Panels

Of the utmost importance to me was the look and feel of the graphic novel, I wanted to take what I had learned in my last brief further and work as best I could on panel lay out and flow.

I took note of how many comic artists are utilising the panel layouts to the best of their potential. The best of these were artists such as Jae Lee (2011) and Steve McNiven (2011) but pushing the envelope of comic book art with the use of panelling was Frank Quietly (2011). Quietly had been working on DC's 'Batman and Robin' and had recently produced a graphic novel with industry legend Grant Morrison. Quietly had experimented greatly producing some outstanding work.

Quietly explains that it is easy to experiment for experiments sake but that any kind of panel oddity that didn't read well would instantly throw readers out of the story. He continues to explain that the panels in whichever form they take must serve the pace, style and tone of the narrative (Quietly 2011). Another comic artist that pushed boundaries in terms of layouts and structure with regards to the art is Dave Gibbons who worked on Alan Moore's 'Watchman', he designed the series meticulously, every cover acted as the first panel of the comic and many issues had panels which were a perfect mirror to the point where the middle two pages formed one page.

Hitch, 2010, explains that panel design and composition is key to the storytelling aspect of the artists job, that they must reinforce and augment each other (p17).

To try and see how I wanted the graphic novel to look and feel I created a test page from my concept art. It didn't have the finished lettering but I think it gives a good example...