Panel 5: You Want Me to Do What Now?

Hey guys! Welcome back to our regularly scheduled programming! After two "delayed" holiday postings we're finally back on our normal Monday schedule.

Today we're going to talk about something I'm sure a lot of my artist friends will be very happy about... some of you writers... not so much. It's about realism in your panel descriptions. Now, I'm not talking about realism in art, I'm talking about realizing that some things that work in other mediums do not work in comics. You're probably scratching you head here a bit so let me explain.

Comics (as you well know) are a series of static images that are used to convey action. And from time to time that rules out certain things we can do in them. A wonderful example is nodding (for the most part.) Unless you want to dedicate three or four panels to a character nodding "yes" (trust me, you probably don't) or are dealing with a very cartoony style (in which case you can get away with the whole drawing multiple heads to convey movement thing), you just can't get away with nodding in comics. The same goes for shaking one's head "no." This was something that I, thankfully, discovered while I was still illustrating my own scripts... so I haven't made the mistake of putting that in my comics since.

We also forget that some things are really hard or impossible to draw. A great example I came across recently was someone described a truck coming to a screeching halt, kicking up dust, and having the truck shudder because it stopped so fast... all in one panel. (Sorry to make an example of you, Mike.) Now this would look great on film, but is nearly impossible to convey in one panel in comics. The biggest issue is the shuddering. Especially since the focus was on the wheels in the panel description. 

There are a few ways to handle this. First, you can simply do away with the shuddering. The sudden stop can easily be conveyed with the kicking up off the dust and sound effects. Secondly, you could do a second panel of the driver and/or the passengers jerking forward (maybe one hitting his head on the dash or something) to convey the stark stop as well. (This would actually be my preferred solution if the sudden stop was truly important.) Thirdly, change the focus from the wheels to the whole truck and show the passengers again, jerking forward along with the dust kicking and some nice screeching sound effects. This last one is less preferable mostly because depending on your artist and the size of your panel, those could be some very small people to have to draw.

The last thing I want to discuss that is a major no no, is having characters perform multiple actions in one panel. I know this is a MASSIVE pet peeve of a lot of artists. As a writer I feel a lot of this stems from the fact that this is a fuzzy rule, because you can have a character do more than one action at once but you have to really think about what works and what doesn't. For example a character can bend over and pick something up in one panel. Those are two separate actions that can be easily conveyed in one panel. No problem. However, you cannot have someone walk over to someone and punch them in the face. The walking and the punching really have to be two separate panels.  Or at lot of times I'll see "He ran up and leaped through the air." Again, no dice. The running and leaping have to be two separate action.

The way I look at it, is this: If the character is not using the same appendages for the two actions, you're safe. Example, someone can walk and turn their head at the same time. Or walk and extend their arm/hand. Hell, they can do all three. Can they walk and jump at the same time? Nope. You need your legs for both. A lot of people don't understand why punching is off limits and it's actually really simple. It's because you use your feet and legs to stabilize yourself when punching. Anyone who's ever boxed, done martial arts, or even been in a fist fight can tell you this.

Well, that about covers it for this week. It's funny, I actually thought I was going to be reaching for things to talk about in those post, but it seems to have kind of run off on me. I hope this helps you guys out and I'm sure your artists will be relieved that you read this post. Have a nice week and we'll see you next time!