Steve Lieber - Tumblr Posts
The Superior Foes of Spider-Man #13
written by Nick Spencer art by Steve Lieber
The Superior Foes of Spider-Man #15 (2014) pencil & ink by Steve Lieber / color by Rachelle Rosenberg
Eleven ideas for enlivening a comics page.
Painters & songwriters can sometimes go from conception to completion in a single session, fueled by new-idea energy. Comics tend to take a lot longer. Some pages will just lay there, not engaging you. And if you’re not engaged, the reader won’t be either.
Let’s talk about ways to solve those problems from the picture-making side. Now, your goal should always be STORYTELLING. If the scene isn’t interesting, the problem might be that there’s nothing happening to engage the reader—no relevant conflict, no attempt to overcome an obstacle in pursuit of a goal. If it’s the script that has problems, do the work there rather than just trying to obscure story problems with clever pictures.
So here goes. Treat these as options to deploy, like Wally Wood’s “22 Panels that Always Work.”
1. CONTRAST is always interesting. It can add humor and make elements in a panel comment on each other. Your shabby romantic lead never looks so worn down as when you show him next to a spotless butler in a tuxedo. Juxtapose opposites. Big vs. little. Warm color vs. cool. Dark vs. white. Curvy vs. angular. Plain vs. lavish. Young vs. old.
2. PROPS Build a scene around a single striking prop or detail of setting. It could be a gorgeous, exotic object, or something rough-hewn or oddly sized. Make it MEMORABLE. Ideally, this will tell the reader something about the character or setting it belongs to. Look at the mid-century illustrator Al Parker for some great uses of props.
3. MOOD SWITCH Life can be perverse. Funny moments at a funeral. Deeply sad incidents at a child’s birthday party. Sometimes you can leave behind the dominant mood of a scene for a panel and insert something incongruous in there that, just for a moment, reminds the reader that this isn’t a one-note world you’re creating.
4. MOVEMENT Even in a static medium like comics, movement is a continual source of interest. When your characters have that important conversation, they can stretch, bend, twist, gesture. Let them fiddle with their glasses, rubs their hands together, reach to tie a shoe, wave away an insect. Movement does more than just make a page more lively. It can make characters more interesting.
5. APPROACH TO LAYOUT Been sticking to a grid? Maybe introducing unusual panel shapes, or a montage or poster-ish approach to a page will wake things up. Be careful with this one. You still want to control the order with which your reader receives information. Take extra care with how you guide the eye around the page. But for a lot of artists breaking free from the strict grid opens up a world of graphic possibilities.
6. TAKE SOMETHING OUT You don’t have to treat every panel like a window on a scene. Try vignetting the important stuff and letting the parts that aren’t important fade into the white of the page. Early 20th century illustrators were brilliant at this. Here are some examples from Dean Cornwell.
7. CHARACTER MOMENT Sometimes a character has to do something prosaic. Let’s say… shopping for groceries. If you’ve got a page of your character shopping, find a way for them to do it that tells your reader exactly who this person is. Does she kick an apple into the cart like a hacky-sack? Does she pile the cart alarmingly high with junk food and whistle as she pushes it? Does she unknowingly knock over displays as she passes? Find a way to do it that’s uniquely her.
8. PARALLEL STORY IN THE PICTURES Does the dialogue in the scene carry all the required information? Perk things up by running a parallel narrative. While the off-duty cops in your crime story have their big conversation at the diner counter in the foreground, maybe a new family in the background can be seated, get their baby into a high chair, place an order and struggle to get him to eat. Just be sure to stage it so that the reader doesn’t forget that this is the cops’ story.
Your parallel story can comment on the main action. It can reinforce a theme. It can even be used as a slight-of-hand distraction from some important detail you’re subtly planting for later on
9. MOMENT OF BEAUTY You want your reader to be paying attention to the story rather than what an impressive draftsman you are, but there are times when these goals reinforce each other. If you’re in a place in the story where it’s appropriate for the reader to stop and be impressed with how beautiful something or someone is, cut loose and let your drawing take center stage.
It signals to the reader that this moment or object is something of significance. And if you are stuck drawing a page with absolutely nothing to care about, it’s a good idea to at least do some cool picture-making to provide a measure of value for your reader.
10. RESTATE THE RELATIONSHIP Your pictures can clarify the relationship between two things on your page. Does the boss have all the power? Let him blow smoke at his underling, or take a sandwich from him, take a bite and hand it back. Is Louise’s crush on Janine unrequited? Show Janine looking anywhere but at Louise. If Michael is heartbroken that he didn’t make the basketball team, put his brother’s trophies where you can juxtapose their rigid poses of triumph with Michael’s slouch of despair.
11. BUILD THE WORLD Do some research and show your reader something real and relevant to your story. As the brash young pilot and his older, wiser trainer cross the airfield talking about the mission, you can show all the fascinating things the ground crew have to do to get a plane ready to take off. And when the knight and squire catch fish in the river, showing real fishing techniques will make for engaging visual business.
…and that’s that! Thanks for following along. I’d love to hear your own ideas about enlivening a page.
jesus steve
Sometimes I make comics that don't look like the ones I draw at DC or Marvel.
One of our finest moments happened 17 years ago today. April 4, 2006: the day we held life drawing sessions in the studio and a male model stood way, way too close to the cookies.
