By Jeff Larkin
As we countdown one week until the April 22nd launch of the Kickstarter campaign for the Kids Comics Unite LET’S GO Anthology, we’ve got an article from contributor Jeff Larkin. He walks us through some of the differences in storytelling choices when changing the length of a comic. Enjoy this inside look into the process of writing short for anthologies!
~ Anthology Newsletter/Blog Co-Editors, Maritza Ruiz-Kim and Edna Cabcabin Moran
When the opportunity arose to contribute to KCU’s anthology, I knew I’d have to adjust my thinking to write something short; I’d been working on a long graphic novel, and a short comic is a different beast.
In jumping into my eight pager, I realized that I’d need to introduce my protagonist’s problem and objective as soon as I could, and that I’d have to move my plot in a fairly direct way to it’s resolution… there was little space to extend moments like I might in a longer work.
But could I cheat and use smaller panels to fit more story?
It’s something that crossed my mind. I had begun a story that I thought would fill ten pages, and when submissions were then limited to eight pages, I experimented with making my panels smaller so I could fit them in the pages available. Nope, that wasn’t gonna work, the images and text proved to be too small to be legible. So I returned to condensing my story beats.
Tightening the Beginning
Thankfully, a critique partner reminded me that a story can often be improved by tightening its beginning. So that’s what I did; instead of taking a page and a half to show a car breaking down and my characters hiking into town for help, I took three panels, and added a caption to clarify the time passage.
This saved a lot of space. But I still had to be conscious of saving space in other parts of my story. One technique that I used, that I’d never tried before, was the inset panel. I added a couple, which I think worked alright, and bought me room!
Panel transitions
As I wrote earlier, another thing I did was to limit my use of moment-to-moment panel transitions. These transitions imply a very short time passing between panels; an example: using three panels to track a subtle change in a character’s facial expression. I didn’t have space for these, so I used them only when absolutely necessary, instead opting for action-to-action transitions that advanced the plot more quickly.
There were times I felt nervous that I was moving things too quickly, but I decided to trust that readers would accept slightly abrupt progressions if the plot remained interesting. For example, during the middle of the story, my protagonists walk from one end of a street to the other. It’s not a particularly long street, but I had to get them to the end of it in as few panels as I could. So I had them start their walk, cut away to other interesting characters, and then returned to my protagonists at the end of the street. As a comic artist you have the ability to choose what you show and what you don’t, and in this case it enabled me to keep this section of the plot to one page.
Even Shorter comics
So that was for my eight page comic. I also submitted two other comics to the anthology, a two pager, and a one pager.
How did I manage plot in my one pager? Well it was easier to manage than in my eight pager.
In a one page comic, you have no time to stray from the plot to develop your characters or the nuances of their situation; you have to hit your major plot points immediately.
My take on Yonkoma
The Japanese four panel comic form, Yonkoma, uses the kishotenketsu structure for its story: the first panel sets the scene, the second advances it, an unexpected development happens in the third, and the forth panel shows the effect of the third panel’s development.
In the four panel comics I’ve done, I’ve used a slight variation of this structure. I like to set up the environment and introduce the problem in panel one, develop things in panels two and three, and surprise the reader with a twist in the last panel. I’ll often start with the idea of the first or last panel, and then fill in the other panels so there’s a logical flow.
So I carried this structure over to what turned out to be a seven panel one page comic for the anthology, and it felt relatively easy to do. Mark Twain said “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” That feels true for me with eight page comics, less so for one-pagers.
Takeaways
Anyhow, the point of this short (-ish) article? In working on my anthology comics I learned that limitations can breed creativity; and that creativity can result in techniques that you can use in future work, both short and long! Thanks Anthology!
About Jeff Larkin
Interested in seeing more of Jeff’s work? Check out his website at https://www.jefflarkinart.com/, and sign up for his newsletter at https://jefflarkincomics.substack.com/ to receive free comics in your inbox! 🙂