Reading Comics: Moving Between Panels

Have students access the student chapter Reading Comics or display it on a screen or digital whiteboard.

Have students look at the sample comics page from Daredevil #158 on the first slide.

• (This issue was written by Roger McKenzie and drawn by Frank Miller with inks by Klaus Janson. Since we are focusing on the visual storytelling, we will treat Miller as the main author.)

Next. ask them to try to “read” the action of whole the page without looking at the thought balloons.

Ask:

• What do you see?
• What do you notice?

Have students share their initial impressions, then move to the second slide.

Ask students if they can think of any of those that might not be true in different parts of the world.

• If no students mention it, point out that the first rule comes from how we read print. In places where print is written in a different order, the pattern is different: in Japanese comics, for instance, the top right panel is read first.

After they have had a chance to share their impressions, advance to the fourth slide and ask how Miller is guiding our eyes in these three panels.

Go to the fifth slide and explain that we tend to read wordless panels quickly, so Miller uses a line pointing against the left-to-right flow to slow us down, making us notice Daredevil falling into the pit.

Next, Daredevil’s leg makes a line that leads us to the main action of the second panel.

Move to the sixth slide and highlight how the tip of the shovel speeds up the pace by leading down through the third panel and into the fourth.

Now go to the seventh slide and ask how our eyes are guided in these two panels.

Advance to the eighth slide and point out how Daredevil’s stretched-out body moves us right as he passes through the villain, then follow his eyeline back to the left of the same panel and the second of three images of him, showing us how quickly everything is happening.

Go the ninth slide and show how the second and third images of Daredevil guide us straight to the villain’s dangerous hand about to touch him, while the “echoing” line of his other hand emphasizes the danger.

Move to the tenth slide and point out how Daredevil’s hand literally points us to the bottom right, urging us to turn the page.

Go to the eleventh slide and tell students that this was actually one of Miller’s first published comics, and while he’s already a very effective visual storyteller, one part of the composition doesn’t make sense.

Can they spot it?

Go the twelfth slide and demonstrate that this is the order of events in the story:  Daredevil is supposed to be jumping out of the pit, bouncing off the tombstone and then passing through the villain.

Now go the thirteenth slide show that because of the way Miller composed the page, but we read it in the opposite order.

Next, to go the fourteenth slide and tell students that you don’t have to be able to draw well to be able to make comics: you just need to know how comics tell stories.

Ask students to look at the stick figures and identify what they are feeling or what they are doing.

• The specific answers aren’t important; what matters is that students recognize that even very simple drawings can show action and emotion.

Go to the fifteenth slide and again ask students to identify what the stick figures are feeling or doing.

Point out that because comics are a visual language, you also have tools like motion lines and symbols like tears or hearts to show what characters are feeling or doing.