phrases. - The Official GlobalComix Blog

In our last Creator Tips and Tricks article, we talked about the basics of paneling and flow. This week, we are going to dig a little deeper into this flow idea. Understanding gutters, panel layouts, and how to make your pages easier to read. A confusing page could cost you a reader, and nobody wants that!

With that introduction, let's dig into Gutters and Panel Layouts!

Looking at a standard comic page as a reader, you might not know that these pages are very carefully crafted to keep you reading. As a creator, you might know the pages take some time to plan and create. Now that we have some understanding of comic flow from our last article, visual narrative, and margins...

No matter the format we use to tell our stories, be it comics, manga, comic strips or koma, we need to understand the flow of a page. By flow, I mean panel to panel, bubble to bubble, and eventually, page to page. A good flow is very important, as it keeps the reader reading. Any type of disruption in that flow can knock the reader out of the experience and possibly cause them to stop reading. That's obviously the last thing that we want.

With that flow we need slower times and faster times, this is called pacing, or timing. You don’t want to speed through a moment that needs to be slower, but you don’t want to drag out something that isn’t interesting or...