COMICS RIFFS I LOVE: More of Frank Thorne's unusual page layouts! (Patreon)

Following up on two previous installments (which you can check out here and here), let's check out a few more page layouts from the great Frank Thorne (of Red Sonja fame)! 

The horror-comic wrap-up page below is a particularly innovative example; while the L-shaped panels I discussed earlier were interesting, here Thorne is breaking you off some V-shaped panels! Lordy loo!

Note that Thorne's unusually shaped panels are mainly a means of finding places to cram word balloons, a concern that few artists since have addressed in such a bold and offbeat manner. 

Next, check out the last two panels on this Son of Dracula page: 

An insert panel expands (in a so-called "reverse shot," in which the camera swings around 180 degrees) into a larger panel cleverly shaped to play up the unfurling bat wings. Nice!

Next up, an unusual Red Sonja page:

Okay, maybe those tentacle-like strands of hair on the main Sonja head give her a bit of a cephalopod-like appearance, but I gotta admire the thinking-outside-the-box concept behind this layout.  

Finally, here's another Red Sonja page that isn't quite as conceptually daring as the previous three examples, but is still pretty darn interesting:

Page layouts featuring a series of horizontal panoramic panels are pretty common—I prefer a five-panel "pano-grid," myself—but using a seven-panel stack like this is unusual indeed! Note the sudden introduction of open space in panel 2, which drops off as the panels progressively widen again in succession. Works great!

Anyhoo, that's it for another Frank-Thorne-y Comics Riffs installment, folks. I've burned through all my jpegs of his work at this point, but if I dig up any more whimsical layout examples in the future, I'll post 'em here at some point down the road.

Next Monday:  Another week of 5+ posts on the ol' Patreon kicks off with the usual double dose of life drawings. See you then, Patrons!