Home
Artists
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register
Partychan SimpleX Chat ThePornDude
Home Artists Posts Import Register
Join the new SimpleX Chat Group!

Educate Yourself With Bruce And Roos: Word Balloon Order (Patreon)

Published:
2018-06-14 00:02:10
Imported:
2021-02

Content

Okay so it turns out my biggest pet peeve with amateur comics is people not knowing what proper reading order for word balloons is. You can’t just put them wherever is most convenient for the rest of the picture, unfortunately.

Naturally, this applies to English, manga has its reading priority facing the top-right of the panel instead, and tends to finish columns before continuing rows, on account of the native top-bottom right-left writing direction.

Files

Comments

Anonymous

That's super helpful and totally going over the art desk.

Stephen Gilberg

Not just amateur comics; "The Boondocks" used to give priority to the leftmost speaker instead of the topmost balloon. Of course, Aaron McGruder did get an early start.

VGR

Always wondered if I was the only one bothered by this.

Anonymous

This applies to the art as well, as we are taught to 'read' a picture top left to bottom right. If your are flows counter to this, it can make it feel awkward and stumbling.

Anonymous

In the second panel I went directly to the upper right corner because it was above their other balloon, although I do agree that the large blank space in the upper left corner looks awkward. Maybe sticking a particularly interesting bit of art there could make that go away.

Tygepc

Yes! All the yes! I have read so many amateur comics where they just didn't get balloon placement. Thank you, thank you for creating this! It's great guide and something more people should be aware of.