COMICS RIFFS I LOVE: Tetsuro Ueyama's MITSUYOSHI opening pages (Patreon)

In Tetsuro Ueyama's awesome but hyper-obscure 2000-era manga Solevision Mitsuyoshi (never translated, alas), every chapter of the series kicks off in the same manner; and this is an "opening pages" technique I've long adored and used myself.

First off, we start with a page of slightly cryptic panels, usually without a clear view of the character(s) involved. Here, in the first page of the first Mitsuyoshi chapter, a mysterious girl is trying to batter her way through a wooden gate:

Then BAM, she smashes her way through the gate and springs off down a hillside in a spectacular, sprawling double-page spread:

After the cliffhanger ending of the first episode, the second Mitsuyoshi chapter starts off with, again, a slightly unclear series of shots: 

...and then BAM, breaks you off another double-page spread establishing the entire setting, and fully displaying the giant beastie that our heroines (and hero) are confronting:

For me, the "introductory page of slightly unclear panels" followed by a "big ol' splash page or double-page spread immediately clarifying matters with a bang" is one of the best possible ways to kick off a story.

The third Solevision Mitsuyoshi chapter again starts up with a few slightly unclear images:

...before BAM, we get a double-page spread showing us that the girl is engaged in swordfight training:

If I have the available pagecount, many or most of my stories start off in this manner. Here's the opening page from Empowered: The Wench with a Million Sighs, which again starts off somewhat cryptically:

...and then BAM, expands into a spread establishing the whole scene in an action-packed image:

Same deal with the intro to the story "Shove It, Chevalier" from Empowered vol.10. Again, the first page's three disparate images convey varying impressions...

...before BAM, the next page's "splash" makes it clear what's going on. 

And another story from vol.10 features the same approach. Unclear close-ups...

...Then big ol' establishing splash page:

What can I say, folks? I g-d adore this approach. 

POSTSCRIPT: Interestingly enough, though, I didn't actually pick the technique up from Ueyama, as I had initially thought when planning this post. Turns out that I've often kicked stories off like this in my earlier career, with the opening pages of Titans: Scissors, Paper, Stone being a key example. (Also, the opening pages of Iron Man: Hypervelocity, key moments in Gen13 and Dirty Pair, etc.) I'd scan s'more examples for y'all, but I've already blown a g-d hour and a half on this post. Yikes!