I don't want this thread to be languishing at the old place, so:
11 IDEAS FOR ENLIVENING A COMICS PAGE. Some pages will just lay there, not engaging you. And if you're not engaged, the reader won't be either. Let’s talk about ways to solve that problem as artists. 🧵
Your goal is STORYTELLING. If the scene isn't interesting, maybe there's nothing happening to engage the reader—no relevant conflict, no attempt to overcome an obstacle in pursuit of a goal. Fix that rather than just trying to obscure story problems with clever pictures. BUT...
…you might not have that option. So here are things you can do as an artist. (or elements to think about if you are writing for an artist.) Treat these suggestions as options to deploy, like Wallace Wood's "22 Panels that Always Work."
1 CONTRAST can add humor and make elements in a panel comment on each other. Put your shabby romantic lead next to a spotless butler in a tux. Juxtapose opposites. Big vs little. Warm color v cool. Dark vs lite. Curvy vs angular. Plain vs lavish. Young vs old. Alert vs Exhausted.
2 PROPS Build a scene around a single striking prop or detail. Just make it MEMORABLE. It can tell the reader something about the character or setting it belongs to. Look at the mid-century illustrator Al Parker for some great uses of props.
3 MOOD SWITCH Life can be perverse. Laughs at a funeral. Tears at a birthday party. Sometimes you can drop the dominant mood of a scene for one panel & insert something incongruous in there that, just for a moment, reminds the reader that this isn't a one-note world.
4 MOVEMENT adds interest. When your characters talk they can stretch, bend, twist, gesture. Fiddle w/ their glasses, rub their hands together, reach to tie a shoe, wave away a bug. Movement does more than just make a page more lively. It can make characters more believable.
Here's me, jumping in to emphasize the part that it's all about storytelling. If your wild layout or cool object or background parallel story add to the mood/theme/whatever of the scene, great. If they distract, not so great.
So if the story's meant to be feeling oppressive, then the shopping...
...scene should too. Maybe our shopper is hunched over her cart, glowering, angrily grabbing innocent groceries and carting them violently. Maybe she's paranoid, jumping at shadows. Or holding back tears.
If that big-element layout looks scary, maybe it needs tweaking for a romantic scene. Etc.
Maybe the scenes made stronger if you play against mood -- a romantic stroll in a dystopian thriller could be set somewhere beautiful but with ugly posters announcing curfew rules and armored peace officers in the background that the lovers are blind to.
You absolute angel, thank you so much for this thread! I have some "people talking in rooms" scenes that are reading like underseasoned oatmeal at the moment and I'm so excited to jazz them up
They’re great threads! I’m not much of a draftswoman, I just do cartoon nonsense, but this stuff is helpful to pretty much anyone involved in comics. Even the non-artist writers can get help from the extra insight into what goes into, or can go into, a panel!
I try and look at panel image choices like Mamet described edited, in a way. Why are we looking at this moment from this angle now? What moment becomes important enough to cut to? What important information is being conveyed visually, and how can you best present it in the set ups?
Do the images echo, reflect, or contrast with each other? If you were on a movie spending an hour setting up lights and props and blocking, what is the best use of every element in the situation and the frame?
