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Composition notes for this week!

Word balloon placement is always an interesting prospect on a comic page. In that first panel, I moved Tamberlane's "AH!!" on top of Piper's (with a little shadow to help differentiate) because she's startled and reacts in the middle of what Piper is saying, not after. 

I had considered moving Isaiah's question up to the top right of the second panel, but that would have moved his speech after Piper's. This is for two reasons:

The first and less important reason is that usually when our brains have to pick a priority between Topmost and Leftmost, it will nearly always pick Leftmost. (At least in societies with Left-to-Right writing). However, this isn't a hard and fast rule, because...

The elements on the page don't lead to that top right corner. The line on Tamberlane's "AH!!" balloon, as well as the way her hand is pointing, leads right into where the word balloon currently is. I chose that spot because it's where your eyes go next.

For the same reason, Isaiah's balloon in the 6th frame, despite being far to the right, is first to be read. As your eyes move from the 2nd row to the 3rd, you run into that balloon first. This is usually referred to as the Z, for the way your eyes move across a comic page.

( 'u')-b