How to panel comic pages?

[Chocolate]

When should you used a lot of panels vs a small amount? Any tips?

[SleepingPoppy]

Lots on panels can feel like time is moving faster, fewer/bigger panels slow time down and/or give emphasis to important moments. In a nut shell.

There was a great tutorial on this, but it’s disappeared over the years, sadly.

[Chocolate]

Oh yeah if you found it link me! Would love to watch!

[river121693]

It can range between 5-10 panels on average. I wouldn’t go more or less for your average panel count. But as SleepingyPoppy said, it depends. Bigger size paper require more panels. Big bombastic scenes require a splash page, establishing shot can require 1/3rd of a page. You can also play with time and narrative

[Aleksei]

This tutorial talks about the time in panels, and I like it because its explains in very easy and with examples how to layer your panels, and a bit of info about the quantity of bubbles.

I don't remember where, but once I saw a triangle of those of 'choose two', where it was 'panels', 'bubles' and the last one I don't remember xD. But the idea was that you can't have much of all of them, you need to choose wich one you need. Too much panels, and you can't have too much conversation on them, because every panel is a bit of a second, on the whole scene. They just can't speak that much. One whole splash panel, then go ahead and add as much bubbles as you need (well, not that much, but way more than one). Don't remember what was the other triangle end, so if anyone read me, and remember, please add it!

[Aleksei]

WAIT, WAIT!! I think I remember!
It was a 'panel, speech bubble, action' triangle, and you can only have two.

-A lot of panels can have a lot of actions, but little speech
-A lot of panels can have a lot of speech, but little action

-A lot of speech can have a lot of panels, but little to no action.
-A lot of speech can have a lot of action, but no panels (like, in a splash page)

-A lot of action can be in a lot of panels, but little speech
-A lot of action can have a lot of speech, but few panels.

Yeah, this kind of makes sense.

[thepenmonster]

Tiny panels with three times the empty space and a single word balloon in between is the style now.

[NickRowler]

Usually for webcomics you don't want too many because people might be reading on their phones.

Something like this would be too many, it would make sense to break a page like this into two or three pages if reformatted to a webcomic.

This website is helpful if you need help with paneling, you can adjust the settings to fit the style of comic you are making.
https://sites.google.com/view/manga-page-generator/home

[VibrantFox]

okay so i wasn't sure if i was remembering correctly or not but there is in fact another thread that has some really good tips about paneling in comics here:

https://forums.tapas.io/t/tips-for-getting-better-at-paneling/54603

i also know folks tend to recommend Scott McCloud's books on making comics from what i have found online are really useful. I've also looked to Griz and Norm's tutorials on art, comics and illustration as they have a lot of pointers on things like framing and how to fill a panel among other multipurpose tips

and with a quick google search managed to find this tutorial on CSP about panel layout

How to Layout Your Comic! Panels, Gutters, and Page Flow

and it looks like it suggests some other good articles with pointers on flow, panels and the like

I think if anything a big thing to take in consideration is what format you want to create for (ie page, vertical scroll, etc) and then from there seek out tips on how to best take advantage of those formats and build a library of resources to reference

[BoomerZ]

truthfully, if you are doing a webcomics, panels per page is not a thing. Most webtoons are read on a phone so you scroll down. Having panels that have to scroll up and down and zoom in for a page to read is not helpful to a reader. If you are doing a page to print then you panel count will not only depend on your storytelling but also on your genre. Superhero or combat mangas (DBZ) use large panels to show action. Most drama genre comics don't. But for the love of god just don't do the even split of 2,4,6,8,9 panels per page. This will make your panels very boring to read.

[ueonts]

Space is impact, a lot of panels can make it seem like things are moving faster (or slower if the panels are similar).

[Lensing]

It´s just optional tools and there are no general rules.
I disagree with the "for the love of god" comment, I personally love reading comics
with even split panels, some of my favorite artists use even split panels.

Some people say you shouldn´t use more than 10 panels, every comic that I grew up with
has more than 10 panels per page (Lucky Luke, Asterix, Tintin etc.)

Some artists use bigger panels for their establishing shots, smaller panels + a lot of panels
for action sequences like car chases, a person walking or something like that. But a walking
scene can also work with big panels when you want to put the focus on the background
for example, or you want to give the reader the impression of a long walk along the fields
of Missouri or something like that

[thepenmonster]

Title

Empty

Empty

Word balloon

Empty

Black

Black

Balloon on black

Character in big panel. More a pinup than a panel that conveys information.

Word balloon

Small panel with close up

Empty

Word balloon

Small panel

Empty

Word balloon

Small panel

Another character in a big panel. More a pinup than a panel that conveys information

Close up

Dynamic close up

Dynamic close up

Dynamic close up

Empty

Word balloon

Empty

To be continued...

---

There. The perfect webtoon panel layout. Be sure to use it each and every time.

[irresponsiblepics]

Agree with this. Hard rules stifle experimentation. As long as your panel flow is cohesive to what you want to convey, its all good.

[Aleksei]

ANOTHER THING!
A great example on the wild about how paneling affects the storytelling is The Death of Superman storyline. Yep, it may not be the greatest storytelling out there, but it has a punch that its hardly equalled. Now, that series has a lot of numbers, but what I refer to are Adventures of Superman v1 #497, Action Comics v1 #684, Superman - The Man of Steel v1 #19, and Superman v2 #75, in that order. In the first one every page have 4 panels always. On the second, always 3 panels. On the next one 2 panels per page. And the last one just one splash page per page, and at the end even some double splash pages. Why was that? Because it was a count down, to the final number, that it was the death of Superman at the hands of Doomsday. Imagine yourself reading that for the first time, you didn't knew that Supes was gonna die, and the tension just keep going up, heroes keep going down, and nothing stops Doomsday, and in the final number, he dies. You weren't prepared for that. Nobody was, that's why it was a world event like no other.

Check those comics, it would be a nice study!