Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow Golden and Silver Age Comic Book Style: Panels sized unevenly, figures breaking slightly past the borders
- Type
- Set in Golden and Silver Age Comic Book Style's manner (Effects held in outlined bursts, dialogue set tight in caps), and let Webtoon (Vertical-Scroll Comics)'s lettering (Dialogue does not have to stay inside the frame, so push it into the blank. Separating narration from speech that way pulls the narrator apart from the character) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Golden and Silver Age Comic Book Style's material (Heavy black contours filled by four-color overprints and dot screens); bring in exactly one thing from Webtoon (Vertical-Scroll Comics) (Assume full colour throughout and let the background colour of the gaps set the mood of an episode. Pour a repeating image such as rain or a falling body through the blanks until the edge between gap and panel dissolves).
- Colour
- Build on #e3e0ab, #cd2a1b, #040a1d and admit one accent from #EDE6CA, #354751, #FFFFFF.
Where they fight
These are already listed as related entries, so the join should come easily.
Caution
- Golden and Silver Age Comic Book Style Laying on dots and primaries while thinning the contours means the drawing stops reading the instant the inks shift on press.
- Webtoon (Vertical-Scroll Comics) Stacking print page layouts one under another turns the blanks back into meaningless slack and disables the pacing mechanism that sits at the centre of the form.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Golden and Silver Age Comic Book Style (style, 1938–1970) and their accent from Webtoon (Vertical-Scroll Comics) (layout, 2003–). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Golden and Silver Age Comic Book Style exists for: short story advertising drawn to survive printing on cheap paper, or explainers and promotions that must show one instant of motion. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Golden and Silver Age Comic Book Style - Heavy black outlines of even weight fencing in figures and backgrounds alike - Areas filled by overprinted primaries and a dot screen coarse enough to see - Sound effects hand lettered in capitals inside an outlined burst - Figures stepping out over the panel border, with speed lines drawn along the direction of motion Composition: Panels sized unevenly, figures breaking slightly past the borders. Type and lettering: Effects held in outlined bursts, dialogue set tight in caps. ## Accent comes from Webtoon (Vertical-Scroll Comics), used sparingly - Panels line up in a single vertical column, with nowhere for the eye to move sideways - The blank between panels runs longer than the panels themselves and holds background colour, falling rain, or dialogue - A single panel roughly eight times taller than it is wide, needing several scrolls before it can be seen whole - Full colour from the outset, drawn to one fixed width matched to the screen Let one material quality come from it: Assume full colour throughout and let the background colour of the gaps set the mood of an episode. Pour a repeating image such as rain or a falling body through the blanks until the edge between gap and panel dissolves. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #e3e0ab, carry the structure in #cd2a1b and #040a1d, and let a single accent come from #EDE6CA. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: exhilaration, play, nostalgia, intimacy. ## What goes wrong - Golden and Silver Age Comic Book Style: Laying on dots and primaries while thinning the contours means the drawing stops reading the instant the inks shift on press. - Webtoon (Vertical-Scroll Comics): Stacking print page layouts one under another turns the blanks back into meaningless slack and disables the pacing mechanism that sits at the centre of the form. ## Across the four Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture. ## Constraints - Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. - Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work. - Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- Golden and Silver Age Comic Book Style 1938–1970 / Style / Illustration Styles
A grammar of exaggeration that came out of four colour printing on cheap newsprint. Heavy black outlines fence in every form, areas are filled by overprinted primaries and dot screens, and both motion and sound are drawn as shapes in their own right.
- Webtoon (Vertical-Scroll Comics) 2003– / Layout / Reading on the Web
A comics layout that grew on Korean portals and runs down a single column. The blank space between panels stops being a mere break and becomes the material, because its length carries elapsed time or a change of scene while it also takes on background colour, falling rain, and even the dialogue lifted out of the frames. Since the reader cannot glance ahead, the act of scrolling becomes the passage of story time.
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