Key Questions For Laying Out A Comics Page

Patron ChrisDraws asked the question of how I approach illustrating a page, what questions do I ask myself before starting to draw. I think there are a couple to consider:

What are the “impact” moments on the page?

Whether I am drawing my own script or working from one by another writer, the first step for me is always to identify what the key moments are. Every single panel should reveal information to the reader, but some information is more weighted than others, and it is valuable to first parse out what are the more “important” panels, and to start allocating enough space for them on the page.  What are the important panels?

• An establishing shot of a location
• A dynamic action
• A strong emotional beat
• A shot intended to indicate scale or movement

If a page contains one or more of these “impact” moments then I will prioritize placing those in the overall design, and then work around them to place the secondary panels. What are the secondary panels?

• Conversation between characters
• “Transitional” or mundane action
• “Detail” shots that are there to add texture to a scene but not be the main focus

Designing a page is always a push and pull between these two types of panels and figuring out what feels like the correct balance of communication of information to the reader, and the flow of the page. This is often intuitive, based on my internalized understanding of storytelling, but I think with time it can be something that comes pretty easily.

What size and shape should the panels be?

This is directly related to the above and while there is no hard rule, I follow some basic principles:

• Scene transitions/new locations should be large, and indicate the scale of the scene. Establishing a big new location needs to be clear and vibrant in the mind of the reader, and a small throwaway panel will likely not plant the scene adequately.
• Panels involving a dynamic action should ideally follow the direction of the action. If a character is falling, I prefer to use a tall vertical panel. If they are moving in a horizontal direction, I will often use a wide panel that spans the width of the page. You want to help sell the movement of the action by guiding the eye with the shape/direction of the panel.
• Strong emotional beats/dramatic plot beats should be given a good amount of page space to reinforce the impact in the mind of the reader.
• Panels with conversation or “mundane” action I will usually keep smaller (relative to the other panels) and uniform in shape

None of these are iron-clad and never to be deviated from, but they are good rules of thumb for me, a good starting point.

How busy is the page?

Often when laying out the page design I realize that there are simply too many panels or too dense with information for the page to be read comfortably. Often a page with many panels can be a deliberate design choice, but that needs to feel intentional. If it is poorly executed and the result of bad planning it can just feel too cramped, and compromising panels that ought to have more space. In that case, I will make judgment calls about what can be edited out, or combined, in order to reduce panel density. In the past I have been ruthless with combining or omitting panels, often leading to some tense conversations with writers and editors! But I am usually confident in my reasoning for doing it and have won them over in the end 😃

How long will this take to draw?

This is also an important consideration, especially when working for a client on deadline. With most page rates being fairly low for the amount of work that’s often involved, I always look for ways that I can make the drawings and compositions simpler or more streamlined in order to reduce the amount of time spent drawing. In commercial comics,  production efficiency is an essential skill - if it’s gonna take you 4 days to draw a single page because you’ve made it excessively complex and detailed, you may find it a struggle to keep getting hired. It’s part of the job to find creative solutions to increase efficiency, while not sacrificing clarity or impact.

Below are some pages from the Catwoman story I did (written by Ed Brubaker) for her 80th Anniversary Special:

In this page I made sure to devote the top third of the page to establish the setting. Making this panel large and fully detailing the environment means that you can get away with less detail in subsequent panels - if you’ve already clearly set the scene, it will remain in the mind of the reader. Note in panel 4 that Catwoman is moving left to right, cartwheeling away from the bullets, so I made that panel extend the full width of the page.

Panels 1 & 2 here are again horizontal wide panels to accentuate the movement of the character. I really wanted the panel of her going hog wild on the thug to be impactful so I gave it a lot of room on the page.

Most of the page here is devoted to two establishing shots of Gotham City, with enough room to indicate the scale of the buildings and elevated train. The two middle panels I deemed to be less significant in terms of page real estate.

This page is the climactic reveal (sorry for spoilers!) - through the story we have learned that Catwoman is desperately trying to find something that the Joker gang has in their possession, but we don’t yet know what - on this page it is revealed that it’s Slam Bradley, who is close to drowning in a submerged taxi. The reveal of Slam is meant to be a surprising, impactful moment so it gets the biggest part of the page. The final panel is a vertical panel for the motion as they swim upward.

This final page is relatively understated, with some basic paneling for conversation between Slam and Holly. The bottom panel contained a reference to the late Darwyn Cooke, and was meant to act as a somewhat melancholy tribute to him, so to reinforce that final emotional beat I made it the largest panel on the page and contained the other panels within it.

So that’s some of my thought process for laying out pages. It’s a complex process but learning some basic principles helps it all go easier!