the decision to hold off on launching a Kickstarter until we could be sure that backers will receive the book asap.

Please consider becoming one of the first to experience this labor of comics-love (link).

I apologize for the lack of answers in this post.

But it’s the questions and the search for our OWN answers that ought to be staring us down as we’re…