The layout of a page is the most important thing that a cartoonist has to think about when making a comic. The page draws you in, each of the panels direct your eye to one another and even the space in between the panels can imply the passage of time or unseen and unheard actions. A contemporary cartoonist who recognizes this fact in spades is Ivan Brunetti. Brunetti’s comics, whether long form or single panel, always carry with it a hefty knowledge of graphic design and visual literacy. This example of a page from one of his large print single issues is a great example of Brunetti’s skill in graphic design.
Here we have a single page depicting a stand alone story. Immediately we are drawn in by the wholeness of the page in that it is a single image of a house broken up into individual panels. Even the form and placement of the house, the weather, the time of day and its physical orientation are preserved within this single image.
Deeper still the panels themselves are separate yet at certain points conjoin to create a whole image. However, even in these instances the passage of time still exists. By using two or more panels to convey a single image, we create the illusion of time passing within our heads and allow ourselves to take in a more fluid “movie-like” image. In a lot of ways this technique is directly related to persistence of vision and other visual phenomena, in that it fools its viewers into seeing movement and progression where there really is not.
The pacing of each of the panels is made so that the mundane activities he is going through are taken in evenly and as rigidly as possible. It is here that the cartoonist controls the viewer’s eye and guides them into reading the work that they’ve created in their intended way.
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