SHOW DON'T TELL - A PRIMER IN SEQUENTIAL STORYTELLING.
Lesson 1: Panel Pacing and Timing.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and good night; whichever one it is when you're reading this. I've started this series of essays in hopes of reaching a wide audience and help to create an understanding of what comics, or I should say, Sequential Art, is, was, and can be. I'm using Will Eisners' COMICS & SEQUENTIAL ART and Scott McClouds' UNDERSTANDING COMICS as reference points. These are two of the most valuable tools any comics professional or wannabe can use. They both explore comics in a way that anyone has yet to rival. Let me break it down for you. I went into the Webster's New World Dictionary and looked up "Sequential Art". It's not there as two words, but rather 2 separate words;

Sequence: a succession of related shots or scenes developing a single subject or phase of a story.

Art: the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects.

Now, both Will Eisner and Scott McCloud have definitions of their own; Will Eisner: "The format of the comic book presents a montage of both word and image, and the reader is thus required to exercise both visual and verbal interpretive skills. The regimens of art (e.g. Perspective, symmetry, and brush strokes) and the regimens of literature (e.g. Grammar, plot, and syntax) become superimposed upon each other. The reading of the comic book is an act of both aesthetic perception and intellectual pursuit."

Whew!

Scott McCloud: "juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or produce an aesthetic response in the viewer."

Make up from the definitions what you will, I agree with both of them. For the bulk of this essay, I am going to discuss two very different comics, but similar scenes. Bryan Talbots' HEART OF EMPIRE OR THE LEGACY OF LUTHER ARKWRIGHT and Pat Lees' DARKMINDS. The similar scenes are from issue #7 of HEART OF EMPIRE and issue #1 of DARKMINDS. Both scenes involve a shootout in which a gunman sneaks his way into the inner chambers of a lead character.

The first aspect is panel pacing. This is a very important factor when laying out the page to be drawn. Pacing is mostly not even noticed, unless you are looking for it. Here's the definition from Comics and Sequential Art;

"In the modern comic strip or comic book, the device most fundamental to the transmission of timing is the panel or frame or box. These lines drawn around the depiction of a scene, which act as a containment of the action, have as one of their functions the task of separating or parsing the total statement. "

"panels have a very specific use, both for timing and storytelling"

In other words, the panels separate the action within the panels. (To this day, Will Eisner is still the only artist that can not use panel borders and tell a story perfectly) Let's take a look at some of the examples;

Ok, both examples are good. If you follow the panels from the top left-hand corner, everything flows well.

Example 1; Fighting, walking away from the fight down a hallway, drawing guns, in front of door, kicking door down. Fine, no problem.

Example 2; T&A shot of woman in bed, hearing the door bell and waking up, walking towards the door mumbling, looking through door at loaded gun, cursing and holding head on door. Ok, fine. The actions and movements are followed very well here. You, the reader, know what is going on. Right? Our next look at the continuing stories;

Here's where the problem comes in.

Example 3; guns pointing at woman in bed, woman cursing, shots fired, people in bed are blown away. Fine.

Example 4; Shot fired, door kicked down, woman back in bed???? Waitaminute..she was just seen looking out the peephole of her door at the gunman! How on gods green earth did she get back in bed? And next, she's running between rooms trying to avoid the gunshots! What? Pardon my French, but what the hell just happened here? First she's in front of the door then she's back a few feet, running? What in the world is going on here? Ever since this issue came out and I browsed through it in my local comics shop and saw this scene, it has baffled me. I don't understand how this passed any editor.

This is a perfect example of poor storytelling. What each author/illustrator is trying to portray here is a surprise shoot-out. The main characters are supposed to be surprised and taken back at an unusual situation in extraordinary circumstances. Mr. Talbot pulls it off perfectly. You see the gunman approaching and carrying out his mission. Each panel is laid out in an order that is easy for any reader to understand. Mr. Lee seems to have been watching too many anime movies to fully understand the medium of Sequential Art. The panels are sporadic and laid out much like a storyboard artist on a movie set would lay them out. There is just no real logic to how the panels are presented. Not that I dislike DARKMINDS at all, mind you, I just feel that it is the perfect example of bad storytelling that has plagued this industry for the last 10 years. The artwork is good. Its anime style which I happen to like a lot, but only when the story is told properly.

"To this day, Will Eisner is still the only artist that can not use panel borders and tell a story perfectly"

Believe it or not, folks, panels have a very specific use, both for timing and storytelling. For timing, they convey the mood of a story. Short, concise panels evoke a sense of speed, whereas medium panels evoke a sense of pacing. They let the story flow and characters develop. Large, full-page panels are for an effect. Usually one of shock. Rob Liefeld couldn't tell a story well if his life depended on it. Nobody uses full-page spreads as much as he does. Ever look at an issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA that he did? Nothing but full page spreads with no backgrounds that do nothing to tell a story, let alone a good one. Warren Ellis uses the panel pacing technique very well with his title THE AUTHORITY. Medium sized panels move along the $100,000,000 movie-blockbuster at an alarming pace and then the crap hits the fan with his larger-than-life double-page spreads of alien invasions. These panels are there for a purpose. To tell a story, effectively.

Timing and Panel Pacing are two very important factors in sequential art today, that, admittedly, most pros forget about.

Next time, we'll be discussing the flip side of comics storytelling: Writing and Expressive Anatomy. Be there or be square. Now go away.

Marc Deering is a regular contributor to PopImage.

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