Visual Vocabulary of Graphic Novels and Comic Books

Time to Catch Up

I got side tracked from this, so here are links to what I've discussed so far:

Layout, Panels and Grids

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Balloons and Captions

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Sound Effects

One

Two

Three

Next I'll be discussing:

Actions

Expressions

Feelings and emotions

Symbols

Glyphs

read next - Come and Get it Travel Time
previous - Gentleman Color Theory

Keep reading and follow me. If you have found this helpful, please let me know and share with other creators. Are the explanations clear and complete? Feel free to ask me questions.

Remember… Just Create!

If you are interested in further expanding your knowledge, then I recommend these books.

You can support this blog when you purchase a book by clicking the link below, I get a piece of the action and helps me to continue doing this blog. Support an artist today.

copyright 2013 H. Simpson

Free Form Panel and Page Design for Comics and Graphic Novels

How to Become a Comic Strip, Comic Book and Graphic Novel Artist

Let's look at a few examples of how to make decisions for a free form designed page based on story, action, anchor image and time progression.

Making decisions based on story.

If you have a very quiet or character driven story, you may decide to use smaller and square panels to make the story feel more intimate.

A story with an epic scale may use larger panels and more horizontal panels to give a sense of grandeur and large vistas.

An action story may have a combination of small panels and large panels to contrast the pedestrian and active or dramatic moments.

© Chris Ware

A nice quiet page of normal events.

© Will Eisner

The last page invokes sadness by designing the page to have the panels represent eyes that seem to be crying.

© Will Eisner

This page is designed to give the readers the sense of looking through the files with the character.

Making decisions based on action and psychological thrillers.

A few different options are available to you.

Use slanted panels where there is action and standard square and rectangles where there is not.

Design the panels to flow with the action.

May use vey haphazard and irregular panels to reflect the chaos or mental state of characters.

art by Joe Madureira
© Marvel Comics 

art by Alex Toth
© DC Comics

© Chris Ware

Awesome page design reflects the mental and emotional state of the character.

Making decisions based on anchor image.

The anchor image is the one image you decide to build your page around to hold it together.

That image can be an active single figure or a close-up. It can also be a dramatic moment and built around a scene.

art by Walt Simonson
© DC Comics

Here the anchor image is the structure. Excellent page design. The structure is designed to be seen first yet it moves your eye to each panel.

Making decisions based on time progression.

This one is the trickiest and where you can be very creative. 

So far I've kept content separate from the design. In this case the design decision to manage time can be altered by the content. As I pointed out earlier film and video are still frames projected at a rapid rate to give the illusion of movement. Panels and gutters are used to give the illusion of time passing. I'll get into this later when I start dealing with content. Page design and panel layout do not decide the content and meaning.

Let's say you decide to use 4 small square panels to condense time. The same 4 square panels can show either:

• quick action
• simultaneous events
• stretch out an action
• no temporal transitions - just a series of cuts to object of attention in the same scene.

The gutters can be widened or condensed to indicate time has passed at different rate between panels. Large gutter means more time has passed between panels. Smaller than normal gutter can indicate a shorter time passage between panels.

© Walt Simonson

Simultaneous events shown.

Now this would seem to be a good time to segue into content and it looks like I have set it up that way, but alas such is not the case.

I still have balloons, captions, sound effects, actions, expressions, symbols, glyphs, feelings and emotions to discuss.

Next… word balloons.

read next - Introduction to Speech Balloons
previous - Review Panels in Comics and Graphic Novels

Keep reading and follow me. If you have found this helpful, please let me know and share with other creators. Are the explanations clear and complete? Feel free to ask me questions.

Remember… Just Create!

If you are interested in further expanding your knowledge, then I recommend these books.

You can support this blog when you purchase a book by clicking the link below, I get a piece of the action and helps me to continue doing this blog. Support an artist today.

copyright 2012 H. Simpson

Review Panels in Comics and Graphic Novels

How to Become a Comic Strip, Comic Book and Graphic Novel Artist

Okay, let's get back on track. Let's review.

art © 2012 H. Simpson

We've been discussing using geometric page layouts called grids to create a visual rhythm and tempo with repetition and variations in panel shape. The variations are used to highlight dramatic moments in the narrative.

Panels frame and contain the content for the reader. The size of the panel can be an indicator of how much time passes. Comics don't have movement to indicate time. But when you think about it no media does have movement. Film, video and animation all have still frames. We are given the illusion of movement by the rapid projection rate.

The eye moves more quickly over smaller panels. Larger panels make the eye linger longer, so it seems  more time is passing.

Now we're going to discuss free form page designs. This means you don't decide to use a grid and every page can have different panel shapes.

The size and number of the panels on the page is decided by:

• Story
• Action
• Anchor Image
• Passage of time

So I'll start breaking this down next time.

to be continued...

read next - Free Form Panel and Page Design for Comics and Graphic Novels
previous - A nice method to do thought balloon lettering.

Keep reading and follow me. If you have found this helpful, please let me know and share with other creators. Are the explanations clear and complete? Feel free to ask me questions.

Remember… Just Create!

If you are interested in further expanding your knowledge, then I recommend these books.

You can support this blog when you purchase a book by clicking the link below, I get a piece of the action and helps me to continue doing this blog. Support an artist today.

copyright 2012 H. Simpson

Panels and More Panels

How to Become a Comic Strip, Comic Book and Graphic Novel Artist

The Horizontal Panel 

This shape most closely fits the normal human field of vision which is 180 degrees. This shape can help to make the reader feel comfortable. This panel shape is good for panorama views also.

The Inset Panel

This is usually used to show a close-up of a detail or to highlight something you don't want the reader to miss.

Best to use a double border to separate it from the surrounding panel to avoid tangents as well as confusing the reader.

The Overlapping Panel

Usually used to make a stronger connection between panels or to really compress time.

Best to use a double border or cut-in to separate it from the surrounding panel to avoid tangents as well as confusing the reader.

Or a nice strong black in one background can separate the the panels. 

I see a hand raised. "What's a tangent?" I'm glad you asked. Let's go off on tangent now to answer that question and then come back to panels and page design.

Be here tomorrow for a visit to Tangent City.

read next - A nice method to do thought balloon lettering.

previous - 69 Grid

Keep reading and follow me. If you have found this helpful, please let me know and share with other creators. Are the explanations clear and complete? Feel free to ask me questions.

Remember… Just Create!

If you are interested in further expanding your knowledge, then I recommend these books.

You can support this blog when you purchase a book by clicking the link below, I get a piece of the action and helps me to continue doing this blog. Support an artist today.

copyright 2012 H. Simpson.

69 Grid

How to Become a Comic Strip, Comic Book and Graphic Novel Artist

The 6 panel grid.

The grid that is seen most often. So time passes at a regular rhythm just based on the grid alone. Larger panels panels slow the reader down as their eyes linger and travel over it to take in the content. So it has the effect of slowing down time. Use this to emphasize something and show details.

The 9 panel grid.

This grid can be good for more intimate moments and when your want time to move faster or at a regular, steady pace. What you put in the panel will determine which effect it has. The grid sets the rhythm and the content will determine the pacing.

to be continued...

read next - Panels and More Panels

previous - 4 Panel Grid

Keep reading and follow me. If you have found this helpful, please let me know and share with other creators. Are the explanations clear and complete? Feel free to ask me questions.

Remember… Just Create!

If you are interested in further expanding your knowledge, then I recommend these books.

You can support this blog when you purchase a book by clicking the link below, I get a piece of the action and helps me to continue doing this blog. Support an artist today.

BONUS LINKS

The designer's guide to grid theory

The Grid

15 Reasons Why A Grid Based Approach Will Improve Your Designs

Using Layout Grids Effectively 

copyright 2012 H. Simpson.

4 Panel Grid Up All Night

The basic comic page grid.

How to Become a Comic Strip, Comic Book and Graphic Novel Artist

The Grid


Here is what forms the basis of the standard grids used in comics and graphic novels. You can use this as a starting point  to create your own grids to meet your story needs. Hey, it can be all diagonal panels. Just make it work! Sorry, I was having a Tim Gunn moment. The grid choice should serve the story. For example, you may want to use standard rectangles for the pedestrian parts of the story and then always use diagonal panels whenever there is action. I study and dissect what artists do and do not do. I met the great Gene Colan and talked to him for a while. After gauging that he seemed to be a nice guy and guessing he might not go off on me I told him, 'I noticed you use diagonal panels in your action scenes, so I stole that from you,' he laughed and said "That's okay. I stole it from somebody too." We both laughed and talked some more about the art form we love.

Now let's look at what can be done with the grid.

The 4 panel grid

Here's the 4 panel grid. 

Now Variation A presents a problem in western culture and Variation C presents a problem in eastern cultures. In the west we read from left to right, top to bottom. with Variation A the western reader's natural tendency will be to go from the first panel to the panel on left next, thereby missing the content of the small left bottom panel. In the east, they read from right to left, top to bottom and Variation C presents the same issue.

One way to be sure the two small panels are read first is to give the reader some clues, such as the border in Variation B. I've highlighted the border red here to emphasize it for you now, but by no means take this to mean you have to make that border red.

Ideally you never want to have a set of panels down the left side that have to be read first. It will be confusing to the reader. However, if you approach the page as a design (as I do most of the time) then you may find yourself in a situation where this is the best solution. I'll discuss this  more when I discuss page design.

Jack Kirby usually used this grid a lot to show big action and Asgard in The Mighty Thor comic books. After all the Viking gods are too awesome to be contained by a mere 9 panel grid. He used the 6 panel grid for earth bound moments.

to be continued...

read next - 69 Grid
previous - Grids

Keep reading and  share with your friends. Please comment. Just create!

copyright 2012 H. Simpson. Other art copyright their respective copyright holders.

Comic Book and Graphic Novel Panels

How to Become a Comic Strip, Comic Book and Graphic Novel Artist

Panels are the drawn borders that create a frame on the page. The frame becomes the window into the reality you've created.

The space between the panels is called gutters. The gutter is where time happens.

The panels can be any shape.

Panels can also indicate a flashback, dream sequence; emphasize and emotions 

or emphasize action inside the panel.

The panel can also be a symbolic image like binoculars.

to be continued....

read next - IN-GRID
previous - The Conventions

Keep reading and follow me. If you have found this helpful, please let me know and share with other creators. Are the explanations clear and complete? Feel free to ask me questions.

Remember… Just Create!

If you are interested in further expanding your knowledge, then I recommend these books.

You can support this blog when you purchase a book by clicking the link below, I get a piece of the action and helps me to continue doing this blog. Support an artist today.

copyright 2012 H. Simpson

Paging Dr. Howard, Dr Fine, Dr. Howard

How to Make a Comic Strip, Comic Book and Graphic Novel

Terminology Continued

17. PANEL - A single image with a border, usually.

18. PANEL BORDER - The line which surrounds the single image.

19. OPEN PANEL - A panel without a border.

20. GUTTER - The space between panels. This is where time happens. The reader fills in the amount of time. A good storyteller uses gutters as a tool to manipulate time.

21. PAGE MARGINS - The blank space around the edges of the page.

22. GUTTER MARGIN - The space between the printed area and binding.

23. BLEED -  Art that extends beyond the end of the page. A full bleed extends beyond all four edges of the page. This costs extra money to print and eats into your profits if you self-publish. Think about how much money you lose by bleeding for no reason that serves the story.

24. TRIM SIZE - Final size of printed page after excess paper has been cut away.

25. CUT SIZE - A standard size that matches the printed size and thereby requires no trimming.

26. CROP MARKS - Crossed lines placed at the corners to indicate where to trim the paper

27. BLEED LINES - Indicates the area beyond the crop marks. The penciler must draw to the bleed lines in order for the art to bleed off the page. Never just draw to the trim lines if you want to bleed art. The bleed size is set to 3 millimeters or 1/8 of an inch. You're wasting time and space if you draw beyond that.

28. SAFE AREA - The space to keep text and other important parts of your art so it's not trimmed. May also be called the Art Area.

29. FLASHBACK - Panels which refer to a past event. Their borders are drawn with a cloudy, wispy or other creative effect to suggest a memory or revelation.

30. SPLASH PAGE - The first or second page page of a story with full bleed page art. It acts a a second cover packed with action or emotion in order to entice the reader to buy the comic.

31. DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD - Two pages featuring one image so big one page cannot contain it. Sometimes used for panel to panel continuity. In this case, it is usually poorly executed if the penciler doesn't take into consideration that unless it's the exact middle page of the comic, then some information will be lost in the gutter margin.

Bonus! Check out these links about layout and making comics.
Making Comics

Little Rivkah's Journal

Webcomic Alliance

Creative Comic Art

Analyzing Comics 101 (Layout)

Making Comics  with Salgood Sam

to be continued…

Keep reading. Share with your friends. Please comment. JUST CREATE!

read next - Talk the Talk

previous - Paging Dr. Howard, Dr Fine, Dr. Howard

copyright 2012 H. Simpson

If you are interested in further expanding your knowledge, then I recommend these books.

When you purchase a book by clicking the link below, I get a piece of the action and helps me to continue doing this blog. Support an artist today.