Panels per page?

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ManInBlack

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When you're creating a comic, how many panels do you consider the "default"?

I have no idea where I picked up the habit to script for 12-panel pages. Not that the average page has twelve panels, but that my descriptions and space allocations are based on "these two panels are double-sized and this is quad-sized, so there are 7 panels on this page". Still, as I try to find examples, I find more comics based on the Watchmen scheme than anything else (3 rows of 3, even though this makes none of them square), while more and more modern comics even seem to find that an excessive number of panels.

Am I overthinking this? Is it perfectly fine to write a script where a page has anywhere from 1 to 12 panels in it, or is that a taboo at this point?
 

NinjaFingers

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For modern comics, 4 to 8 panels, 5 or six being best. Older pre-digital comics often had more - Watchman was pre-digital. These days artists tend to do fewer panels and put more in each one.

1 or 2 panels should be used sparingly and always with a specific effect in mind.
 

Neegh

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Years ago, right out of high school, I painted comic panels for awhile. 5 to 7 was about the norm.
 
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ManInBlack

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Now when you say numbers like "5 to 7" or "8", do you mean a 9 panel structure with creative paneling? Otherwise I'm having difficulty trying to visualize a default, except for books with very unusual designs. The only way I can really picture either of those is with a 3x3 grid modified.
 

snafu1056

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It's hard to settle on a default since there are so many variables. 12 panels is a lot for one page. I think the only reason to use that many panels would be to depict a very tense or fast-paced scene. Small panels are like quick cuts in movies, and larger panels are like longer cuts. I think five or six panels might be a good middle-ground between too slow and too fast. But it all really depends on what's happening on the page and how fast or slow you want the action to unfold.
 

Layla Lawlor

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Yeah, I agree with the others about 5 or 6 being optimum, though like an "average chapter length", it's mostly driven by the needs of the story/genre. It's not that common anymore for comics to be based on a rigid grid like in the old days, though it depends on the comic. Freakangels has one of the more unusual uses of a grid that I've seen -- it always uses an unusual and very rigid four-panel grid structure. Even the pages with larger panels do so within the confines of the 4-panel grid, combining two panels vertically or horizontally. Most superhero comics have moved away from it, or at least away from doing it reliably throughout an issue, although there are exceptions (the recent Black Widow comics, for example).

12 individual panels is really a lot for one page, but an underlying 12-panel grid structure could serve as a nice unifying visual element to a comic, with the understanding that most of the panels would probably be larger. I like that idea quite a bit.
 
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ManInBlack

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12 individual panels is really a lot for one page, but an underlying 12-panel grid structure could serve as a nice unifying visual element to a comic, with the understanding that most of the panels would probably be larger. I like that idea quite a bit.
This comment inspired me. I'm still going to rescript my work, trying to stick to no more than 8 panels per page (except for one page that I know is going to be 9 panels, because it was the only 12 panel page of the first draft), but I'm going to stick with the 4x3 grid as the basis to see how it comes out.
 
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