Comic Book Layouts

The comic book layout is the order and composition of individual panels which hold the art, dialogue, narration and effects. When read in sequence the panels tell the story of the comic.

This aspect of comic book production is as important as script and art as without an engaging and more importantly an understandable flow to the pages, reading the pages can become confusing and break the concentration of the reader.

Traditionally Comic panels were laid out in a grid pattern, the reader 2x2, 3x2, 3x3 etc. The reader would read each row, left to right before moving to the next row. An example of this can be seen below in the fight between Captain American and Batroc the Brawler.

As comics grew, their layouts began to variations on this. Differing panel sizes to emphasize important moments within scenes, differing the number of panels on the page to allow for larger, more impactful images or letterbox style panels which can help to give a more cinematic feel to a scene. Below is an example of this from “Batman: Hush.” Jim Lee has used a combination of letterbox and more square traditional panels to differentiate between the faster pace part of the scene from the panels with important dialogue and events.

When producing the art for “Batman: Arkham Asylum” Dave McKean took traditional convention another way. By using letterbox style panels and laying them out on their end gave the graphic novel a looming, oppressive feel which fit with the mood and atmosphere of the story.

Alex Ross developed a style that uses both traditional and more radical techniques to create his work on Batman: Black & White as well as “Batman: War on Crime”. Ross is known for his layouts that defy many conventions when laying out pages, often forgoing margins or even separation lines between panels. Choosing to instead blend the panels artwork together, creating pages that are seamless works of art which often resembled large splash pages. With the addition of narration and dialogue to his art Ross’ work becomes a unique and visually appealing experience.

When it comes to the placement of speech bubbles in comic art consideration first is given to the size as well as the amount of dialogue in each bubble or box. Large speech bubbles and large amounts of dialogue are usually nessessary to propel the story forward in character driven stories. When laying out a comic the artist must be careful to give enough space for dialogue while not allowing it to dominate the panels. Often larger bubbles are broken up over a couple of panels. This also allows the flow of the conversations between characters to be broken up, giving the characters a chance to “breath” and for the conversations to flow more naturally. Often to aid the reader and make the flow of the dialogue easier to follow by the reader visual cues can be put into a series of panels. In the below example the reader is directed by the eye line of the characters. Even though dialogue is placed throughout the page, thanks to this visual cue it is easier to interpret the intended order of the speech bubbles.

Character Design Challenge 3

This weeks challenge is a request from one of my peers. He has asked a number of people to produce their interpretation of the Hungarian Horntail Dragon from the Harry Potter books.
This is the description he has provided: "Supposedly the most dangerous of all the dragon breeds, the Hungarian Horntail has black scales and is lizard-like in appearance. It has yellow eyes, bronze horns and similarly coloured spikes that protrude from its long tail. The Horntail has one of the longesr fire-breathing ranges (up to fifty feet). Its eggs are cement-coloured and particularly hard-shelled; the young club their way out using their tails, whose spikes are well developed at birth. The Hungarian Horntail feeds on goats, sheep and, whenever possible, humans."

Character Design Challenge 2 - Development

This design challenge was to produce a design for a Sci Fi MMA fighter that would fight in the galactic version of the UFC. 

The idea was to create a character that would pose a different challenge to an MMA fighter while still being familiar enough anatomically to take on humans.
I was trying to play around with a style half way between the realistic style and the more cartoony, characature style i used to favor. The reason for this is for speed of production when reproducing the character(s) for sequential pages.
The other part of this challenge is to take one of these forward and produce a short 1 or 2 page strip depicting a fight scene featuring one of the characters, giving me an exercise to explore layouts.

Comic Book Production

A comic book is a story that is told through a series of sequential images featuring dialogue and sounds which propel the story forward. The stories can be humorous or dramatic and can consist of any story genre.

Comics are printed in issues on a regular basis. Each issue may contain a series of, a part of a longer story which will be told over a series of issues or a whole story.  Graphic novels are an extension of this, forgoing single issues and telling a whole story in one book.

The process of creating a comic book begins with a story. Once details of the plot, characters, locations etc have been produced it is all compiled into a series bible similar to TV, film or animated series.

From this visuals can be designed, story arches can be plotted and refined into scripts.

Using the script and designs thumbnails rough drafts of page layouts can be drafted. This phase is where the panel art, sequencing, dialogue and overall layout of the page are worked out.

Once this is finalized art begins. Traditionally comic art was drawn in pencil, the line art is inked and then coloured also using ink. Now a great deal of comics are coloured digitally, however penciling and line art inking practices vary from artist to artist.

Lettering typically is done digitally as it gives a far more consistent finish to the page but there are some who prefer to produce lettering by hand or using stencils.

In the production of modern comics, digital practices like photo manipulation, 3D modelling and Matte Painting are becoming more widely used as part of artists’ pipelines. More varied art styles are being achieved through digital drawing and painting, offering far wider artistic expression than at any time in the history of the industry.

Character Design Challenge 2 - Moodboard

The second character design challenge is to design a sci fi MMA fighter.

For this challenge I will be aiming to design an alien who competes in the galactic equivalent of the UFC.
The next topic I will be looking into is page layouts so I will use this as the basis for a short 1 or 2 page strip where I will look at formal and informal comic page layouts.

Character Design Challenge 2

The second challenge is #74: Design an Sci fi MMA fighter.

Progress Presentation 1

We had the first set of progress presentations for the Honours Project. The idea was to show our peers and lecturers what we have planned for our projects and how we have started going about achieving our goals.

I spoke about my initial ideas for the project, how it had been a number of separate ideas that were all part of a whole so they were all put into one.

Until yesterday I was thinking about this project the wrong way. I was planning an art project that I wanted to do and trying to find a way to justify it for the academic side. Comparing the way comics and graphic novels are produced pre digital art vs post digital art was starting to emerge as a way to take research. 

The focus of the project should be taking a series bible through to a completed set of sequential pages and covers, the technology is just a set of tools that I can use along the way. 

Another thing that was suggested was a slight modification to the character design challenge. When designing the characters I will start considering the situations the characters might get into. When it comes to the painting every 4th week, rather than being just a character design standing there I will start to try painting them within short one page strips every second week. 

Overall the feedback was really helpful with moving the not only moving the project forward but also finally defining the goals of the project.

This week I will finish my general research and get cracking on to the practical arty goodness.