Just out of curiosity, how do you like your comics formatted. By this I mean how do you like the panels, dialogue, and colors. Do you prefer panels to overlap or be simple boxes and rectangular or even diagonal. Do you like when dialogue is short and kept to a couple of sentences or do you prefer more dense dialogue. When it comes to color, do you like bright colors or a more realistic color scheme
I prefer panels to be in simple boxes with little overlapping. There make it easier for me to follow. I like dialogue to be kinda dense ( think Batman: White Knight). I like when it takes more than ten minutes for me to read an issue. It makes feel like I’m getting more story; however, none of it should be filler. Color depends on the tone of the series. Like I wouldn’t want a brightly colored Batman comic but I do like brightly colors. I really like the use of color in Way’s run of Doom Patrol.
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I’m pretty big on art and creative expression. So, I love when artists are able to present their comics in a unique way that adds to their story.
I love when panels overlap or are shaped in ways that contribute to what’s being presented inside the panels.
Like zigzag panels, when the content is more dynamic and action-oriented or soft, flowing, kinda amorphous panels, when the content is more intimate or fluid.
I prefer the dialogue to be short and to the point, utilizing cleverness and wit to grip its audience, rather than long, descriptive paragraphs that draw you in.
I love novels, but comic books are not novels. That’s why graphic novels exist.
Also because I love art, I prefer to not have dialogue that is so entrapping that I get sucked out of the illustrative world and into the literary world.
I prefer to revel in the art and just read the dialogue as I go along, mostly so I know what the art is about. haha
I prefer more dense dialogue as it gives us more insight into the characters. Like it when the panels are more simple and don’t overlap, but I get modern comics that is not as often a thing.
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I began reading comics when most stories lasted only one or two issues, so I naturally prefer tighter stories. I don’t might descriptive text and clever purple prose. I especially miss thought balloons, as they served to give more insight into a character’s motivations and feelings (the more modern “internal monologue boxes” don’t have quite the same effect). Most stories today are too decompressed and “written for the trade.” When each story is 6 issues, a reader begins to see the strings behind the pacing, so to speak. I want comic books that mix up the format… telling done-in-ones, two issue, three issue and longer multipart stories.
I like interesting panel arrangements when it’s still clear what order they’re meant to be read in. I’ll take the most generic grid in the world if it’s easier to read.
I like dense dialogue to a point. If it feels like the characters are saying far more than they’d be able to get out during the action the panel depicts (e.g. a panel where the Flash runs past and punches a supervillain, but is saying “Lucky thing I’m so fast – or this guy’d be able to hit me back!”), that’s kind of annoying. In particular, if the art makes what’s going on clear, I don’t like it when the characters or narration feel the need to also spoonfeed it to you. I’ve actually been kind of struggling to read New Teen Titans because Wolfman does that incessantly, covering up Perez’s beautiful art with unnecessary, long-winded captions and thought bubbles. So, if the dialogue is well-paced and appropriate, dense is great.
As for colors, I love bright colors. Even in Batman, while the palette should be pretty dark, it’s more exciting if there are highlight colors that pop. Look at Batman: The Animated Series, for example.
And I think the writing-for-the-trade format is exceedingly repetitive. The big stories don’t feel so big when every story is this six-issue epic. Comics should be mostly one- and two-shots, with maybe a five-or-six-issue arc no more than once a year. I also enjoy some of the HUGE stories like Knightfall and No Man’s Land that have a lot of shorter arcs and one-shots encompassed in them built into an overall plot that runs for a long time.
For me it depends on the tone of the comics as well as the subject matter. With my Batwoman comics, I loved the panels overlapping because at times it gave me a sense of how the character was feeling emotionally or gave me a sense of a lack of stability. With Mr. Miracle I loved how the panels were separate because it made them seem sterile, removed from everything else.
With art l prefer a less “computer-y” look. I guess a good example of what exactly I’m talking about is Civil War. I love stylised comics like Darwyn Cooke, Bruce Timms, Karl Kerschl, or even water color like Dustin Nguyen.
I love color being used to convey emotion, tone, or even character alignment, but I am usually drawn to more brightly colored comics than realistic ones. I particularly don’t like colors that look muddled or sandy (like Old Man Logan, although I think that book in particular is a bad example because it was fantastic lol)