The Trickiness of a Three-Panel Structure

On Twitter recently, Melanie Gillman had a terrific breakdown of the latest page from As the Crow Flies. It’s a lovely little lesson in the kind of details artists think about to improve readability.

They called the two left, bigger right structure “one of those panel structures you’re Not Supposed To Do in comics” because readers in a left-to-right language may go in that order instead of reading down, then across, as intended.

Oh, forgot I wanted to talk about this sequence after it went up! This is one of those panel structures you're Not Supposed To Do in comics. pic.twitter.com/08dcI0Lgzn

— Melanie Killed a Man (@melgillman) October 20, 2016

Old-school 70s superhero comics (when they started experimenting with layouts but didn’t yet have educated readers or finalized techniques) used to add little directional arrows between the panels, which looked clunky. Melanie instead tried more subtle, professional tricks, as they elaborated:

1) Same shot in the two left panels, and same background color. They visually feel like part of a sequence.

— Melanie Killed a Man (@melgillman) October 20, 2016

2) Word balloon in P2 opens up into the gutter above it. This makes it "connected" to that space, and pulls the reader's eye down from 1–>2

— Melanie Killed a Man (@melgillman) October 20, 2016

3) Sydney in P1 is literally looking right down in the direction of P2. Readers like to follow the direction of characters' gazes!

— Melanie Killed a Man (@melgillman) October 20, 2016

4) Slightly slanted vertical gutter between P1+2 and P3. I'm not totally sure why, but perfect vertical borders will misdirect more readers.

— Melanie Killed a Man (@melgillman) October 20, 2016

They end with advice: “be careful and use this stuff sparingly.”

…but it took ALL THAT just to make this simple 3-panel order work! Try it out sometime, but be careful and use this stuff sparingly.

— Melanie Killed a Man (@melgillman) October 20, 2016