Mal Jones is an illustrator & designer in Alexandria, VA.

Cross page panels, why? (or answering Graham’s question from Twitter)

Posted in Obsession » Storytelling on January 3, 2009 at 5:34 PM

Recently on Twitter:

Me: "wondering what's with the trend of drawing panels across two pages, so that the readability goes bonkers."

Graham: "@skeletonjones example?"

What I was talking about was a recent trend I'm noticing where artists are stretching panels across the gutters of comic books. Dialogue on these panels begin on one side of the gutter and end on the other.

Examples (Red shows the gutter, the green box highlights the panel example)!

Artwork by Bryan Hitch, from Fantastic Four #562

Artwork by Andy Macdonald, from Punisher War Journal #26

My Twitter post was me asking "Why are comic artists doing this? Doesn't this make the page tougher to read and digest? At least for people that aren't regular comic readers... and even for people like me who have read comic since the beginning of time?

Now Bryan Hitch and Andy Macdonald are both really kick ass artists, so no one should read on with the idea of that I'm bashing them or their pages. I'm just talking about a trend I've noticed, and not necessarily a good one.

Traditional English Speaking reading methods for novels are from left to right and then down the page. When looking at a book, that's probably how most people skim and how most people digest the information. This general trend continue over to comics.

When the page is broken to subvert the trend it's usually with a purpose. The artist or designer will put in visual cues to let the reader know what's going on and keep them from having to figure it out on their own. Sometimes this is done with a little arrow (which is a pretty lousy solution, but hey, sometimes you do what you can) or other design elements. JH Williams III uses cross gutter panels through out Promethea to reasonable success by using large graphics to keep the reader following the page correctly. Jones note: I'll add in a few pages when I get back home and near a scanner.

What's become known as "widescreen" storytelling has creating an influx of page wide panels in comics. Crossing the gutter with panels could just be another extension of that style. No matter what though, if a panel crosses a gutter it's going to make your brain pause. It's almost like a reflex. It's creates something akin to an incomplete thought and that's a way to throw your reader right out of the story. And newer readers that just aren't as familiar with the form... that's a really easy way to lose them.

A gutter is an element any artist needs to think about, like the fold for a Web page or the margins in a magazine. The catch with comics is it's Hybrid format (somewhere between traditional novels, illustrations, and magazines lies the rules to creating a comic). The gutter has more of an effect on the reader, so special consideration needs to be given to it.