Comic Analysis 1 - Oh, My Sweet Alien! (Patreon)

In the effort to better my comics understanding before I begin thumbnailing my next work, I always try to go through pages of comics I like and study their layouts. I've done that a few times now but think maybe it's time to try full chapters to get a grasp of the bigger picture narrative execution. Today I want to go over a chapter of the manga Oh, My Sweet Alien! by the late Miyata Kouji (who inspired me to finally make my own comics). This post is free because I do not own any of the rights to this work, but suggest that you please go buy this comic from its publisher or any book store nearby! it's a single volume, a really great read and won't take up a lot of space on your bookshelf like most manga.

Oh My Sweet Alien is about an Alien woman who is living the life of a housewife in japan while she and her husband Nobuo try to keep her identity a secret. Filled with lots of comedic bits based around married life, aliens, and sexuality, it's a fun read that has a lot of heart, and a lot of naked bodies, human or otherwise haha.

I'll be looking at chapter 5.2, Where we see The alien wife (seriously what the fuck is her NAME tho????) meets her mother in law. Some early thoughts about this manga: Miyata Kouji can DRAW, but he never wants it to get in the way from direct storytelling. His pages are very clear, very basic layouts that are easy to follow that have few drawings that go over the borders (mostly for small emphasis). a lot of times, the basics of layout and page flow are all you need for a comic to look great! 

This chapter has no particular scene of spectacle, but instead goes for an everyday life character drama scenario, which leads each page to range from 4-7 panels per page. Action can go for less, and some people can make up to 10 work, but at the cost of detail. What we do have here is a type of scene that people will most likely encounter at some point if they want to make their own comics, so I think it's a great type of chapter to analyze. 

Also, throughout this analysis I will be talking about the concept of a beat and how to use it for story flow. A beat may be defined by some as any big action taken to advance the plot forward, but in this case I use it to define every time a character says or does anything of significance. When you don't have a lot of action, your big swings in storytelling are your character's interactions and each of them have importance.

With that, let's hop in!

panel 1- the major focus of this chapter is about the mother in law, so showing her front and center right away sets this up for the reader. in this case, Miyata goes for the extreme close up that takes up the whole top half of the page.

panel 2- we cut to the other person in this conversation, Wife (is it fine if I call her that? that's about as well as she's treated in the manga anyways). Here is where I look at how a conversation is split on the page, focused around the structure of the page's rows.  In this case, there is extreme weight put on the mother's harsh words to Wife, so we have given her the entire row. Wife's response is also important, so she gets a panel as tall as the rest of the page, but still clearly dominated by the mother's words. her response is leading towards the actions that she will take for the rest of the page, so this row break functions as a whole unit.

panel 3- this panel does the first placing of the characters in the scene, and building of the personalities at play (Wife is trying to pick something nice to wear while Nobuo waits and his mother makes a judge-y comment), but serves as a one-two punch in conjuction to the panel underneath. the two panels are stronger together to create this next beat.

panel 4- if panel 3 is setup, this functions as punchline (which is good reason to lay them one on top of the other, also allowing the wider shot of all characters).  The mom has little patience for it, and we get a second emphasis on the mom's dominance over Wife, really driving home how these characters relate to each other at this moment.

This page as a whole functions to both set up this chapter's scenario but also not dump too much info at you right away, leaving some mystery. We have met 2 of these 3 characters by this point in the story, so Miyata starts right away with a focus on whats new about this chapter.

panel 1- we get a shot of mom waiting with a bubble of Wife talking about her. She's speaking to Nobuo who is not in the room with the mother anymore. This is a wider shot of her to really make sure we get to see what she looks like, as all the panels before were quite up close. She didn't need to be shown full body in the first page to get her point across, but now that we are getting a fuller picture of the scenario of this chapter, Miyata uses this time to start clarifying who and what new things we see.

panel 2- Nobuo responds, directly next to the panel of his mother with them both facing opposite directions. having these panels on the same row can show that these scenes are more or less at the same time, but in different spaces. We hear what is being said but also get visual that the two are making tea for the mom, 2 sets of information being given through this one panel.

panel 3- we continue with the action in the physical space of making tea but a new row is given to the information Nobuo drops, some context about her visit that colors her character and her other relationships. This panel is an extreme closeup on the hands, both to get closer to the physical actions of the scene and add variety to the camera angles to this relatively uninteresting scene. This is something that will add a lot of life to your comics! if your characters are going to be in the same spot with minimal motion for a bit, you have to work the camera to make each panel have its own identity unrelated to the text within it.

panel 4- a direct reaction to this happens below, where the mom startles them with a cough. This breaks the scene that was happening and functions as a bridge between the first and second beat of this page.

panel 5- Wife is startled and the mom is trying to say something, which was her reason for entering the room in the first place. This is a great example of something I think comics has to worry about for flow, where the final panel in a page should try to leave a "question" for the reader that makes them turn the page to see the rest of what is happening. This doesn't work in every case, but if you need multiple pages for a specific scene or conversation, this is something to consider for breaking your pages up smoothly. We also see the camera leave the kitchen and back to the dining room, so whatever is coming is most likely going to involve this room, or she would have stayed planted in the kitchen. This itself can function as an establishing shot, we see the room is changing here so that we don't need to dedicate a panel later to pulling us back into this room when something else is more important to show.

This page wants to get the story rolling right away, and has 2 distinct beats, leaving a split between major rows right down the midpoint. It mostly functions to bridge the gap between the introduction and where the rest of this chapter goes.

panel 1- Miyata built up the tension on the previous page, and so makes his reveal here one of the 2 largest panels, showing the mess in the house. a finger is present to indicate who is speaking, but whatever acting/expression they'd be making here is deemed unimportant in comparison to setting the mess.

panel 2- again sitting next to the first panel in the same row, we get a direct response to the mess that has just been pointed out. Wife tries to shyly explain the situation, and the mom is having none of it. Wife is framed much smaller in comparison to mom, which is used on this whole page to show the power dynamic very symbolically.

panel 3- A new row starts here, where the mom is starting to lecture the couple but starts coughing. This new beat continues the sentiment from above, but this panel specifically introduces a sort of counter point: Wife hands the mom a drink to help her, we're seeing her still try to be on good terms with her even when the situation is uncomfortable.

panel 4- directly underneath, we have a shot for comedy, a gag of Wife using her alien hair tentacles to hand the glass over to her mother in law. The mom has a brief moment of pause as the situation hits her. A school of thought in visual storytelling is that comedy is flat, but Miyata goes for a shot in perspective here to go against this rule. It's possible that he went for this angle because he knew he had the drawing chops to do it, or he may have even chosen this angle for the diagonal line of motion that is formed to lead to the next panel. Regardless, if you can justify a reason for breaking a rule, you can go for it.

panel 5- the final reaction happens, a big punchline of the mom yelling at Wife, getting to the core of her complicated feelings of Wife being an alien. This is both a drop of information that informs the character and a conclusion to a joke, so it shares the importance of the first panel and they are roughly the same size.

This is the page that really send home the idea, "ok, THIS is what this chapter is going to be about." The mom is going to be down Wife's throat about everything she does that's alien because it doesnt agree with her traditional view of a housewife, or even just as a person that has become a part of her family. A relatable concept to many, even through the scifi lens of aliens. 

panel 1- we get a close up shot of the mom putting on an apron, and she starts conveying a message of needing to help clean. Miyata purposefully leaves her face out of the shot to obfuscate her intentions, what she says may be more complex than what's on the surface. We can read pretty easily that she actually just wants to help them and be needed in their home, but is too headstrong to let herself say it. Regardless, Wife interjects at the end of this panel that she doesn't have to.

panel 2- she finishes her thought with action in the panel next to it, using her hair tentacles to grab everything at once. This takes the wider space of the 2 panels to give it more weight, and we can read that Wife thinks she needs to prove herself as someone that her mother in law can trust to be responsible.

panel 3- The next 3 panels work in tandem with each other and share the roughly the same amount of space to convey one single beat. The mom decides to take over laundry duty, but Wife snatches it from her. The mom becomes the focus here, and Wife is no longer even framed, working behind the scenes.

panel 4- Mom tries to move on to cooking, but Wife is a step ahead, showing off plates of food she made. Mom's expression starts to droop.

panel 5- She has a quick back and forth with Wife trying to find something to help with, but everything has been taken care of. Mom is barely in frame, but we see her clenched fist shaking, clearly frustrated.

panel 6- The next row has the conclusion to this beat, and so the two panels form the tallest row on the page. The mom feels unneeded and mutters how Wife can take of everything herself. She's taking her handkerchief off her head and her back faces both Nobuo/Wife and the reader. The focus here is on body language, as she closes herself off to her family.

panel 7- she finished her sentence to conclude her emotional beat and we get the reaction of Wife, puzzled, and Nobuo, stressed from what is likely not the first time her mother has gotten so distraught emotionally like this. Wife lets out a "huh?" to give us a route to the next page, guiding us narratively to a continuation of this thought.

As the page before had just laid out the core plot line for the chapter, we immediately get some layers to the character's feelings as they both fail to understand each other. 3 distinct beats here: mom wants to help, Wife wont let her so she can prove her own worth, and mom gets upset from being useless. A very simple premise for a page, but its been the busiest page so far. Something to keep in mind is that sometimes just this action/counter action/response is all that's needed on a single page basis. Introducing a second large scale story beat at the end of all of that may cramp up your page, so you may find yourself splitting your story in different spots than anticipated. for some, that may be more pages than you thought. for others, maybe less if you had very few panels on each page. Just something to consider!

panel 1- We get a particularly tall panel here that uses its shape to show mom packing up and leaving, with Nobuo and Wife chasing after. She feels like a bother but Wife is trying to convey her own feelings in a panic. This panel find itself in a strange place! It is still a continuation of the conclusive beat that was being expressed on the previous page, but not quite a proper set up to the next one. I think because of this, it shares a row with the next beat, maybe to save it from having to be crammed onto the last page (which in turn gives this page more narrative content than without it). It fits quite organically here, giving plenty of space for the rest of the page to fall around it.

panel 2- The mom starts to express a deep feeling she has, both cropped at the eyes and facing backwards from the other two for emotional weight. She cant find common ground with Wife and thinks that she probably wont ever get it to work out, starting the setup for this emotional beat. because of this setup nature, we have a small, wide panel that gives way for the next to be the focus.

panel 3- Mom says that she can't accept her son's marriage to an alien, and faces away to block others out. Wife's reaction is what ends up being the main focus here, and she is framed as the largest character here, placed at an angle where her face is in view. This shot is quite wonky in perspective, but comics is very quick to break the rules and use shots like this, so we just roll with it (I think finding examples of this shot in other comics would be an interesting challenge).

panel 4- Nobuo steps in to confront his mom, but Miyata is clearly saying here that we're sticking with Wife to ride this one out. the text and motion of Nobuo lead us to Wife anchored firmly in the corner at the end of the panel.

panel 5- Nobuo and his mother have a back and forth just out of frame, and again we are guided through bubble placement to Wife, really sinking down into her sadness over what happened.

This page is a big one, and we get the emotional drop right at the top to let the reader sit with it through the rest of the page. After this, we hop to a new scene to try to get the next beat rolling.

panel 1- A new scene, we start again hyper zoomed in and pull back out to show our place. Here, we're zoomed in on dishes in a kitchen sink. Not all establishing shots need to start with a grand view of the location!

panel 2- We pull out to see Nobuo trying to comfort Wife as they wash dishes together, trying to emotionally reset. This works in conjunction with the previous panel in the same row to give us our new location, and in two panels we don't really have to ask any more questions about it.

panel 3- Wife asks Nobuo if he thinks his mom hates her. Nobuo reacts to his wife framed just outside the panel, only limbs visible. We know she has a lot of emotions going on, but we look to Nobuo for his experience in this situation.

panel 4- He says no quite firmly but Wife recalls the past, a scene where Nobuo first introduced Wife to his mother who is in complete shock. A lot of information is being given in this visual, so a lot of people are crammed into a particularly flat shot with a BG that gives context to the memory. Wife remembers that his mom was against their marriage, and we get a setup for her to share more of her feelings on the row below to begin her next beat.

panel 5- We zoom in extremely close to her face here, and she is on the verge of tears thinking how she still doesnt feel like part of the family. Nobuo is still pictured in the shot even though he didn't need to be, which can perhaps be visually signalling that he is still close to her even in her moment of feeling othered. She may feel alone, but this is painting a subconscious picture that she doesn't get this feeling from him and is still emotionally connected to him. This panel is saying a lot very quietly, but because of it's importance, it is much larger than the other panel in it's row.

panel 6- Nobuo tries to challenge Wife's thought process, but is interrupted by a doorbell. The panel is small, but it has just enough that makes us want to turn the page.

This page is like an aftermath of a storm. It gives us a moment to hang with the feelings that came before, but starts to quietly build back up to something different, and we get one side trying to learn more to clear the misunderstandings between the two parties.

panel 1- Nobuo is in transit to the front door, and Wife pops out of the kitchen to react as the scene leaves her behind for a moment.

panel 2- A quick scan of the front porch and Nobuo notices a bag on the floor. What could be in it? We can look more at it in the next row, having answered the first question of who was at the door in this row.

panel 3- An extremely tall panel shows off the contents of the bag (some gifts), and a note for their baby that tells them that it was from their mom who just left. This reveal is quite a shock, so this tall panel takes up a lot of space while still allowing for something else to take the limelight away later as the real focus.

panel 4- Nobuo seems to be familiar with his mother's habits, but its just another mild experience for him, so this panel is quite small. despite the amount of detail crammed in it. This is a great time to point out that I find panel size to be primarily based on narrative importance, so even if some panels may have a lot of things to look at in them, the size is trying to dictate to you how long you should be looking at it or how much attention should be given to it. Wife is also here, questioning a strangely shaped gift.

panel 5- She opens it to find inside a rectangular pan with a note inside. Even if we don't know it yet, this pan holds significance and is appropriately shown at a size to make us pay attention to it, along with the note inside that makes us turn to the next page.

Something has diverted out attention away from the struggles of the last page, and a new narrative thread starts spinning. We're starting to see more of what Nobuo's mother wants to convey, indirectly.

panel 1- Wife is curious about the gift, and Nobuo clarifies it's use for her. The two characters visually cradle the pan with their silhouettes to frame it directly in the center, keeping the eye on the pan rather than what anyone is feeling.

panel 2- to fully figure out what the intent of this gift is, the two read the note aloud left behind by the mom. This settles the question being posed by Wife in the same row. It drops the mother's true feelings that she wanted to pass down her old pan to her "daugher" as a tradition so she could cook with it.

panel 3- We get a shot of their back to delay our view of anyone's reaction, building up a bit of tension from the clashing information they've received from the mom. Nobuo says that this was the real reason she came over, and Wife is taking the information in.

panel 4- We can finally see Wife's expression after learning everything, and she feels the motherly love that her mother in law is not great at expressing. A small joke is tossed of Nobuo telling her not to cry, because a previous chapter had taught us that her race's tears melt things and he doesn't want her to break the pan.

panel 5- After a wider than normal gutter (which is used here to indicate a larger than normal break in time/location), We get a shot of someone's house, quite close up. The house itself is not that important, just that this is where we are.

panel 6- We see Nobuo's father asking the mother where she was after she said she went out for a walk.  We get her embarrassed reaction, fueled by her thinking about everything we just saw at her son's house. She responds that she was joking with him, another example of her not being able to express her own honest feelings even with the other humans that she is close to. 

Even if not directly stated, we the reader and also Wife have learned that this is just her nature, and Wife's Alien identity is not really preventing the mother in law from being considerate, but just her own personality.

With just 8 pages, we get a full story of a Wife wanting to be accepted by her mother in law, and how even though the people that make up the family have their own habits and quirks that can make things hard, they are still a family in the end despite their differences. A nice message, some cute art, and some solid storytelling!!

Hopefully this can give you some things to reflect on for making your own pages easier to follow, or even just a better understanding of the medium as you read more comics. This is also just the way I have started looking at comics for improving my layouts and flow, but I'm sure there's a lot of aspects that I didn't cover that may be more helpful to your understanding. Take my word as one of many that talk about comics and round out your knowledge as much as you can, thanks for reading!