4`

`Viewpoint`

`Splashes`

`Line, shade, colour`

`Wit`

`Constraint`

`onward to the Landscape IN the page`

The basic page-reading convention in comics follows the way we read texts: left to right, and then top to bottom. Newspaper strips compiled onto book pages are easy enough to read, and many artists maintain as a matter of discipline a series of horizontal rows of frames on each book page, sometimes changing the width or rhythm of panels, but sticking close to the "original" style of reading (even with the odd decorative vertical swath).

But once the whole page could be laid out at a go, the temptation to change simple row-by-row reading to all sorts of choreographies proved irresistible.

Early on, however, it was sometimes unclear which way to go in a narrative, and artists grudgingly inserted directional arrows ("grudging" because they look like afterthoughts and they sully some of the panel layouts).

Once they got the hang of the syncopation, certain artists made panel and frame composition into high art, using action in one frame to point to the next, or to show where the eye should go without the stick-on arrows, or to abandon panel borders and use adjacent frames, text blocks, colours and page "decor" to lead the reader through the scenes.

In extended tales, subtle shifts in the typical pattern of page layout punctuate the reading at macro-scale, and help to shake up the pace of the story action.

Art Spiegelman, MAUS

On to Framing, Part 2

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		Ephemeral landscapes: of the page, storytelling . . . Framing scenes and transitions between them / 1

`back to the beginning of STORYTELLING` `Time` `Framing/1` `Framing/2` `Framing/3` `Framing/4` `Viewpoint` `Splashes` `Line, shade, colour` `Wit` `Constraint` `onward to the Landscape IN the page`		The basic page-reading convention in comics follows the way we read texts: left to right, and then top to bottom. Newspaper strips compiled onto book pages are easy enough to read, and many artists maintain as a matter of discipline a series of horizontal rows of frames on each book page, sometimes changing the width or rhythm of panels, but sticking close to the "original" style of reading (even with the odd decorative vertical swath). But once the whole page could be laid out at a go, the temptation to change simple row-by-row reading to all sorts of choreographies proved irresistible. Early on, however, it was sometimes unclear which way to go in a narrative, and artists grudgingly inserted directional arrows ("grudging" because they look like afterthoughts and they sully some of the panel layouts). Once they got the hang of the syncopation, certain artists made panel and frame composition into high art, using action in one frame to point to the next, or to show where the eye should go without the stick-on arrows, or to abandon panel borders and use adjacent frames, text blocks, colours and page "decor" to lead the reader through the scenes. In extended tales, subtle shifts in the typical pattern of page layout punctuate the reading at macro-scale, and help to shake up the pace of the story action. Art Spiegelman, MAUS On to Framing, Part 2
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Framing scenes and transitions between them / 1

Framing scenes
and transitions between them / 1