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 Infinite Canvas: Never break for a page, only for the story. Stretch and compress time with the distance between panels, opening the widest gaps in the quietest passages
- Type
- Set in Infinite Canvas's manner (Keep dialogue and narration inside the panels rather than pushing them into captions outside the frame. Use one family and let size carry volume), 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 Infinite Canvas's material (Carry the background through the gutters so the surface reads as one drawing. Signal where the reader currently is by shifting the ground color or pattern); 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 #FFF980, #FFFFFF, #666633 and admit one accent from #EDE6CA, #354751, #FFFFFF.
Where they fight
- Infinite Canvas and Webtoon (Vertical-Scroll Comics) both belong to Reading on the Web, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
Caution
- Infinite Canvas Expanding in every direction at once because the canvas allows it leaves readers with no idea where to go next; settle on one direction first and add branches only after the spine holds.
- 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 Infinite Canvas (layout, 2000–) and their accent from Webtoon (Vertical-Scroll Comics) (layout, 2003–). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Infinite Canvas exists for: designing a vertically read comic as a single continuous surface instead of a sequence of pages, or pacing a long explanatory piece by controlling the distance between its beats. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Infinite Canvas - A surface far taller or wider than any paper format, with no page break anywhere in it - The story slowing where panels drift apart and quickening where they crowd together - Panel runs that step down like a staircase or wind into a spiral, arrangements a page could not hold - One panel dwarfing its neighbour many times over, a range no fixed format would allow Composition: Never break for a page, only for the story. Stretch and compress time with the distance between panels, opening the widest gaps in the quietest passages. Type and lettering: Keep dialogue and narration inside the panels rather than pushing them into captions outside the frame. Use one family and let size carry volume. ## 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 #FFFFFF, carry the structure in #FFF980 and #666633, 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: play, rebellion, intimacy, exhilaration. ## Where they fight - Infinite Canvas and Webtoon (Vertical-Scroll Comics) both belong to Reading on the Web, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable. ## What goes wrong - Infinite Canvas: Expanding in every direction at once because the canvas allows it leaves readers with no idea where to go next; settle on one direction first and add branches only after the spine holds. - 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
- Infinite Canvas 2000– / Layout / Reading on the Web
Scott McCloud's name, given in Reinventing Comics in 2000, for a way of laying out webcomics. The screen is treated as a window onto one unbroken surface rather than as a page, so panels can run in any direction for any distance. Because the medium measures time with space, the gap between panels becomes the pace of the story.
- 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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