Comic pacing

Kinda like a lonely Marvel Method? I can see doing the layouts off the cuff, especially for a webcomic type thing, but don't think I'd want to just start drawing something for more than a few pages if I didn't know at least the basics of a plan.

Not necessarily. Certain concepts benefit from more issues than others, but in the end it all depends on how well writers can develop it.

On how they're planned, Image and Dark Horse do ask for general synopses on their respective submissions pages. Image also apparently now wants at least 3 issues completed beforehand accepting a new series to avoid delays.

That's probably VERY MUCH for the best. I remember the days of wondering if I'd ever see that next Battle Chasers issue…

Gonna mention Morrison.
His compression is like a rollercoaster.
Sometimes in stories it serves it well and leaves a lot up to the audience to work out and have fun with.

Then you get shit like with The Invisible's final volume. A mess of chaos, not got a clue what you're reading or what he's writing.
He'd probably answer back with that's it's an expression of his chaos shite but fuck me The Invisibles start and end was crap

Thank you for this thread, OP, I am a fan of pacing and frequently reference it as a reason why I did or did not enjoy a story. Also thank you for sharing one of my top five or so favorite comic short stories.

Thanks, it's a topic I've been thinking a lot about while trying to get my own comic written and laid out. I've actually been reading Claremont's entire run on Uncanny X-Men, and to do that, I started with Len Wein and Dave Cockrum in Giant Size X-Men 1. Which isn't just important for all the characters it introduced, but HOW it introduced them. I've gone over these pages a lot these last few weeks, so I figure I'll post them and some of my thoughts, see how others feel about them.

First off, the old tradition of a splash page for page 1, in this case serving as sort of a second cover, with the added details of the returning characters, Banshee and Sunfire, and a calmer image of the original team to say "don't worry, the mantle is being passed willingly to the new team". But if you're reinventing the X-Men, where do you start? How do you explain that mutants are hated and feared? You start with the one most likely to be chanced down the streets by a mob with pitchforks, Nightcrawler.

His first page establishes they he did nothing to inspire this mob except the sin of being born different, and ends with a classic image of a "monster" chased to a roof by villagers. On the next page Kurt laments to himself that their hatred is so strong that they would burn their own village just to destroy him, and this sends him into a rage. He attempts to match their hatred and ferocity with his own, but in the end it is no match, leaving him at the mercy of those who will kill him. Saving Kurt on the next page, Xavier introduces the reader, who very likely is picking up an X-Men book for the first time, a few important themes and facts, all very efficiently. He is immensely powerful, and he runs a school for people like Kurt: mutants. And a brief mention of a theme that comes up from time to time in X-Men, the conflicting desires of wanting to be normal, or rather to fight the harder struggle to be accepted for whoever, whatever you are. These three pages introducing Kurt tell a new reader more about the X-Men than most people could eloquently explain in a few minutes.

Adding to that last post, notice pages 2-4 end with peril, peril, accepting an uncertain future. Even though page 4 does reach a resolution, there is now built up expectation of what Kurt will learn from Xavier, the resolution itself is a hook, just like a cliffhanger.

Next up is Wolverine. Not only are we building up this scenario of Xavier hurriedly recruiting mutants, he admits the need for them is desperate, but not why, leaving you wondering. The next page has Wolverine accept, and establish some elements of his trademark attitude. They leave, but the page ends with Wolverine's former commanding officer threatening that there will be consequences down the line.

Banshee is an established character who has no reason not to help the X-Men, so two panels and DONE. Establishing shots follow, and we first see Storm, hailed as a goddess, and what form her powers take is only hinted at here, the reveal pushing us to turn the page. Notice the sharp contrast between this and Nightcrawler's introduction, Storm is worshiped, loved, and in the skies of Africa she finds true happiness with the use of her mutant powers.When Xavier comes, she asks what he can offer her, and considering the wonderful existence she seems to be living, one is left wondering. And in the next page, in truth, Xavier offers her a shitty world that hates and fears her. But in exchange for that price, wisdom of the wider world and a call to responsibility inherent with her gifts. The fact that she agrees says a lot about Storm that doesn't need to be put into words. Sunfire is also returning, and makes it clear his motivation is purely for his own pride. A quick establishing look at Russia and there is no set up for Peter except a shouted warning and the realization of danger unseen, again ending a page with peril and pushing the reader onward.

Since these actually take me a while to write, and I'm tired, I'll be back later to post the last few pages, leaving you with Peter's sister in some unknown peril if you never read Giant Size X-Men 1. Perhaps me being lazy is a form of pacing as well…

But, I figured I could talk about something much smaller before I pass out or whatever. Now, my understanding of this (admitting I didn't super research it), is that Bruce Timm wanted to use this first page in a Batgirl story. Barbara stripping down in the middle of a crowd of fleeing people who won't remember what she looks like IS a good gag, though I have to assume a bit to risque for the editors who have told Timm to hold back his lewd at other times as well.

Being prolific as fuck, Bruce Timm probably wasn't that put off by having to redo the page, and have Barbara rush to a changing room. The situation called for a different layout, because if she's in a crowd, her space never really changes. The uniform layout of panels suited the chaos of the rushing crowd because, in a way, that chaos was uniform, a background static that Barbara could ignore to focus on preparing for the dangers that lie ahead. But a changing room is small and cramped in comparison to a store floor. So we go from establishing shot to show her changing venue from the floor to the changing room, establishing the size of the changing room, and then a series of small, cramped panels that stumble over eachother, adding to the feeling her frantically changing. Top it off with a triumphant reveal of her in full costume, and you have a single page that perfectly transforms everyday Barbara Gordon into the heroic Batgirl. If I do or see a topic about layouts, I'll bring this up again, but for now it also shows pacing wonderfully (as layouts and pacing for comics are closely knit). Notice that only the middle of both pages really changes, the first panel is Barbara acknowledging that she needs to change, and the last is her charging headlong into danger. Assuming no later developments in the story related to her changing in public or in a changing room, either page fulfills the same purpose, and could be interchanged to taste (in this case, the taste of the editor). Knowing what you want to show and establish on each page does a lot of set the pace of your story, while still giving you room to change things around a fair bit. This is one reason rough outlines are good, they will actually help you stay flexible instead of making you feel pinned into a corner if you focused too much on details first.

This is a great thread, OP. Thank you.

I've gotta say, I'm really casual when it comes to comics. To be honest, outside of Holla Forums, I never really think about comic unless I'm complaining about a mainstream movie tie-in or something. So you could call me uninitiated. I've read a bunch of hipster SJW garbage that's been storytimed here, and I've storytimed a couple of especially ludicrous comics myself. Even as a kid, I never thought much of these old-school comics - way too wordy for a child that just wants to play video games.

split into two posts because it won't go through for some reason

I have to say, these comics are in another league from the shit that's coming out today, and that's just to my mostly untrained eye.
Each page is a construction, an exercise in progressing a story while drawing the reader in with well-composed panels, clear action, and striking colors. While some of the dialogue comes off as cheesy, personally, it gives it that sort of… heroic feel?

splitting it up AGAIN what the FUCK Hotwheels?

This isn't how people talk, but it's dramatic and effective in its use, and it's a breath of fresh air compared to the complete utter garbage that are most modern comics. Maybe the internet has ruined these stories because I can't get incredibly annoying people and phrases out of my head while I'm reading them, but this?
Shit, this is so dramatic that I can already hear the music in my head. Each character, in a page or less, demonstrates more personality than so much shit coming out nowadays.

Don't feel discouraged at the lack of responses, OP. You've made a good thread.

>remove italics from dramatic
Uh… sorry, OP.

I feel very much the same way. While I get the desire to push for more natural speech patterns, a lot of modern stuff just has everyone be "witty", and you lose a lot of personality if everyone is quipping all the time. Not to mention the loss of though bubbles in most books means actions have to be explained only by spoken words (which are limited by trying to feel more like real or tv speech), actions (which could slow the pace greatly), or not at all (which leaves the reader confused and frustrated by seemingly dumb actions). I've always considered one of the biggest advantages of comics to be the inner monologue, you know what your protagonist (and at times others) are thinking, and why they are reacting. And of course, thought bubbles are even less natural, in the heat of the moment you're not forming full sentences in your mind, you're thoughts are a jumble of emotions and perception. You're learning about the character on a level that you simply don't have time for in a tv show or movie, and in a much faster pace than simply reading a book. The hybrid nature of the mixture of words and pictures takes full advantage of the medium.

Since I have all these X-Men files, here is a particular scene that I feel is greatly enhanced by thought bubbles and the way speech is handled in older books. The layout is wonderful, the first page ending on the moral question of taking his life, and the second revealing her decision and the consequences. You don't NEED words to understand what is happening, the art could easily speak for itself. But the application of the words, the mixed thoughts of how Magneto is only really their foe due to twists of fate that could have happened to any of the X-Men, Storms personal reasons for not wanting to kill, and leaving no doubt as to what her final decision would be, these all add meaning to the events, and inform us about Storm and Magneto. Again, this is in part due to the times, there was no wiki or huge forums to check out to ask why Storm didn't just slice his throat, the assumption of every issue had to be that it was the VERY FIRST issue someone was ever going to pick up, and explaining motivations is important. Hell, even explaining how Magneto dresses himself reinforces how amazing his mastery of his power is, beyond the large displays of force he exerts before and after these pages. For an industry that constantly wants fresh readers, the fact that on a basic story telling level it's moved so far away from making EVERY issue a good jumping on point is rather sad.

So, returning to the action, we now see the threat, a tractor has somehow begun barreling down on Peter's sister. The how and why of it doesn't matter, there is no time to even think about it as Peter rushes to save her, and we are introduced to his power immediately. We end the page with the question of just how strong his armored form is, will it save himself and his sister from this runaway machine? The next page makes it apparent that Peter's armored body is strong enough to endure, and Xavier appears again. And setting him apart from the others, Peter has a family, a home he loves and only his desire to grow and do the right thing really take him away. The page ends with his family giving him their blessing, there is no change in their love for their son simply due to his being a mutant.

A tearful good by leads again to a scene change, introducing our final team member. John Proudstar is probably one of the single most direct characters you'll ever see. He has PROUD right in his name, and you know that pride comes from an idealized take on the past accomplishments of his people, who have fallen from grace. This racial and personal pride continues into the next page, and is why John initially rejects Xavier's offer, going so far as to call him "Custer". But playing on that pride is also how Xavier gets him to change his mind, John feels he has something to prove, about his people and more importantly about himself. This is a trait that will ultimately prove his downfall, but that's a story for another time…

The page ends with Xavier's, and the realization that even he is unsure of if the team he's assembled is up to the task ahead. This ends the first act of the comic, and the beginning of one of the most iconic teams of all time.

If you guys have any pages you particularly want to talk about, good, bad or undecided, feel free to post and talk about them. I might look for a few specific ones later to talk about.

For anyone interested, I decided to start my own board, and see how it goes. The board is called /comic/, deals with comics only, and is mainly there to encourage people to get working on their books. I figure some people interested in making comics are in this thread, so come on over.

It helps if you crosslink it, like this: >>>/comic/

Yeah, looking back on it, that probably would help a lot.

I am debating if I should do a few posts about how I'd fix pacing in some other books. I'm overall enjoying the Gwenpool storytime thread, but there is one small part in the first story where I kinda wish they had pushed 2 pages into one. But sometimes I assume you end up with a 9 page story that your editor told you should be 10.

I also might start a thread there about the dialog stuff I mentioned here but add dialog to Rhodey's death in Civil War II, because just a thought bubble or two would fix up MASSIVE plotholes. Unless one of the side stories does a much better job presenting the battle as making sense.

You raise an excellent point. Personally, I think this is one of the strongest suits of books: a good book will let you get into someone's head and you can really see how they tick. There are vanishgly few mediums that can get away with showing someone's inner thoughts. Movies and television shows tend to shy away from the dreaded voiceover, and the only game I can recall that lets you see what your character is thinking at any given moment is… Heavy Rain. One of the few things that game did well, if you ask me, but that's one of the only things it does well.
But yeah, like you said, it's the combination of words and pictures that make comic books what they are. You can't neglect one or the other without the book as a whole getting dragged down.

Why do I find this so cool? It's so simple and throwaway.

Interesting topic.
I've started reading Western comics more recently in the past year (I was first introduced to it via Fables, but I've been getting far more into it now), and what I've noticed is that, likely because of the issue-by-issue basis of the things I'm reading now (Conan, for example), where it seems very… Compact. Too compact, clearly trying to fit more writing in a tiny 20-page issue than they can draw.
You'll have a panel where the character has a surprised expression, but the dialogue in it will include from moments before they were surprised. Along with that, I know Conan in particular is very bad with 'show don't tell,' especially with early issues. Pic related.

I own several X-men digests, but this is the first time I've gotten to read these stories in color. Thanks, guys.

It seems like story pacing quality is inversely proportional to art quality, and the medium has suffered because art has gotten beter and beter (more colors, higher resolution, digital touch up, etc) whereas story elements are the same as they were 70 years ago (speech bubbles and narrator boxes). 50 years ago, they had to sell the book on it's story, and use the art to help tell it. Today, they use the story to link together impressive splash pages and visuals. It's backwards.

I see what you're getting at, but I'm gonna nitpick and say you mean the technology has gotten better. Art follows design principles and rules just like any other aesthetic pursuit, and those principles change much more slowly. Composition of a page is something that a computer can't currently do on its own.

Personally I prefer if there werent even any monoloque at all, but that you can see what someone is thinking by the "acting" alone.

Of course if there is monologue, a good monologue does not just repeat what is happening on the panels, but give it wider context. Monologue should not be used as a crutch to explain what is going on in the story. It should be a tool that enhances the story but is not the primary way of the audience getting clarity on what is going on.

No dialogue whatsoever is also a very powerful tool. Its only real downside is it requires way more staging (and thus more pages) to correctly set up since you're balancing the flow of reading with clarity and mood. It requires more work but it can yield more powerful results, which is why in my opinion it is a superior form of storytelling in a comic book, which is a visual medium after all.

Thanks for reminding of Nemo's awesome introduction in the comic and how much I fucking hated the way they introduced him in that shitty movie.

He just shows up in the room, doing nothing awesome and we only have M's word that he's a badass.

Showing and not telling goes a long way.

IMO Final Crisis is a good example of how some times his compressed style goes to shit. Stuff just kind of happens and you have to have read Seven Soldiers and be fairly familiar with Kirby's Fourth World mythology to have even a passing idea as to what's going on. Other important parts of the plot are left to tie-ins (Submit and Superman Beyond) that you're given no indication you need to read.

The end result is the entire thing feeling like a choppy, confusing mess.

I thank OP for doing this thread. This is a great example of what is missing in this board. Sure cuckchan has a few threads like this but usually it just crashes into nothing more but a penis measuring contest. But again I am glad that OP has started a thread that explains more about the necessary elements in creating visual story telling. Thank you again OP.

A computer can do it just fine, it just won't be as pleasing to our aesthetics as one designed by an individual with "talent".

Or maybe more pleasing, depending on how much Squirrel Girl you subject yourself to.

I agree, the problem with most massive crossover events is you have to have kept up with what was going on at the time to understand what's going on now. And that's just terrible writing, you shouldn't have to read five tie in books to understand what's going on currently.

I'd say that any story should be reasonably contained. If I need another story to explain some kind of massive plot hole that could have been easily addressed, I have failed telling the story.

Our dear customers summed up this problem of massive event crossover comics: "Want to know how hunger games ends? Watch Paul Blart 2!"

That's always been my problem with crossover events. I don't mind them in theory but they need to be able to self contai their stories parallel to each other. Editor's notes are okay but I'd prefer if you weave that information in another book into the current books story naturally so we can choose wether we want to read the full story later or not. I think the worse attempt is when you split back and forth between an ongoing story between two books.

Honestly, it's really a very outdated way to garner more customers to a weakening sale in one book. Universe continuity can be stifling at times when it comes to these major events. Current stories can get stopped just for a big event. Some books can work better without being part of these major events. It would be cool if there was ongoings that aren't mini-series that could not be part of these event comics and just do their own thing.

I think the biggest thing that's forgotten in a lot of recent events is that the core book of the event has to be an actually good, stand alone story. Everything else should be stuff that touches upon it, as the characters of those books are effected by things, but you should never NEED a tie in to appreciate the core book. I hold up Infinity Gauntlet as the last big crossover I really enjoyed, and you can read the core issues of the story and get EVERYTHING you need to know. Even the basics of the last year or two of set up the book got is summarized, it's a perfectly self contained story. There are things that definitely expand upon it and are interesting reads on their own, but nothing you need just to understand what's happening.

A huge complaint I see about Civil War II is the exclusion of the fight with Thanos from issue 1, and it's not even presented that well in issue 0. Hell, I had to find out from somewhere else that Rhodey and Carol were fucking dating, there is NO hint of that in Civil War II issue 1! If Tony and Carol are the main characters of the story, shouldn't they be clearly defined as characters in the first issue? This ties into the lack of thought bubbles or boxes these days, characters end up doing things leaving you wondering "why would you do something that stupid" on every page.

(Checked)

Not necessarily. When you go back to reading first appearances of classic Marvel and DC characters, you will notice a lot of narration that states exactly what is happening on the page and characters saying exactly what they are doing. After printing techniques were improved, creators were no longer forced to do that and were less restrained.

Problem is that technological advances provided artists with a lot of crutches. Next thing you know you have comics full of copy-pasted panels, reused backgrounds, and some cheap hacks with no skill and work ethic.

Honestly, American comics would benefit quite a bit if they would stop desperately clenching to 30 page issue format, and instead went with self contained thicker volumes that are published less frequently.

There are a lot of problems involving comic releases in a monthly format. While most would prefer a 3 month release or full graphic novel every year especially when the monthly books are more costly and not full stories, the ROI especially for a smaller publishers or indie creators often can't wait for the completion of a full book. Unfortunately with the average monthly comic book price being around 4 these days and only with one distributor at comic stores, it's hard to adopt new readers willing to take the plunge for a monthly when they feel a trade will come. But a trade is fully reliant on the success of the monthly.

Final Crisis gets better each time for me as I learn more about DC, first time reading it was a nightmare.

It's sort of my measuring stick of how well I know my DC history.

On the topic thought bubbles in comics, now with digital comics there can features like using "mouse cursor over" / alt text for character thoughts (or simply click the page to thoughts to show up).

I remember a few years back some retail comic tried something similar by bundling in a small UV light. I believe you were supposed to read the entire comic without it a first, then read it again with the light to show the character thought balloons (printed with UV ink).

Also want to thank OP for this thread. It's pretty good.

I not a fan of the current 20-22 page comic, I would like to see a return to the 30+ page comic. Then again I would like to see the coloring style of old comics like OP posted return again as well, I just like it better than the most modern stuff for some reason.

I've read Phantom stories that are regularly 32-36 pages and those have pretty decent self-contained stories that fit in that length. Not too long, not too short.