{"id":1101,"date":"2015-06-06T01:00:02","date_gmt":"2015-06-06T05:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/makingcomics.spiltink.org\/?p=1101"},"modified":"2020-07-08T17:18:40","modified_gmt":"2020-07-08T21:18:40","slug":"flow-the-eyelines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salgoodsam.com\/mc\/flow-the-eyelines\/","title":{"rendered":"Flow, & the Eyelines!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

FLOW<\/span> sums up a key concept in comics page or strip design: Underlying structures that make the work legible, flow and should not need to be explained to readers.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Dialog always starts on the left, and you don’t want to cross tails! Lead the eye with word balloons in a logical direction..<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Flow is a big subject, though to nail down simply. It covers everything from the rudimentary like having the first person speaking always on the left side of the panel, so that their word balloons tale won’t cross the next one when we read the page left to right. To what kinds of arrangements of panels can work, and which might confuse readers more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a previous post I talked about grids<\/a>, specifically the 9 panel grid but I mentioned there are many others. Part of why they help make, making comics easier, is that they can simplify the decision-making process of where the next panel goes. But, even if you never break them up or very panel sizes AT ALL<\/span>, just use a grid, there are configurations  of the content within that can break the storytelling, losing and confusing readers. So it’s important to learn a few basics about how to build Flow into your pages and make sure your comics are easy to read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until recently there was no science to this just theory that I knew about. But in 2013 I read of a formal study done on panel layouts, and we can now say with some certainty how people are likely to read one based on a few kinds of page designs. That’s invaluable insight to add to the old wisdom, and I detail some other notions here that are borrowed for some other disciplines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Flow,<\/a>
Flow, left to right, and back again.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

First some basics. In northamerica and the western world, we typically read comics the same way as we do pages of text. Left to right, in horizontal rows top to bottom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manga, Japanese Comics, reverse this running right to left. Both otherwise follow most of the same basic rules beyond that mirroring. We read Comics One Panel<\/strong> at a time<\/a>–analogous to one word at a time–to the end of each row of panels–analogous to a sentence. And then back to the left [or right for manga] to start over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From left to right, top row first and then back and from left to right again. So in this nine panel page layout example, the arrows show how we’d read it<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The spaces between Panels<\/strong> are called Gutters<\/strong>, and the area around the outside of the panels before the edge of the paper, typically is referred to as a Margin<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Art that goes to the edge of the page is called Full Bleed<\/strong>. Text in Boxes<\/strong> = voice over or third person. Text in Balloons<\/strong> = speech, or thoughts as indicated by different styles of Tails<\/strong>, which indicate who is speaking or thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Captain America #111 (1969), script by Stan Lee, pencils and colors by Jim Steranko, inks by Joe Sinnott<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Now the study I mentioned can be read in full here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was published in Frontiers in April 2013 by Neil Cohn of the Center for Research in Language, University of California San Diego. They took a famous experimental Jim Steranko<\/a> page designed to confuse readers, and removed all the art from the panels. By the way, that Steranko page has its own dedicated paper<\/a> in fact, analyzing the way different readers interpreted it! I recommend you download it<\/a> and read it as well!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also created a number of other ‘ghost’ page layouts without any art, based on a number of conventions they found in a sampling of american comics. They gave the bank layouts<\/a> generated from that to both comics literate, and novice comics readers [refrence link<\/a>], and told them to enumerate the panels in order of how they imagined they were supposed to be read! Cool Beans. Honestly we had nothing like that to look at when i was learning about page design. We had some good examples and rules of thumb, but this is great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"readingorderissue\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Now the basic six panel grid led to no surprises. It was more of a control than anything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We tend to read that left to right, then back and again<\/a>. Manga readers will reverse that<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also looked into what happens when you stagger or overlap panels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happens when you change the size of gutters or get rid of them, and what happens when you have two panels stacked on each other next to a tall one, on either the left or the right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That last one is interesting because the same thing comes up in Drawing Words & Writing Pictures<\/a> as a problematic page design. I think the example is drawn by Jessica Abel. They use it to propose that when you have two panels on the left, and a single tall one on the right, there could be confusion about what order to read them in? Is it left to right, then back to the lower left? or is is left, down, THEN to the right<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think in part, the speech balloon placement in this example suggests we should read it left to right, then down to the left again. As the Eye Line created by the red arrows is much more smooth. I’ll come back to that in a moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\t\t