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Mike Sweeney
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 May 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 318
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| Posted: 02 December 2008 at 6:17pm | IP Logged | 1
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So you are an all-in-one; scripting, inking, lettering. And you are
roughing out the pages, figuring out how to get through a big
explanatory scene.
So how do you figure how much balloon and caption box you will need,
how many panels you'll need to fit it all, how many words will fit, even? Is
it mostly a matter of experience and instinct or are there some methods
that help you work it all out?
If I read the old Marvel Method correctly, the artist would have some idea
how much language would be in a scene, and would leave some dead
space, but basically the writer came after, threw as many words in it as
would stick, and left it up to the letterer to jam the balloons in
somewhere.
On the other hand, I suppose if you were working full script, you could
work out exactly the size of the balloons needed and design them right
into the art.
But anyone have any pointers for when you are editing dialog to fit and
changing art to work all at the same time? Seems there should be at
least a few rules of thumb or something to help...
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132292
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| Posted: 02 December 2008 at 6:41pm | IP Logged | 2
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Ah, if only there was some hard and fast set of rules, or even on single,
golden rule, that would dictate the proper placement of balloons and
captions, and forever eliminate the chance of characters wearing either for
hats!
Alas, no such luck! So the best advice I can give to newbie artists is to
arbitrarily "kill" the top third of every panel. Put nothing there that matters.
(This is, of course, assuming a layout that is somewhere within hailing
distance of a standard grid. If the artist is prone to panel layouts that look
like a broken window, there are all kinds of other problems -- not the least
of which is the most basic job of leading the reader's eye around the page!)
No matter how hard the artist tries, tho, s/he is eternally at the mercy of
three forces over which s/he has no control: the verbosity of the writer, the
size of the lettering, and whether the editor thinks the words are more
important than the pictures anyway.
Weird thing, tho -- bin in this bizniz tharty yar, man and boy, and in all that
time I have never once, not once, seen or heard a fan/reader complain about
balloon placement.
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Jim Campbell
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 October 2006
Posts: 380
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| Posted: 03 December 2008 at 1:34am | IP Logged | 3
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QUOTE:
... in all that time I have never once, not once, seen or heard a
fan/reader complain about balloon placement. |
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Now that's just asking for trouble.
Cheers
Jim
Edited by Jim Campbell on 03 December 2008 at 1:34am
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Pascal LISE
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 29 July 2006
Location: France
Posts: 1111
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| Posted: 03 December 2008 at 5:06am | IP Logged | 4
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John Byrne said :
"Weird thing, tho -- bin in this bizniz tharty yar, man and boy, and in all
that
time I have never once, not once, seen or heard a fan/reader complain about
balloon placement."
Well, you can count me as one to complain.
I find it very annoying when the balloons placement leads me to read a
dialogue in the wrong order.
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