As I’m getting more comfortable with the comic, my art, and how to tell this story, I’m starting to explore new and interesting ways of telling that story visually. When I first started Variables, my panels were pretty consistent. They were all square/rectangle with one large panel highlighting the page. I prioritized all panels into 1,2, or 3 categories with 1 being a primary panel and 3 being a small, less important panel. I still use that (somewhat) but lately, I’ve started dabbling with different ways in how comic books can deal with the lapse of time. I may write a blog about it in the future but a quick summation is that movies, television, books, and almost every other medium are forced to deal with time in a linear manner. You can’t show a two hour movie in 3 seconds. You can’t tell a reader what will happen at the end of the page before he or she has read the first paragraph. Comics are different in this sense. You can show multiple things happening at once and since it is a visual medium, the viewer can soak up that information in a split second  and their retention level remains incredibly high while doing it.

So, these last two pages have been an experiment for me. I’ve tried to completely break the constraints of time lapse and typical panel arrangement. In the case of this page, it makes it look slightly confusing but that’s okay… this page was designed to have the reader’s eye led through it with word bubbles. I hope, anyway. When it’s lettered, I hope my idea plays out but again, it’s an “experiment”…

Anyway, expect to see this fully colored and lettered page Monday or Tuesday (hopefully Monday). Have a great weekend!

Share this page: