i like this page a lot.
EDIT: updated version with fixed panel 5!
except the final panel here has something i always do and never seem to get any better at avoiding, which is having the character speaking first on the left side of the panel. i think i've talked about this before but maybe that was on the Shadoweyes site... anyway, it's a tough thing because sometimes i forget, but most of the time it's hard because sometimes like this conversation here, it works up through the whole scene, the balloons flowing nicely and being on the same side of the panel as their respective speaker, but then comes a point in the conversation where the characters are still positioned on the same sides but the way the conversation flows doesn't match up. so it's either somehow swivel the camera (which is the part i usually forget until i get to the lettering stage), or write the conversation differently which doesn't always work because it can seem too artificially back-and-forth, or just say the hell with it and do awkward panels like the last one here where the balloon tails point "through" each character.
any professional letterers reading this? i wonder what they do when faced with panels like this.
Well, as a reader it didn't bother me. It was pretty obvious who was saying what. I didn't have to wonder or anything.
ReplyDeletenah, there were no problems. since Cleo was the last one speaking, you infer that Glen is replying, regardless of panel orientation :> at least that's how i read it!
ReplyDeleteI dont see any problem with it. If you read the previous page you know who's talking, and the speech bubbles clearly point to Glen, so it's not uber confusing or anything lol.
ReplyDeleteBesides, I like the format of the first panel. Even though Glen is speaking on the left side, it kind of gives impression that Cleo is really listening, because the reader needs to skip over her to read what Glen is saying. So that sort of break really sets the tone of the scene. ..Or at least that's how I imagine it haha!
I'm no professional letterer... but I still run into this problem all of the time when I collaborate (and even occasionally with my own art). Typically, if I'm in this situation and it's especially tough to make the word balloons fit or flow, I just rewrite the dialogue or move around the art.
ReplyDeleteYou're probably gonna hate this, but what I woulda done is switched positions of panels 3 and 4 in Pshop and omitted the silence. So the exchange from panel 4 moves up to panel 3, dialogue unchanged. But then the art from the original panel 3 gets lettered with most of Glen's panel 5 dialogue. And then Cleo's response stays in panel 5.