Page layouts

[deckerd@agcs.com]

> Talking about arranging panels on pages:
> 
> In the mid-60s, a lot of comics (including Barks' and Murry's) only had
> 6 panels on a 4-row page: every third panel was page-wide. Apparently,
> the editor demanded this format, because different artists (and writers)
> adopted it. Was there ever any professor (or someone else) who explained
> WHY this format was used?

Without knowing any inside details on editorial decisions at the time, I
would guess that this was some editor's idea of making a page more
attractive. I've found in my own comics writing (for independent black
and whites) that the page-wide panel has its uses for scene-setting (i.e.,
establishing shots) or group scenes or lengthy dialogue, since a single
panel amounting to one-sixth of the page just isn't large enough for very
much art, and besides, a six-panel page, every page, can be pretty monotonous.
The page-wide panel breaks up the pattern and gives the eye something new
and interesting to look at. For Disney-type comics working with a standard 
eight-panel grid, the same only more so. I'd guess the editor decided that
eight-panel pages were dull and dictated that they should be broken up.
That it would be so arbitrary: six panels per four-tier page, every third
panel spanning the page, whether it made sense for the story or not, is
surprising, but it supports my suspicion that after Western took over 
comics publishing from Dell, the art directors took over as well. Western
tried a number of experiments with comic-book design (such as briefly
eliminating ruled panel borders) suggesting that people trained in
commercial art and book production but not familiar with (or at least not
stuck to) comic-book tradition were making the design decisions. Sometimes
it worked very well (Western had the most sophisticated covers of any
company at the time -- amazing what typesetting instead of hand-lettering
can do), and sometimes it didn't. This may have been one of the didn'ts.

For our overseas friends, I'll just mention that when we say "Western,"
we mean '60s comic books with the "Gold Key" imprint, published by
Western Publishing.

--Dwight Decker