Panelling in manga

How important do you think it is? How often do you see something that you'd consider impressive panelling and what are the prime examples when it comes to this?

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I don't understand much about it, knowing mostly what pissed me off. Confusing panelling, for example, where I don't know what order to follow.

Panelling is a complicated, yet often poorly understood subject. On one hand, it has to be clear enough to follow the events unfolding. On the other hand, it has to find a way of conveying an emotional and aesthetic truth along with the plot itself.

The most important thing overall is the visual through line. The eve should be drawn in one continuous stroke across the page, without having to reverse direction. The paneling should imply its motion from one into the other, drawing the eye naturally through positioning and if going for asymmetrical panels, use the differences in size to emphasize and demphasize certain events. Hox did a fantastic article about this years back. But look at that Ping Pong frame. Notice how the panels, like film shots, are sized specifically to draw attention to their subjects. When all we need to see is a glimpse of the eyes, the panels shrink. But as the action gets more intense, they blow up and undulate in size and the top-down structure becomes broken as action intensifies. That's good panelling.

Above has a major flaw. The three bottom panels on the right page make you look at the left panel first because of its size. Besides that, it's just too puffed out.
Actually, looking at the left page, it's even more of a mess. While I like highly paced comics, this is just too much.

The truth is that most people don't know shit about paneling, and those who think they do consider the garbage quick-cut action scenes with tons of detailed action poses and close-up facial shots like a fucking MTV music video to be examples of "good paneling and composition".

pick related is probably my favourite use of it, that just couldn't be translated properly to animation.

That being said Ping Pong's animation director was really clever in going for the same panneling style of action in the anime adaptation.

It's fairly important, can improve the impact/engagement of scenes a whole lot (and actively shitty paneling can ruin stuff, particularly if motion is hard to follow). My favorite is probably Adachi.

> The three bottom panels on the right page make you look at the left panel first because of its size
I completely disagree. Panel three directs you down and to the right, where you arrive at the correct next panel.

Very well said.

>good panelling
Yeah, you don't look at the pictures in the order it's supposed to be (both pages). good panelling

You're right, I forgot there's supposed to be speech bubbles. That would alter it. Otherwise, I'd be drawn to the picture on the left.

I'd say it's as important as the artwork itself. Shit paneling makes the page look like a mess even if the art is good and doesn't allow the reader to know what the fuck is happening properly, it kinda ruins the experience of reading the manga.

>Otherwise, I'd be drawn to the picture on the left
While the speech bubbles help, I still don't see this. You start Panel three on the top left (because of Panel 2's lighting drawing you there), and then both the panel's shape and the line of Peco's arm/racket draw you down to the right, and then you're at Panel 4.

sometimes the paneling is the artwork

Even though everyone seems to love it, I just can't bring myself to finish Nausicaa because the paneling and shot composition is so awkward. Nothing is in focus and nothing flows, none of the characters ever look like they're moving, it's all extremely cluttered, like Miyazaki took a storyboard and chopped it up with a blindfold on It's so amateurish, even if the technical quality of the art itself is high. Really disappointing coming from a seasoned anime director.

I once saw an user describe it as claustrophobic, which I think is pretty accurate.

>Hox did a fantastic article about this years back
Got a link for it?

(not him but) hoxtranslations.blogspot.com.br/2014/08/some-thoughts-about-webtoons-and.html

>Really disappointing coming from a seasoned anime director.

Miyazaki, if you look outside of the animation in his movies, is not exactly a good cinematographer or cameraman. The reason he's able to have such bland-ass shots like this in his films is because there's so many high fps moving elements in it that people don't pay attention to the actual quality of the shot composition. The fine background art helps a lot too. But none of his movies ever use complex camera movement or angled shots very often. In that regard, he's not as good as either Kon or Hosoda.

It was deliberately homaging the style of French comics, not manga.

Yeah, because every movie needs to be directed like an MTV music video.

Hand is in the middle, most stylized and at the front. If the speech bubble wasn't on the right, then I'd look to the left and pay no attention to it. I already see without actually looking that the right side of the panel is just black and not important, and because the hand seems like the most prominent feature, my eyes stay longer there before I switch to the "ping" and immediatly the left panel with the player.

> Confusing panelling, for example, where I don't know what order to follow
The only type of bad panelling

>It was deliberately homaging the style of French comics

Do you even know anything about French Comics? This right here does a better job conveying space and movement than any single page of Nausicaa.

People say that Togashi can't draw but his paneling is always top notch. It really strikes me every chapter

>Yeah, because every movie needs to be directed like an MTV music video.
What a retarded fucking response.

>Hand is in the middle
But I don't start at the middle. I'm already positioned in the high left corner, and I just follow the line down. I don't see why you'd stop in the middle and jump to a panel in the center of the page below it.

I just can't stand his backgrounds. The linework blends in too much with the characters and so nothing stands out.

Some anons here have already articulated the intricacies of paneling better than i could even hope to fully understand but I guess i'll say that i've always really liked the way the unique page layouts and panelling in the Magi manga, even if i don't enjoy the story very much.

>infodumpings everywhere
>top notch paneling

he's good, but not always.

>i dont start at the middle
Me neither. After the two other panels:
>head (because the character is positioned in the middle)
>look to the left as there's something there
>look to the right and see the hand
>corner of eye registers blank black space and doesn't go any further, thus focussing on the hand and the character as a whole
It being in the middle allows me to notice the first two panels on the left first. Because they're bigger in size, thus catch my eye more. Seem more important because of it. And because I see a panel directly under the hand I immediatly follow it before moving to the player on the left. Because they both stuck out.

>>i dont start at the middle
>Me neither.
>>head (because the character is positioned in the middle)
Did I misunderstand something here?

This doesn't look remotely half as good as Nausicaa.

Not an argument.

>Not an argument.
This whole phrase is fucking retarded. If someone doesn't make an argument, usually they didn't mean to. In this case, I'm just calling you retarded.

That's just terribly ugly, user.

I don't go from left to right in every panel. I somewhat notice the kanji on the left, but the character in the middle is the main focus. so I will focus on him the most. And because of that, I see the bottom left panels first.

>This doesn't look remotely half as good as Nausicaa.
The actual art, no, but that's not what's being discussed. The paneling and visual storytelling are better. There's less clutter, a clear sequence of events with natural flow between shots, and better visual organization. As the other guy said, Nausicaa's panels feel like they were plucked at random out of storyboards and then thrown onto a page.

I think this is where we're differing then. You seem to be drawn to the more major things automatically, so you jump to the head and then the hand and then down to the ping panel. I think the way it's meant to go (and which certainly works for me) is to flow down in a line from Dragon (the guy in panel two)'s ear, where the light converges, and that way you don't start with the head, but with that kanji, and there's a stronger sense of direction going down through the paddle.

>you're drawn to the major things automatically
Yep, which is why that kind of panelling is shit for me. I can see what you mean, but that doesn't really work for me. Moreso makes me wonder how many people use that direction and my direction.
It likely also has to do with the speed of reading / looking at things, as you likely have a higher attention span as well.

JoJo

The Fire Punch guy has great panelling

>still confusing art with panelling

Why are Miyazakifags so goddammit retarded?

Panelling is the lifeblood of a manga. If it is done well, the manga flows without a hitch, if it is done great, the manga rises on another level.

For example, Blade of the Immortal isn't that impressive as a story, but it's panelling makes it top tier.

The problem of Nausicaa's paneling has been frequently pointed out. Let's compare the 1st volume(left) and the last volume(right). As manga/comic, right page is far easier to follow. Less line and panel, characters stand out from the back ground, use of the speed lines etc. But this way the right page feels generic and somewhat boring.
takekuma.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2008/11/4-2-0e0b.html

?? Do you understand you read English version of Nausicaa from left to right?

>Blade of the Immortal isn't that impressive as a story, but it's panelling makes it top tier.
+ good characters, otherwise it's just style over substance bullshit.

I think when he says story he's referring to content in general.

Thoughts on Trigun/Nightow paneling?

That doesn't matter, because any good manga would be able to guide your eyes through a path regardless of whichever panel you start with. Nausicaa doesn't do that. It is just a bunch of disconnected actions spread across a bunch of disorganized panels.

The right is boring because Miyazaki's basic manga skills are boring. But at least he started to get them.

I think it can form a core part of a manga and help improve flow and message, but if their focus is elsewhere, just keep it clean. Clear panelling and flow beats panelling for the sake of panelling.

>Nausicaa
This is one of the worst examples of panelling in good manga I've seen.

This is some atrocious paneling right here.
Well said, but this is pretty much only the beginning.
The paneling of a manga, of a comic strip in genre, is deeply bound to two of the most important aspects of literature, Pacing and Focus, and one of drawings, Composition. A manga is a manga not because it has a lot nice pictures, nor because it tells a story, but because the pictures, the panels, "flow". What's important is being able to tell something through this "flow", the message of you piece of art, and you can't achieve this "flow", you can't transmit your message, without good paneling.
Now, what is good paneling? The reason why so many fail in this subject is because there're no real fundamentals for paneling. If you read agin you'll find two example of good, yet extrimely basic, paneling. When you get to intermediate level, you find that panels start to look more and more like movie frames (which shouldn't surprise you, since angles and editing are pratically the Composition/Focus and Pacing of filmmaking), and when you get to high level paneling, you'll see, well, "stuff".
You see, the medium is too young to have a good and solid library where people could learn off, so high level paneling is extrimely experimental.
In the end, if you want do this experiment, look at the most famous manga being published right now, they'll all have a similari paneling to what said, but if you read, for example, Astroboy, you'll see yet good paneling, but strangely different from what you're used to.

Magi doublespreads are beautifully composed.

there are no panels here, but there is

I couldn't read Noragami because of the god awful paneling. I don't know why, but it really felt the like the paneling was fucking with me. Peach-Pit's works felt similarly.

Do you think it's possible to do a long take like this youtube.com/watch?v=9NvD_VnNBEo
and adapt/emulate it into a comic book form with panels WITHOUT making it a boring mess of the same panel repeated and microscopic changes between them?

If so, how could panelling be used to make it work?

Worst paneling is in web mangas. They don't try which is what makes them so infuriating to look at. Same with gook manhwas too.

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Pretty important, artwork can make a manga ugly or pretty, but paneling determines whether a manga is readable.

Isayama for example has sub-standard art, but the readers can actually follow the pacing and grasp the nuances of his story.

At least from second volume on anyway. The first few chapters were a chore to read.

Holy shit this. It's why I never could get into that shit, it's just so god damn ugly to look at

A prime example of good paneling is Dragon Ball. Every fight is easy to follow and understand while being dynamic and fluid.

That's the same problem I've had with Nihei's recent manga. The dude was never particularly good at paneling, but his usage of monochrome colors was so striking that every panel stood out. Ever since he went full Deviantart sketchbook mode, I can barely make out anything even happening anymore.

Is this good panelling or bad panelling?

Very good, but that wouldn't work in the current WSJ, readers would say that the author is dragging the fight.

Not the user you replied to, but were you the guy a few months back who disliked frequent perspective switches and wanted a mangaka to try to capture time the way Tarkovsky does? Because you (or that guy, if not you) made me think about this question a bit, and I sort of came to the same conclusion you're asking about - that that kind of long quiet shot is difficult in comic form, since panels are more or less like quick cuts by nature. The only real way I could see it maybe working is if you tried to mimic camera movement between panels somehow (the perspective changes, but in a pattern of movement, rather than jumping around), and probably varied the amount of motion or "time" that each panel skips past. I think you'd want uniform panels, too, all the same size/shape, no fancy organization, basically discarding/minimizing panel layout to focus on the selection of individual shots.

You called OP's page shit, but then went "well said" to a post that was half the guy explaining why he liked that same page. Please explain.

I fucking love 7Seeds, but that's not very good paneling.

bump

writing my reply now, don't want this thread to die before I finish

Yeah that was me. I'm going to attempt to do it with my own manga (likely a graphic novel).

That was among my initial thoughts with how to go about it, and in all honesty if it was up to me, I'd do it that way. But I feel it would be completely unreadable to everyone but myself if I did. The monotony of not just the scene (like that vid for example) but the same panel sizes and shot within the panel would drive one insane. I came up with an idea to combat the monotony of a long take and sort of mimic the traditional comic approach.

Say pic related from Tarkovsky's Nostalghia, it's 4 minutes in length and the camera stays put for 70% of the time before very slowly zooming in to the man as he falls asleep. My idea is pic related would be the establishing shot. One large panel to show us everything that's going to take place within this singular shot. Now instead of repeating the same image over and over, panel after panel for pages and pages with the only changes between the panels being the main beats of this scene (standing at the door on the right, walking past the bed, opening the window shutters, sitting on the bed, lying on the bed -- which is almost storyboardish), maybe have panels (like how comics/manga do to show exaggerated facial expressions) that show the small movements, happening within the long take shot -- things of importance that the viewers eye would focus on however briefly. None of it is from a new perspective that I dislike so much in comics, it's all from the same perspective that you see in that initial establishing shot.

You might be wondering why go through this song and dance, well you're not alone.
first panel will be large and act as an establishing shot

forgive the very last line, meant to delete that

I dunno how many others on Sup Forums have read it, but I've always liked the paneling and layout composition of The Five Star Stories. It's pretty basic compared to modern manga, but it feels surprisingly cinematic, like a film from 40s or 50s. Lots of wide shots and facial close-ups, but the transitions between panels are smooth. The author has a very good understanding of +/- space.

>the same panel sizes and shot
Well, what I'm suggesting is basically to vary the shot. I have a hard time seeing it working if you constrain it to a single perspective and/or static "camera."

> maybe have panels (like how comics/manga do to show exaggerated facial expressions) that show the small movements, happening within the long take shot -- things of importance that the viewers eye would focus on however briefly.
I'm not sure I understand you. Are you saying insets physically within the larger panel? Or a series of smaller shots, after the larger one, of him moving (but from the same perspective and distance)? I don't know if either sounds that effective, honestly - once you start saying "that the viewers eye would focus on however briefly," aren't you basically sacrificing the tempo that (from my understanding) is the very thing you're trying to capture here? And it sounds like they'd still be quick cuts of different events without a continuous flow.

Even in the newer volumes 30 years later, it still has that quality.

Yes, exactly, the small movements are things that are happening within the larger establishing panel and can be said to insert into it. Now it won't be a ton of small panels cluttering up the pages to the point where it's hard to tell what's going on, but it would follow the guy around, the size of the panels would vary to convey not only their importance but time passing. Those panels are actions that I believe to be important and show something subtle like a facial expression for example.

I can't say I'm entirely sold on the idea considering I have yet to really try it, but it's just a thought I've been entertaining. Unfortunately, there's no other artist that I know of doing this so I'm going in blind.

Mob Psycho 100 demonstrates throughout that despite his art's technical insufficiencies, ONE is a master of panelling and creating flow in his manga

>posting a spread to show off paneling

These guys did it too

I'm sort of skeptical, but by all means, try it and see. I just don't know if you'll really get that time flow you're looking for.

The second one has panels, they're just arranged into one large image. I don't really know what the first guy's deal is, but I'd rather leave him be than try to argue with an ESL who just outright contradicted himself.

You're overthinking it, fella, Baki's author has already figured all out.

some of my favorite pages

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look at Blame!'s early chapters.
That's basically what I look at to see if a manga has bad panelling

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Nihei has always been fucking awful at panelling. Has it down

ultimately, it's quite obvious the narrative relies heavily on paneling/composition, it's extremely important for a series' success.

Devilman had excellent panelling

It doesn't really help that you're probably reading the flipped scans. I'm actually quite fond of his paneling, there's so much variation.

>flipped scans

see >variation

Call it what you want, it's still a bunch of disjointed panels.

I dunno, I personally had no trouble understanding the narrative coherently.

Otomo is great

Pretty hard to miss the narrative when half the individual panels are filed with text.

Nausicaa is just a novel and some pictures badly juxtaposed on top of one another.

I haven't read the manga, but how much of it was used in the film? Some of the shots were kino as fuck.

>kino

SZS is a damn good-looking manga.

>how much of it was used in the film

I don't remember, did the film use as many wide shots?

I feel like panel work is one of the few areas that western comics are innovating, and the Japanese are stagnating.

Innovative is a bit of a strong word. That's an awfully clutterd mess.

You don't get it, it's postmodern cubism in comic form.

It's like cinematography in anime or prose in writing, of course it's important.

The top half is supposed to be cluttered, with off center and overlapping panels, it shows the reader his tilted(like the panel)mental state, you seem him concentrate, he starts thinking very quickly(lots of panels) about a lot of different things(content of panels), then bam, everything straightens out, the panels start getting bigger and more concise, the character has had a realization.

It's like cinematography in anime or prose in writing, of course it's important.

>postmodern cubism
Deep.