How do you handle flashbacks?

bronte448 2022-07-13 16:30:25 UTC #5

Distant past:

More recent past and dreams:

TroyVSTheWorld 2022-07-13 17:19:05 UTC #6

The easy answer is to turn the white background between the borders black, that's the universal symbol in comics for "This happened in the past".

ShidoDraws 2022-07-13 21:14:24 UTC #7

For my comic when I do flashbacks I usually have tiny dots over the drawing to try and indicate that it's a flashback. I see some artists using rounded black boarders in the panels, others seem to use black and white if it's in colors. Then there's also some that shifts the tone of the colors to indicate the flashback. There's still so many ways I've seen artists do that I can't list all here. It's really cool to know that there's no correct way to create a flashback, just up to preference.

sable40k 2022-07-13 21:27:23 UTC #8

I do the black gutter thing. Plus if it's part of a story, I'll try and set it up with dialogue before/after. "That's a long story...", "I had no idea that X was Y!", etc.

Ordinaryaverageguy 2022-07-13 23:40:30 UTC #9

I'm not a comic artist but as a reader I think I've often seen it done by using gray-scale instead of any color. Of course, it your art isn't colored in, that won't work.

TheLemmaLlama 2022-07-14 01:32:57 UTC #10

I think the only flashbacks I've done so far are narrated, so it's pretty clear they're flashbacks without extra differentiation

Aleksei 2022-07-14 02:21:52 UTC #11

At the beginning of my story I wasn't gonna use much of flashbacks, but soon I added them to have more flavor to the story. To have them commonly used I used this black transition to show that something is in the past. It can be something that happened a day ago, or years, and people understand in my comic what is going on, even when I use it only for one panel, like in the example here.

Moesakuara 2022-07-14 02:34:02 UTC #12

Huh, so you basically show the current character superimposed near or under the flashback scene? That’s neat, has a very old school feel to it. My characters look has changed a little, so I can safely use that to show that while it is clearly her, her hair, for example, is different.

Moesakuara 2022-07-14 02:35:37 UTC #13

Really? I’d never heard making the gutters black meant flashback. I’ve seen it before in cases where it was purely a style choice. Interesting to know!

N1ghtm4r3 2022-07-14 02:49:37 UTC #14

i do something fun for anythign shown to be past or a memeory i use greyscale colors

GumshoeComix 2022-07-14 03:25:02 UTC #15

flashbacks are handled in black and white or greyscale with a little red art wise
and with writing they're usually my MC having a ptsd or panic attack since flashbacks are very pertinent to the story its the best way to get them in there

Moesakuara 2022-07-14 03:35:32 UTC #16

That’s a good way to include them in the story while fleshing out your character. My character certainly has some trauma from what she went through, though, I don’t know how much I would delve into it if I couldn’t fit the flashback into the scenes flow. But if that’s already built into your story as something that happens to your character, it definitely makes sense.

TroyVSTheWorld 2022-07-14 04:05:51 UTC #17

This might be more of a manga thing, but I've certainly seen it's influence of western black & white comics. If it's a style choice to keep the gutter black, it's probably established early on, but a fading white-into-black gradient backdrop as the flashback begins generally gets the point across to the viewer--Bonus if your panels or dialogue lead us into it well too.

kitkatxk 2022-07-14 05:38:19 UTC #18

Well if you mean to my own childhood. With deep repression usually works.

If you are talking in my writing.

... its repression or nothing. XD

Moesakuara 2022-07-14 13:48:16 UTC #19

LOL, smart arse. Yeah, I mainly do it in this comic because it is relevant to the story, being a pretty big narrative. I have another comic which does not use any flashbacks and I think it is a story to story thing. Not having them really isn’t a problem if the story still works the best and most efficiently without them.

WOSTR 2022-07-15 00:00:26 UTC #20

Sepia, black and white, or dream/daydream bubbles are good ideas.

CommissarTarkin 2022-07-15 15:47:47 UTC #21

We do ours in somewhat muted, faded colours to signify that this scene takes place in the past. That's pretty much it.

Moesakuara 2022-07-15 22:29:33 UTC #22

I feel like thought bubbles are becoming a rare thing, at least in the classic “looks like a cloud” sense. Do you draw yours that way or differently? Often times now I see thought balloons more like voice over captions

scottlincoln689 2022-07-16 13:42:20 UTC #23

So, I'm old fashioned and I like the "thought balloon" effect since I work in a retro comic strip style. But using too much thought balloon can make the page too busy, so I use a hybrid normal border that shifts to a partial balloon just to hint at the idea. Although, it's a little tougher when the strips are arranged vertically.

Fade to: https://tapas.io/episode/2375807

Fade from: https://tapas.io/episode/2380739

system 2022-08-15 13:42:23 UTC #24

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