Aug 2021
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Aug 2021
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HGohwell
Aug '21

Or rather, how many panels of "nothing" becomes too much in your mind? I don't mean blank panels or big gaps between panels, I mean panels with little to no dialogue and action, like travelling.

For example: a character is going from school to home, how many panels of them walking through a lovingly rendered, visually interesting city with no dialogue can you take before you're bored? Obviously, it can build atmosphere and the world, but if nothing actually happens, how many panels of travel is really acceptable? Other examples could be things like time passing, like someone growing more and more bored in school, or possibly training montages but travelling feels like the most obvious example, although feel free to point out any other examples you can think of.

Do you have any examples of this done well or badly? How many panels would you restrict yourself to in this sort of situation? How many panels would you put up with before you got bored of it in a comic no matter how pretty the art?

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FafasMcMelt
Aug '21

No idea, actually. I honestly think the panels you described are great for these reasons exactly, establishing atmosphere, the passage of time, worldbuilding.
Not a comic, but I really enjoyed when stuff like that happened on Samurai Jack, just him walking around the scenery for a while was great.

IndigoShirtProd
Aug '21

About five or six for me. If those panels aren't building up tension or filled with details that may become important later, they kinda feel like a waste of time, or worse, filler.

I have a situation in my upcoming chapter where it's just the characters walking into a building for a few panels, but the point is to build suspense and tension. And it's only about 5 panels long.

Scarlet_Cryptid
Aug '21

This is a really subjective thing, and everyone's opinion will be different. Personally, I have a lot of such panels in the pages I'm currently posting-- two characters walking through the woods. It shows off the terrain, their relationship, and the time of day, but it is pretty much travel. No dialogue, no action.

I do try to make sure each page (or 'page', depending on how you format things) has something meaningful in it, at least. For example, there are several pages where it's mostly travel, but they do arrive someplace during the course of the page.

Other valid things would be to show the character going on an emotional journey while traveling. Maybe they start out glum, but as they walk, they see things that bring a smile to their face. (Or the opposite, if they're in a good mood, but things go rapidly downhill...)

Do your lovingly drawn environments. Let us see them. Not enough people appreciate a good environment they way they deserve to be appreciated. But remember you're still telling a story, so make those panels where you celebrate the setting tell us something.

chestnutriceeee
Aug '21

If done well, pages of nothing can make your work shine. Many travelling manga do this thing very well. I once read something with a whole chapter of just traveling but don't remember it's name. I can recommend 'The Climber,' it's a work about mountain climbing and has many pages of just, climbing. Those pages truly make it amazing.

Also, since you described things like going back to home from school or sitting in class. More relevant examples I can give are Oyasumi Punpun or Vagabond. They have many pages of nothing to set the mood, but there is a huge possibility of overdoing it. For such scenarios, I personally think keeping this stuff between 1/4th to half of your chapter should do the trick, but analyzing some professional works will give you a much better estimate.

I hope that helped in some way.

migxmeg
Aug '21

Every panel should have a reason for existing - so something should be happening or being established or showing change. Sequences of panels that feel the same are too boring, even if they look nice. Making a comic is enough work without making pointless panels!!

If a character is walking through a city and it's all the same cityscape and their mood isn't changing and nothing is happening... I will get bored immediately. But maybe we can see that they're walking from one neighborhood to another and it's clear that they're going a long way and the atmosphere is changing - that's interesting and I'll enjoy as much of that as is relevant to the story.

In the training montage example - showing growth will make it interesting.

If you're going to have panels that feel the same (or literally are the same) for actual reasons, like suspense/humor/showing that something or someone is frozen... I'd say 3 is my limit. In a humor situation I'd put up with more if the repetition was funny. The other thing is that when there's no dialogue or action, I have higher expectations for the artwork than I otherwise would.

Legendofgenii
Aug '21

My entire next episode is a traveling montage, and Iā€™m still wondering if I should have speech bubbles or not. Iā€™m leaning towards ā€˜notā€™ as a little challenge to myself. :thinking:

To make it more entertaining the characters will be doing interesting things and Iā€™m going all out on the backgrounds, so hopefully my readers like it. :sweat_02:

If not, itā€™s only one episode that takes a few seconds to read anyway. Lol.

allenT
Aug '21

(Not counting silent comics) For traditional pages, I think in general anything more than 4 pages without any dialogues may be pushing it, but it can work if the sequences are well crafted, even an entire chapter can be silent. I personally love those big silence scenes!

TedGravesArt
Aug '21
migxmeg

Exactly. Couldn't have said it better myself.

I don't think there are strict rules about this, tbh. There are lots of different story telling styles, and sometimes you want to convey mood with an extended montage. This sequence from Ghost In The Shell comes to mind:

Ghost in the Shell montage sequence HD 1080p

This sequence is thoughtful, pensive, almost melancholy. It establishes heavy mood, and gives the viewer time to meditate on the heavy philosophy that came in the scenes before. It's also loaded with symbolism that directly pertains to the story, so it still pushes things forward and has a purpose.

That said, I have a hard time imagining that this scene would work in comics. Comics just work differently than film. Pacing is extremely important, and if you use up a lot of panels doing something like this without pushing your story somehow, as a reader I might wonder if you don't have enough story to fill your issue and are padding for time. Personally I try to compress events as much as possible to keep the pace of my comic up. There have been a couple times where I've had to use two establishing shots in a row and I definitely thought twice about it.

DokiDokiTsuna
Aug '21

It honestly depends on the creativity of the artist, and the placement of this 'negative space' in the story.

For example, I don't like it when comics (or animated series) START with scenes like that, unless the art style/direction is interesting enough to hold my attention (like the opening scene of PMMM...immediately you wonder 'what is this surreal monochrome location, and where is this anime girl running to...?').

Otherwise, it's just like 'I don't know who these characters are yet, why are you making me watch them walk around for what could be no reason, as far as I know?' You gotta do something with it...at least make it fun to watch.

Which brings me to my next point...purpose. Even if a character is just moving without speaking, technically that's not 'nothing'. They are still going places and doing things, and as long as the reader can see that there is a purpose in those actions, you could continue indefinitely (i.e. a wordless comic).

Whether they are traveling or waiting or simply getting dressed in the morning, you should be able to show progression and emotion. It's also a good opportunity to ground the reader in your aesthetic...if you have a 'dark' art style, fill the space with shadow and creepy background elements. If you have a 'cute' art style, play around with bright colors, and try to make every panel feel pleasant and heartwarming.

Basically, when you go without dialogue, you have made a decision to rely completely on your artwork to continue the story, so you have to make sure to commit to it. Really put your soul into those panels; choose each one with care.
Make the reader want to linger over them for a little while...give them the feeling that they are indulging in a well-deserved break from the action.

o_o;; Oooooh...I do have an example from my own work, actually. Whether you'd consider this done 'well or badly' is up to you, I guess:

bip2.png1275x6254 615 KB

First, let it be said that I don't like to do this. ^^; It basically denies me the privilege to say "f*ck it" and move on when I get tired of working on the backgrounds...which is something I rely very heavily on in order to withstand comic work.

But I think a few big chunks of 'ma' (negative space) are necessary in most of the stories I write, so it's kind of inevitable. This was my most recent attempt to really push myself to get better at it, at least as training for the next opportunity.

In the script, I basically list out story beats ('looks at the chair and realizes he can't sleep without knowing if his father is safe'->'leaves home'->'uses his night vision goggles'->'wanders in the snow'->'finds the blood') and then just draw as few panels as necessary in order to get the points across. This is because I am lazy, but it's also because I tend to use big panels, so minimizing the number of them is the better strategy in the long run (I actually thought I could do this sequence in half an episode, or at most 3/4ths. It ended up taking the whole length).

Ideally I would have wanted the 'wanders in the snow' portion to be longer, but again, I'm lazy, and the longer I work on one sequence the faster I run out of creativity. In hindsight, I can think of all kinds of cool shots I could have added, but in the moment it was just "I am TIRED of drawing this", and when I hit that point, that is when I stop adding panels. ^^;

HGohwell
Aug '21

Honestly, this. If I could do this in comic form, I would be so happy. But, as you say, the problem is it probably wouldn't work in comic form so well.

Don't worry about relevance too much, I was just using some easily recognisable examples. We'd be here all day if I had to describe the actual scenery in what I will loosely summarise as neo-noir/cyberpunk kelpies. I'll definitely look into the recommendation though.

Demy
Aug '21
TedGravesArt

I haven't read it myself but I've heard the BLAME manga being described as doing this kind of stuff a lot. Though from what I'm reading it seems to do it on a much shorter scale.

Like it limits the scene building and establishing shots to like a few panels. So maybe comics can do that to achieve a similar effect?

IamKeeks
Aug '21

The really cool thing about web comics is that scrolling adds a really cool time element that you don't get from turning pages. It's a really good idea to take advantage of this.
It's not so much the amount of panels as the quality in my opinion. Traveling can be tedious, if you're just showing the traveling. Use different angles, and give your characters habits or have them fidget and fiddle with their surrounding while they travel.
I get easily bored, but little things like that keep my attention.