Friday, May 14, 2010

How many comic panels are too many...

I've been playing with this on and off, how many panels can you do before something gets too crowded or becomes so abstract it is no longer stylized the same way as the rest of the book? In the comic I write, the most I was able to pull off was 8 panels. (examples below)





These two were pretty successful, I like the first more than the second. I've seen books with 9 panel grids and even more... I'd love to hear some opinions on this sort of thing. Can I do more than 8 panels without things falling apart or becomming a puzzle? If 9, 10 ,12 , 15 panels are doable what would be the sort of scene, scenes for this? (I'm not going to do it just to do it, there has to be a reason behind it of course) Can a page say, with all sillouettes work ok in this comic? Will very small drawings work ok? (especially since a majority of the pages in this story have larger images. I'd love to hear some opinions

Tim

3 comments:

Michael Zapata said...

I like the first one too. It can be done, I just think it's harder to do. I've heard being able to draw small figures helps, because you can squeeze them into those panels.

It might work wonderfully with simple images. A ticking clock counting down, a stick of dynamite fizzing out, etc.

Jess said...

I like the first page's layout better then the second but they both work. Honestly I don't know if you would want to go too many more then 8 panels in a page because the start to either compress poorly or sometimes grow confusing. Almost as if there is too much information to digest. I would be opposed to seeing you try a page with more panels but I think that 8 or maybe 9 seems to be decent numbers to try.

Now this is coming more from a readers perspective since well I have very little layout skills for comics.

Unknown said...

As a scribe (and a non-artist) who's written a fair share of comic scripts, it's something I've struggled with. I'm always like ... maybe I can squeeeeze in just one more panel.