Anyone tried a comic with no dialogue?

AdrenalineShots 2017-06-20 06:49:53 UTC #1

Any tips? Thinking about doing an episode with no dialogue and just wondered if anyone else had tried it and if they have any guidance

J.Lovelace 2017-06-20 10:26:04 UTC #2

I'm doing a silent comic, Sleep Mode

Well, it's mostly about showing a scene using only gestures and face expressions, so that no words are needed... it can be hard sometimes, I admit.

thomassayle 2017-06-20 11:06:17 UTC #3

not me but check out daneman https://tapas.io/episode/2 his stuff is good example of it

David_tigereye 2017-06-20 13:00:58 UTC #4

https://tapas.io/episode/720764 This is mine. There is pretty much no dialouge, except a few scenes, but they're just pictures in thought bubbles. If that counts as dialouge, then just ignore this.

revisionstudios 2017-06-20 13:06:52 UTC #5

Oh sure, it can be done! I've done a short silent comic myself. It's pretty well accepted that a good comic won't need dialogue to tell a story, since it's a visual medium and all. (Doesn't mean dialogue doesn't have its place, just that if you remove it from any comic, you SHOULD be able to get the gist of what's happening.)

Focus on actions, body language, and expression (or lack thereof if that's what you need to portray). Frame panels with certain angles and views to convey the mood properly. Everything should be deliberate, basically.

And because it'll make you focus purely on communicating with the visuals, it should help your comic skills overall, too!

indagold 2017-06-20 14:34:37 UTC #6

Yeah i've done a completely silent comic: Garden Of Mold. I notice a lot of silent comics are surreal or abstract. It seems to fit the tone since it's more about the strange world and less about the characters.

krazykattuesday 2017-06-20 15:03:08 UTC #7

I make lots of comics with no dialogue! Here are a few complete short stories that are either dialogue-free but include sound effects (good for more lighthearted stories), or completely silent:
One about puppies and art
One about skeeball and consumption
A one-pager about a sad baby ghost
One about the consequences of obsession (hosted outside of Tapastic because it needed some extra coding so that the sections would expand and contract when you click on them)

It's a good exercise for anyone who has only worked strictly from a script before, as it can improve your ability to brainstorm and select important visual moments, and thus help you prevent talking head syndrome in your overall composition once you go back to using dialogue. Just experiment. Once you get started, you'll get into a flow and you'll find what feels right for you.

The only strict piece of advice I have for you is that you need to prepare yourself for the fact that readers will blast through a silent comic in seconds, regardless of how much work you put in. If you find this disheartening, you will want to consider what you can do to encourage greater engagement. In my opinion, there are two successful ways of doing this:

Making the panels smaller, simpler, and more numerous. You might think that a big, flashy, complicated splash panel will cause a reader to linger, but that's usually NOT the case unless your drawing style and composition happen to really resonate with that particular reader. There's just too little actual story content in one big panel, and narrative density is the real determiner of how quickly someone reads a comic. Going smaller and simpler flips the balance in the other direction--in the same amount of page real estate, you can advance the narrative quite a bit, while saving yourself a lot of unnecessary work.

It also creates a lively feeling, and having a lot of panels on one page lets you play around with timing quite a bit. Check out some of Chris Ware's Acme Novelty Library comics if you'd like an example from a true master.

Make it worth rereading. Most people will still fly through it on the first reading, but will take greater care in a reread. It's hard to give concrete advice here, so maybe ask yourself: What makes me want to reread something? Is it a great story that speaks to me? Is it an intricate and carefully executed layout of panels? Is it hidden details? Is it an intriguing, enigmatic, or puzzly sort of story that immediately suggests that there's something to be gained from a second reading? (Think of the movie Memento, for example.) Go from there.

Good luck! You could post the completed episode here for feedback from this enclave of silent artists if you fancy that idea.

Alyssa 2017-06-21 05:22:07 UTC #8

I love silent comics! They were my specialty for a while, as were children's picture books. They are especially good for shorter, more powerful/emotional works. They are also great for works focused on the environment or a specific ambiance, or, as mentioned, exploring surreal worlds. If I have a comic that is very environmental or dream-like, I will often make it wordless to create extra impact.

Expression and body language are important in dialogue comics as well, but silent comics are dependant on it. It is best to get several readers to look it over and make sure they know what is happening. Rework complicated scenes over and over to make sure you have achieved the best way to communicate it. People become frustrated if they can't understand what is happening, or if there are too many options for what is happening. You may also just have to accept that certain parts will have to be open to interpretation.

I find wordless comics have a stronger importance on quality of artwork. Readers will focus more on the art and composition, as there are no words to distract them. They have to read the story from the art, and therefore will notice if the quality is not there. I will not spend as much time as I should on my comic artwork, as I am trying to get the story out as quick as possible, but I do not have that luxury if I am doing it wordless.

The best, best, BEST work to look at for study and reference is Shaun Tan's The Arrival. It is a gorgeous book about immigration, each panel is absolutely stunning and the use of no dialogue also plays a part into the story (as it is about immigration the character cannot speak the local language, and we as the readers mirror the immigrant and must read the story without language). This book is used for study in the Sequential Art major at SCAD, as communicating a comic successfully without words will make you increasingly successful in a comic with dialogue.

I also suggest to avoid too many uses of symbols (such as surprise lines, question marks, exclamation marks, shouting line, etc.) as they can be considered similar to dialogue. They are giving a universal explanation, and therefore take away from a truly silent comic. But, they can be useful and fun, so decide if you want to use them or not from the start, so your comic can be consistent.

LCT_m_a_d 2017-06-21 17:15:36 UTC #9

Not my comic but silent Horror is pretty good.

artsy_oleander 2017-06-21 23:59:54 UTC #10

I actually tried it less than a year ago with Me and My Friend! A lot of the previous creators also make excellent points about silent comics.

I'll still throw in my two-cents. Creating a silent comic is a great way to practice character placement, to play with panel sizes/types and to create strong silhouettes. For your first silent comic, I would recommend something small and simple, so don't start off with an epic story with no dialogue.

While I was making my comic, I had planned pages and then after making them, realized that I needed to add some pages for the story to make sense. I had no dialogue ,therefore, I couldn't get away with adding text and explaining the sudden jump from one place to another.

As said by Alyssa,

I think this is one of the tricky parts to silent comics. Since there is no dialogue to 'clarify' what is going on in the panel, you have to be mindful what the characters look like they're doing. I would recommend having a second pair of eyes while you're working on it. Someone then can ask if the emotion they are personally feeling is the emotion you want to convey.

Krazykattuesday makes a great point that silent comics are a great practicing tool:

I can totally support that once you start, you'll find how you make comics the best and it carries over to your next project. Even now, as I work on my second one, I'm still thinking about what I learned from my first comic to my second one.

And most of all, have fun!

zigmenthotep 2017-06-22 11:54:12 UTC #11

I feel qualified to weigh in on this since I've been writing Slugworld (which contains no dialogue, sparse narration, and restricted body language and facial expression) off and on since 2012.

The best advice I can give is regularly stop and ask yourself if the reader is going to be able to understand what's going on. It's easy to fall into the problem of assuming something makes sense because it makes sense to you.
Also, in general more is better.

thomasfallaeriksen 2017-06-22 13:40:03 UTC #12

Everything I've posted her is completely silent. It is my favorite way of making comics.Because then I have to explain everything with the drawings. And that way I don't have to worry about type-o's). And some things are ust so hard to explain using words. They really have to be seen to take full effect.

The same basic rules that goes for comics with dialogue also applies to comics without. You just have to write with the pictures as they have to do all the talking. Every part of a picture says something and ads to the story. I also find that wordless comics reads much quicker as we usually read pictures very fast.

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