Greetings/My current obsession

[glynndah]

A welcome for the little newbie from the good little witch.

 

[DrDelirium]

Nor would I suggest judging based on a single page; the examples were added merely to help narrow down what specifically you were looking for. You must also remember that those are scanned copies of a printed page resized to fit the webpage they are from, and that legibility is clearer in the printed form. Plus, not every page in a graphic novel will have the same layout.

You could google image search 'graphic novel layouts' or 'graphic novel sample pages' for different ideas on how to set up various pages.

Or, perhaps, instead of focusing on graphic novels, you might want to consider viewing some examples of web comics purely for the aesthetics used, regardless of the content. I gather you would like to stay away from a more 'cartoony' feel, but they may still provide insight for ideas in terms of page lay out, text font, etc. if you are looking for what would look best on a web page vs. in a printed medium.

After all, art is about experimenting. Good luck in developing your own ideas.

I'm not opposed to 'cartoony,' it's quite appropriate for some things. Regarding typesetting, though, italic on a colored background is always going to be a fail for significant chunks of text. It's not that I can't read it, it's that I don't want to. It makes the eye work for no good reason, it interferes with the flow of content. The quotation marks are perfectly adequate to show that this is dialogue.

Googling 'graphic novel layout ideas' (bit of autofill there) yields a lot of designs that are simply comic book layout ideas, and an assortment of things that, when clicked on, reveal themselves to be brochures, resumes, annual reports, tutorials or children's books. These last are perhaps closer to what I seek than anything else, but tend to be pretty light on the text. "Graphic novel sample pages" yields comics, comics, comics, comics, illustrated book covers, comics, illustrations, comics, guides to book page layouts of a very pedestrian kind, and some comics. If you have other specific examples in mind, I'd be interested to see them- the Frankenstein is the closest yet, and as I said, I hope to get my hands on the whole thing. But too Google 'Graphic Novel' pretty much means 'comic'.

 

[DrDelirium]

A welcome for the little newbie from the good little witch.

Mmm... now that's the kind of welcome I like. Glad to meet you, Glynndah.

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

I think the OP is schizophrenic.

He'll fit in nicely then.

 

[DrDelirium]

He'll fit in nicely then.

That's what she said.

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

That's what she said.

Oh my...
LOL!!!!

 

[DrDelirium]

Oh my...
LOL!!!!

BTW, on a completely different subject- is it just me or is it really the case that some threads can be subscribed to and some can't?

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

BTW, on a completely different subject- is it just me or is it really the case that some threads can be subscribed to and some can't?

Ummm no fucking clue! I never tried to subscribe to any before.
I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will come along and explain it.

 

[Iamsubmissive]

BTW, on a completely different subject- is it just me or is it really the case that some threads can be subscribed to and some can't?

You should be subscribed to any thread you've commented on. Go to edit options on your profile. There is a section on subscribed threads...you might have it set to do not subscribe. You also don't have your PM feature turned on, so no one can send you a private message if they want to. I don't know if that's intentional on your part, but the setting for that is also under 'edit options'.

 

[DrDelirium]

You should be subscribed to any thread you've commented on. Go to edit options on your profile. There is a section on subscribed threads...you might have it set to do not subscribe. You also don't have your PM feature turned on, so no one can send you a private message if they want to. I don't know if that's intentional on your part, but the setting for that is also under 'edit options'.

Thanks for the heads up, Iam. At this point, very little that I do is intentional. I'll go to profile and try to sort that stuff out.

 

[DrDelirium]

Okay, that should be better. Thanks, Iam.

 

[DrDelirium]

Not to beat my own drum, or anything, but I would like to know if I have the picture-posting procedure properly pegged (don't you love alliteration?), and traffic seems pretty light over at the Visual Artists zone. If one of y'all would tell me if this is working, I'd much appreciate it.

https://deliriumseven.tumblr.com/image/161060278086

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

Not to beat my own drum, or anything, but I would like to know if I have the picture-posting procedure properly pegged (don't you love alliteration?), and traffic seems pretty light over at the Visual Artists zone. If one of y'all would tell me if this is working, I'd much appreciate it.

https://deliriumseven.tumblr.com/image/161060278086

I can see the picture if that's what you're asking.

 

[DrDelirium]

I can see the picture if that's what you're asking.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm asking. Thanks.

 

[Bramblethorn]

For instance, comics- sequential panel art- are great for action sequences, can be great for establishing the appearance and personality of characters, the feel of locations, and so on. They are not so great for extended dialogue- you end up with a bunch of talking head shots, a quick sketch of a head, or the back of a head, or the silhouette of a head, and a balloon with a dozen words in it. It's a lot of drawing for very little impact as a rule, and it's a huge amount of work if the artist tries to keep it from being boring and repetitive. An ordinary novel or short story format is much better at extended dialogue.

It's been a while since I read it, but the Sandman series often featured a lot of dialogue.

Comics offer some options for dialogue that are unavailable in a standard novel format. You can use graphical cues to make the dialogue more evocative: font shifts as a character's mood changes, neat and orderly vs ragged placement of the text, etc. etc.

For example, from Sandman, here's Morpheus (personification of dreams) talking to his sister Death. Morpheus is an immortal being who takes himself pretty seriously, and he has his own very distinctive speech balloons; nobody else talks like that. If you see white-on-black text in a balloon that looks like an ink splatter, you know it's Morpheus speaking, even without attribution.

Death, on the other hand, is much more matter-of-fact. She talks like an ordinary human, without pretension, and graphical style helps convey that. It also shows the rhythm of her speech in ways that would be difficult to handle gracefully in plain text.

 

[DrDelirium]

It's been a while since I read it, but the Sandman series often featured a lot of dialogue.

Comics offer some options for dialogue that are unavailable in a standard novel format. You can use graphical cues to make the dialogue more evocative: font shifts as a character's mood changes, neat and orderly vs ragged placement of the text, etc. etc.

For example, from Sandman, here's Morpheus (personification of dreams) talking to his sister Death. Morpheus is an immortal being who takes himself pretty seriously, and he has his own very distinctive speech balloons; nobody else talks like that. If you see white-on-black text in a balloon that looks like an ink splatter, you know it's Morpheus speaking, even without attribution.

Death, on the other hand, is much more matter-of-fact. She talks like an ordinary human, without pretension, and graphical style helps convey that. It also shows the rhythm of her speech in ways that would be difficult to handle gracefully in plain text.

I agree, comics do offer possibilities for dialogue not available in plain text. The example you give also, however, shows just what I'm talking about- a physically large page with a bunch of illustration that doesn't really need to be there and a bit of text. One page of that, fine. A novel's worth, not so much. Sandman does go to great lengths to keep up the art end of the schema, and the panels are generally stylish, but still a large fraction of them do nothing to move the story- only the text is doing that- and if they weren't there, the stylishness of the book as a whole wouldn't suffer. It might even improve if there was more time to do less drawing. I just haven't seen a really effective approach to doing this yet. Not saying it hasn't been done, I just haven't seen it.