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Paneling

Bitter Root pencilled by Sanford Greene

Not a structure/technique that writers and artists always employ on purpose but it is important that you understand different methods of transitioning between panels and what each type of transitioning tells your reader in order to select appropriate transitions. The more you practice your art and story telling, the easier and more seemless your transitions will become. Also, you will notice that some writers employ a specific type of paneling in their work – for instance aja uses moment to moment alongside action to action to create an effective slow-motion style. And, unlike most artists, fraction used a marvel style script for hawkeye – meaning that he jotted down basic notes and dialogue - but aja has more control over the direction of the story, telling the story through his paneling and art.

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Panel

an individual frame or drawing in a series of frames or drawings

a single drawing of a frozen moment

putting panels together helps create context for the frozen images

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Gutter

empty space between panels

forces the reader to actively participate in reading comic

reader determines what happens between frames, connects the frozen images to create a continuous story (called closure)

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Panel Transition Types

Moment to Moment
Action to Action
Subject to Subject
Scene to Scene
Aspect to Aspect

Symbolic
Non-Sequitur

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Moment to Moment

Least amount of closure the reader must make

Shows time passing in small increments

Similar to slow motion in movies

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Action to Action

Encompasses a little more time and space than a moment to moment panel
Shows the beginning and end of an action, not every step
Difference between moment to moment and action to action can be fuzzy – moment to moment often depicts action too

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Subject to Subject

takes place in 1 scene

moves from character or object to another within that scene

moves narration ahead

dialogue helps to unite panels

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Scene to Scene

scene is a sequence that takes place in one continuous time period, and in one place

moves from one place or time to another

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Aspect to Aspect

shows multiple views of the same scene without providing any linear narrative direction
deepens the mood or feeling of a sequence
avoids narrative progress, unlike subject to subject transition
typically silent