What makes a comic a comic

THE STUDY: REAL PAGES, REAL COVERS, REAL ADS

This is what the Design Bible is built from. Every picture here is a real comic. Click any one and it opens the source page with the full credit. The videos are page flips of the actual issues, so you can see the insides, not just the covers.

Under each picture: what to look at. That line is the whole lesson.

Look first. Read second.
Then open the Design Bible and build.

Every section heading has its own Collapse button too. The Aa button up top swaps the font for easier reading.

01the look most of the book wears

CLASSIC: the 80s newsstand comic

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Flat color off a 64-color chart, black brush ink, a six-panel page with one big splash, yellow caption boxes, and a cover that yells.

**CLASSIC, 1981**Uncanny X-Men #141, Jan 1981. John Byrne and Terry Austin. The poster cover, the corner box, the Marvel Comics Group banner, the Comics Code stamp top right, 50 cents. Every cover slot filled.

**CLASSIC, 1980**The New Teen Titans #1, Nov 1980. George Perez and Dick Giordano. Flat primaries on newsprint, a crowd cover, the DC bullet. Look at how every figure gets a black outline.

**CLASSIC, 1985**Crisis on Infinite Earths #1, April 1985. Perez. Dozens of figures and still readable, because every shape is one flat color with a black edge.

**CLASSIC, 1984**Secret Wars #1, May 1984. Mike Zeck. The hero red-blue-yellow palette at full volume. This is the sound CLASSIC makes.

**CLASSIC on BAXTER, 1982**Camelot 3000 #1, Dec 1982. Brian Bolland. One of the first books on white Baxter paper. Same flat palette as the X-Men cover, and it looks like plastic instead of cloth. Paper is the difference.

CLASSIC, 1983The Mighty Thor #337, Nov 1983. Walt Simonson. The cover that shattered the old logo. Simonson draws the title breaking as part of the picture.

**CLASSIC, 1984**Amazing Spider-Man, the black costume saga (1984), collected edition. Look at the ink: thick to thin, brush, no grey anywhere.

**THE BANNER, 1977**Howard the Duck #8, Jan 1977. The "Marvel Comics Group" banner across the top ran until 1983. It is the fastest way to date a cover.

INSIDE: X-Men #141Page flip of Uncanny X-Men #141. Watch the six-panel pages, the yellow captions, how shadow is a darker step of the same color.

INSIDE: Thor #337Thor #337 page flip. Simonson and letterer John Workman. The sound effects are drawn into the art.

What it teaches a spread: black line on everything, one flat color per shape, a shadow is the same hue one step darker, captions in yellow boxes, and a cover that uses every slot.

02the 1986 turn

GRIT: Watchmen, Dark Knight, and the books after

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Strict grids, secondary colors, no sound effects, small even type, heavy black. Fewer words, more weight.

**GRIT, 1986**Watchmen #1, Sept 1986. Dave Gibbons, colors John Higgins. One image, no figure, no blurb, a yellow that is dirtier than Marvel yellow. The cover is a panel.

**THE NINE-PANEL GRID**Watchmen #5, "Fearful Symmetry", the middle two pages. The whole issue mirrors itself around this spread. Every page is the same nine panels. Look at how much the grid does when nobody breaks it.

**GRIT, 1986**The Dark Knight Returns #1, Feb 1986. Frank Miller, colors Lynn Varley. Painted watercolor on prestige stock. A silhouette, a lightning bolt, and the title. That is the whole cover.

**GRIT, 1991**Sin City: The Hard Goodbye. Miller. Black and white plus nothing. Rain is white lines on black.

**INSIDE: SIN CITY**A Sin City panel. No grey, no halftone, no line weight variation: shapes of black and shapes of white. This is the far end of GRIT.

**GRIT, 1990s**Hellboy, Mike Mignola. Huge black shapes, a palette of four or five muted colors (Dave Stewart). The cousin of Watchmen with the volume turned down.

**GRIT, 1984**Saga of the Swamp Thing #21, Feb 1984. Alan Moore arrives; a few issues later the book drops the Comics Code seal. Dark, painted, quiet.

**GRIT, 1980-91**Maus, Art Spiegelman. Serialized through the whole decade in RAW. Black and white, no heroics, the most serious comic of the 80s.

INSIDE: Watchmen #1Watchmen #1 page flip. Count the panels on every page. Nine. Now look at the colors: purple, orange, green.

INSIDE: Dark Knight #1The Dark Knight Returns #1 page flip. Sixteen tiny panels, then a full page. TV screens as narration.

WHY THE GRID WORKSStrip Panel Naked on the nine-panel grid: why holding the grid makes the one break land.

INSIDE: Sin CitySin City: The Hard Goodbye, page flip of the oversized edition.

What it teaches a spread: hold the grid, mute the palette to secondaries, kill the sound effects, let black do the work. Use it when the game mattered. Never for a bake sale.

03big shapes, clean line

TOON: cartoon line, flat color, faces first

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Uniform line, flat shapes, two values per object, expressions over detail. The look that keeps the book from trying too hard.

**TOON, 1991**Bone #1, July 1991. Jeff Smith. Cartoon characters drawn with a brush, in a world drawn realistically. Black and white.

**TOON, 1987**Calvin and Hobbes, Sept 6 1987. Bill Watterson. Look at how little is drawn and how much is read. White space is a panel too.

**TOON, 1993**Calvin and Hobbes, Sept 26 1993. A Sunday strip: the panels change size with the energy of the moment.

**TOON COLOR**Calvinball. Flat color, one shadow value, every shape readable from across the room.

**TOON, 1992**Batman: The Animated Series. Bruce Timm. "Dark Deco": flat shapes, strong silhouettes, two-value shading, black behind everything. TOON can be cool.

**TOON, 1991**A Calvin and Hobbes collection cover. One idea, one gag, drawn with total conviction.

**TOON, 1987**Zot! #11, 1987. Scott McCloud, before Understanding Comics. Clean line, open faces, black and white.

**NO WORDS, 1984**G.I. Joe #21, "Silent Interlude", March 1984. Larry Hama. A whole issue with no dialogue. Every beat carried by panels alone.

What it teaches a spread: fewer lines, bigger shapes, faces first, flat color with one shadow. For candids, clubs, pets, freshmen, anything carried by a face and a joke.

04its own grammar

MANGA: screentone, speed, emotion

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Black and white, grey screentone instead of color, panels shaped by feeling, five panels on one glance, emotion symbols everybody can read.

**MANGA, 1984**Akira volume 1. Katsuhiro Otomo. The book that made American comics take manga seriously, and the first big one colored on a computer when Epic brought it over in 1988.

**MANGA, 1985**Dragon Ball volume 1. Akira Toriyama. Round shapes, thick clean line, pure energy.

**MANGA, 1988**Ranma 1/2 volume 1. Rumiko Takahashi. Comedy manga: the expressions do the work.

**INSIDE: A MANGA PAGE**A manga page (Marmalade Boy). Screentone for grey, panels that tilt and overlap with the emotion, and it reads right to left. Ours reads left to right. Same grammar, our direction.

**AKIRA, 1988**The Akira film poster, 1988. Same year Epic Comics started the color edition in the US.

COLORING AKIRASteve Oliff on coloring Akira with Otomo: the first major computer-colored comic (1988). Watch what color does to black and white pages.

What it teaches a spread: screentone, not color. Speed lines and tilted panels only when something moves. Emotion symbols are legal. Left to right in our book, with the one printed exception.

05black ink only

The line: three inkers to know

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Pencils, then ink in brush and pen. Black only. Thick to thin, feathering for shadow, hatching for texture. No grey, no colored outlines.

**BYRNE: the clean line**Alpha Flight promo art, John Byrne. The open, even house line of early 80s Marvel. Every figure readable, nothing scratchy.

**SIENKIEWICZ: the broken line**Elektra: Assassin (1986). Bill Sienkiewicz. Paint, collage, scratched ink. Marvel published this. It still reads because the shapes are strong under the mess.

**MILLER: the black line**Miller in Sin City: the line becomes a shape. By the late 80s his ink is more black than white.

**McKEAN: paint, 1989**Arkham Asylum (1989). Dave McKean paints, Gaspar Saladino letters. The end of the decade: no ink line at all. Covers only, for us.

INSIDE: Elektra AssassinElektra: Assassin #1 pages. Look at how far the line can break and still read.

INSIDE: American Flagg!Comic Page Secrets on American Flagg! (1983): Chaykin and letterer Ken Bruzenak make the lettering part of the drawing.

What it teaches a spread: one black line family on any converted photo or illustration. Heavy, with visible brush variation. Grey outlines and thin even vector strokes are not comic lines.

06a cover is a form

Covers: every slot, every time

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Corner box, logo band, price, Code seal, UPC box, and a blurb in a burst. Leave one off and it is a poster.

EVERY SLOT FILLEDSecret Wars #8, Dec 1984. Corner box top left with heads, number and price. Logo band. Code seal. Blurb. Mike Zeck.

TOY LOGOG.I. Joe #1, June 1982. Herb Trimpe. The logo is a toy package logo first: chrome, outline, drop shadow.

TOY LOGOTransformers #3, 1985. Same rule: chrome lives on the logo and nowhere else on the cover.

**THE EVENT BANNER**Superman #415 with the Crisis tie-in banner across the top. Banners are how a line of books tells you they belong together. Our sections can do this.

**THE LATE 80s COVER**Sandman #1, Jan 1989. Dave McKean. Collage, no figure, no blurb. This is where covers went after the decade. Reference, not our look.

**LATE 80s**Batman #423, Sept 1988. Todd McFarlane. The cape is becoming a design element; the 90s are a year away.

NOT 80s: 1990Spider-Man #1, Aug 1990. McFarlane. Webbing everywhere, the logo as texture, no blurb. The look we are not doing.

**NOT 80s: 1992**Spawn #1, 1992. Chrome everything, impossible anatomy, painted glow. If a spread leans this way it has left the decade.

What it teaches a spread: section covers use the whole form. The 1990 and 1992 covers are on this page so you can see the line we do not cross.

07the stuff between the stories

Ads, letters, bulletins

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The most 80s part of a comic is the part that is not the story. Real ads, the real Bullpen page, the real house ad.

**THE AD, 1953**Charles Atlas, "the insult that made a man out of Mac". The ad is a comic strip. Hostess did the same thing with superheroes until 1982.

**THE AD, 1949**Charles Atlas full page. Coupon at the bottom with the dotted border and the order form. Our club recruitment ads use this skeleton.

**BULLPEN BULLETINS**The first Marvel Bullpen Bulletins page (1965); the format ran through the 80s. Two columns, a headline strip, short items, headshots. Our staff page.

**THE OFFICE MAP, 1982**A map of the Marvel offices, Bob Camp, 1982, from a Bullpen page. A yearbook staff page can be a map of the room.

HOUSE AD, 1988The Sandman house ad that ran in DC's other books. One image, one line, the logo. Our NEXT ISSUE teasers.

**BALLOONS, 1948**Speech balloons in a 1948 strip: hand lettering, uneven, all caps, bold on one word, tails to the mouth. Nothing about this changed in the 80s.

HOSTESS ADSThe Hostess superhero ads (1975 to 1982): the hero wins with a snack cake. Every one is a one-page comic.

X-RAY SPECS AND SEA-MONKEYSSomebody ordered the back-page ads. What arrived.

What it teaches a spread: house ads need headline, burst, drawn art, coupon, legal line. The staff page is a Bullpen page. The index is a subscription form.

08the dots

Halftone: what real dots look like, and what pop art did to them

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Real 80s printing dots are tiny and slightly out of register. Giant dots are 1960s pop art quoting comics, not comics.

**REAL PRINT DOTS**A close-up of a halftone print: four ink screens at four angles. From reading distance you see orange; up close it is magenta dots on yellow. This is what "dots" means on our spreads: fine, in the flats, invisible until you lean in.

**THE ORIGINAL PANEL, 1962**The actual comic panel from All-American Men of War #89 (Irv Novick, 1962) that Lichtenstein copied. Look at the real dots: small, structural, under the color.

**POP ART, 1963**Whaam! Roy Lichtenstein blew the dots up until they became the subject. That is the museum look. It is not what a comic page looks like, and it is what people reach for when they want "comic" in one click.

**A COMIC ARTIST ANSWERS**Dave Gibbons (Watchmen) redrawing the Novick panel to make the point back at Lichtenstein. Comics people know the difference. So should we.

What it teaches a spread: dots fine, in color fields, never under words, never on a face. If the dots are the first thing you notice, they are too big.

09the direct market

The black-and-white indies

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Mid-decade, comic shops let small publishers print in black and white and sell straight to readers. The look is ink and paper, nothing else.

**TMNT, 1984-85**Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #4 (second print), Mirage. Eastman and Laird. Black, white and one spot color on the cover. Issue #1 was a 3,000-copy print run.

**LOVE AND ROCKETS, 1986**Love and Rockets #16, Gilbert Hernandez. Clean black line, flat white, real people. Fantagraphics.

**CEREBUS, 1988**Cerebus #112/113, Dave Sim and Gerhard. Black and white, obsessive backgrounds, a cartoon aardvark in a serious book.

GRENDEL, 1980sGrendel, Matt Wagner (Comico). Design-first covers: flat shapes, one color, the logo as part of the composition.

**CONCRETE, 1986**Concrete, Paul Chadwick (Dark Horse). Quiet, drawn, black and white. The opposite of a hero book.

**INSIDE: MAUS**Two panels from Maus. Scratchy black line, cross-hatching for everything, no screentone. The least decorated art of the decade carries the heaviest story.

INSIDE: TMNT #1Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 (1984 second print) page flip. Black and white, duotone covers, zip-a-tone shading.

What it teaches a spread: black and white plus one spot color is a legal GRIT or TOON feature treatment. The indies prove you need no color at all if the ink is good.

10how pages work

Panels and transitions, in real pages

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A panel is a shot. A gutter is time. These are the pages to study for how panels connect.

**BREAKING THE PANEL, 1905**Little Sammy Sneeze, Winsor McCay. The sneeze breaks the panel border. Breaking the border has meant "something happened" for 120 years. Earn it once a spread.

**HOLDING THE GRID**Watchmen #5 again: the grid never breaks, so the symmetry of the whole issue becomes the event.

**ACTION TO ACTION**G.I. Joe #21: no words at all, so every transition has to be a clean action to action or subject to subject. The purest lesson in panel grammar from the decade.

**THE TEXTBOOK, 1993**Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud. The six transitions (moment, action, subject, scene, aspect, non-sequitur) come from chapter three. The library has it. Read chapter three.

**PACING**Watterson again: small panels read fast, the big panel is the held breath. The size of a panel is how long the reader stays in it.

COMPOSITIONStrip Panel Naked: power through composition. How a panel points the eye.

THE GRID TODAYDavid Aja's nine-panel grid approach. The 1986 rule still running.

What it teaches a spread: three shot sizes, one dominant, even gutters, one bleed, one break, and a named transition. The rules are in the Design Bible; these are the pages they come from.

11the bulk of the book

PANELING: real pages, panel by panel

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Most of our book is not covers. It is pages: a grid, gutters, captions, balloons, and the order the eye walks. These are real pages to study for exactly that, oldest to newest, then the 80s pages on video.

The splash page. Will Eisner invented half of this on The Spirit (1940 to 1952). The title is drawn into the picture, the first panel is the whole page, and the story starts inside the lettering. Every section opener in our book is a splash.

**EISNER SPLASH, 1946**The Spirit, "P'Gell of Paris", Oct 6 1946. The title is part of the drawing. Look where your eye enters and where it exits.

EISNER SPLASH, 1947The Spirit, July 6 1947. One image, the logo built from the scene.

**EISNER SPLASH, 1948**The Spirit, Nov 7 1948. The page is one panel and still reads as a sequence: top to bottom, the eye is led.

**EISNER SPLASH, 1949**The Spirit, March 13 1949. Captions as part of the architecture.

**EISNER SPLASH, 1951**The Spirit, March 4 1951. Late Eisner: the splash as a poster with a story inside it.

**EISNER SPLASH, 1951**The Spirit, "The Case of the Double Jones", March 11 1951. Count the reading path: title, figure, caption, exit.

**EISNER, 1940s**Another Spirit section opener. Same move, different staging. This is a form, like a cover is a form.

**A FULL PAGE, 1947**Eerie Comics #2, page 2 (Wally Wood era, Avon). A standard tiered grid: even gutters, captions top left, balloons tailed to mouths. The default page of American comics for forty years.

The grid, held and broken. A grid is a promise. Keep it and the one break becomes the loudest thing on the page.

**HELD: WATCHMEN #5, 1986**Nine panels, never broken, and the issue mirrors itself around this spread. Hold the grid and the reader feels every beat.

**A TIERED PAGE, 1945**Planet Comics #37, page 12. Three tiers, a bigger panel where the action turns. Gutters all the same width. Read it in a Z.

**SPLASH + TIERS, 1953**Planet Comics #73, page 1. The splash on top, the grid underneath. This is the six-plus-splash layout CLASSIC spreads use.

**THE PAGE AS DESIGN, 1922**Krazy Kat, Jan 21 1922, George Herriman. The background changes every panel and the page is still one design. Panel shape follows feeling: the manga move, sixty years early.

**THE REPEATED PANEL**Little Nemo always ends in the same panel: Nemo wakes up. A repeated panel is a rhythm the reader learns. Our folio and our NEXT ISSUE box work like this.

**BREAKING THE BORDER, 1905**Little Sammy Sneeze: the sneeze shatters the panel. Earned once. Still the loudest trick on any page.

**NO WORDS, 1984**G.I. Joe #21. Twenty-two pages, zero dialogue. If you want to learn what panels do by themselves, this is the issue.

Captions, balloons, and the beat between two panels. The small furniture. Where the caption sits, how the balloon points, what changes from one panel to the next.

**CAPTION + BALLOONS**A caption box (yellow) gives the narrator a voice; the balloons give the characters theirs. Top left caption, tails to mouths. Same rule in our book.

**BALLOONS, 1948**Hand lettering, all caps, one bold word, tails to the mouth, balloons stacked in reading order.

**THE KILLING JOKE, 1988**Brian Bolland and John Higgins. Flashback panels are colored differently from the present. Color is telling you when you are.

**THE KILLING JOKE, 1988**Bolland again. One figure, one panel, the color does the horror. GRIT, 1988.

**TWO PANELS, ONE IDEA**Watchmen: Kovacs and Rorschach. The two panels only mean something next to each other. That gap is the gutter doing its job.

**SUBJECT TO SUBJECT**Maus: two panels, one moment, two people. The simplest transition and the one most spreads need.

**THE EARLY PANEL, 1972**Spiegelman before the book: dense hatching, caption inside the frame. Compare to the later panels: he simplified.

**MANGA CAPTION, 1982**Nausicaä, Miyazaki, vol. 2 p. 121. The caption is set vertically and the image is quiet. Aspect to aspect in one frame.

**A TALKING PANEL, 1992**Hellblazer #51. One person, three balloons, read top to bottom. Balloon order is panel order.

**THE LAST PANEL, 1953**EC's "Judgment Day", Weird Fantasy #18. The whole story turns on the final panel. Your last panel is the one they remember.

**DITKO, 1966**Strange Tales #146. A panel built as a diagram of the whole cosmos. Panel as world, not window.

Strips: four panels, one beat. Daily strips are the purest panel grammar there is: setup, setup, turn, payoff.

**CANIFF, 1936**Terry and the Pirates. Four panels, camera moving closer each time. Wide, medium, close, closer.

**RAYMOND, 1934**Flash Gordon. Action to action across a strip. Every panel is the next thing that happens.

**PEANUTS, 2000**The last Sunday strip. Big panel, small panels, text. Pacing by panel size.

**SUNDAY ACTION, 1939**The Phantom. A Sunday page: a title panel, then tiers. The newspaper version of splash plus grid.

The 80s pages themselves, on video. Interior pages from the 80s books are not on Wikipedia the way covers are, so the page flips are how you see them. Pause on any page. Count the panels. Find the caption. Find the bleed.

WATCHMEN #1, PAGESNine panels a page, every page. Pause anywhere.

DARK KNIGHT #1, PAGESSixteen-panel pages, then the full-page shot. Pause on the TV panels.

X-MEN #141, PAGESCLASSIC six-panel pages, yellow captions, one splash. This is our default spread.

THOR #337, PAGESSimonson: panels that tilt when the action does, sound effects drawn into the art.

TMNT #1, PAGESBlack and white pages, zip-a-tone shading, heavy gutters.

ELEKTRA: ASSASSIN, PAGESSienkiewicz breaking every panel rule and the pages still reading.

AMERICAN FLAGG!, PAGE BY PAGEA page taken apart: how Chaykin and Bruzenak lay out type and panels together.

SIN CITY, PAGESBlack shapes, white shapes, the panel as silhouette.

What it teaches a spread: the splash is a form, the grid is a promise, the caption sits top left, balloons read in order, panel size is time, and the last panel is the one they remember.

If you want the 80s pages in your hands, the library and Marvel Unlimited have every book on this page.

12the 80s pages themselves

THE ORIGINAL PAGES: 80s interiors, inked

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Fifty-eight actual interior pages from the decade, as the original inked art. No color, no lettering guesswork: the panels, the gutters, the balloons, exactly as the artist drew them. Click any page for the full-size scan and credit.

Original art is the best way to study paneling because nothing is hiding the structure. You can see the ruled borders, the paste-up lettering, the blue pencil, the places the artist changed their mind.

**Watchmen#11 page 22 by Dave Gibbons**Watchmen #11 p22. The nine-panel grid, inked. Look at the gutters: ruled, identical, never broken.

**Watchmen #9 page 20 by Dave Gibbons**Watchmen #9 p20. Same grid, a quiet scene. The grid carries the pace so the art does not have to.

Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, Batman The Dark Knight Returns, Book 2 page 42 — **Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, Batman The Dark Knight Returns, Book 2 pag**The Dark Knight Returns, Book 2 p42. Sixteen tiny panels, sound effects lettered into the gutters, black doing the work.

**Brian Bolland, Alan Moore, Batman - The Killing Joke P4**The Killing Joke p4, the pencil layout before inks. This is the stage where panels get placed. Note how much is decided before a single line is inked.

Brian Bolland, Alan Moore, Batman The Killing Joke, page 28 (with prelim) — **Brian Bolland, Alan Moore, Batman The Killing Joke, page 28 (with prel**The Killing Joke p28, inked (with the prelim). Six panels, BDUMP across three of them: a repeated beat as rhythm.

**George Perez, The New Teen Titans #38 title page "Who is Donna Troy?"**The New Teen Titans #38 title page, Perez. A title splash built as a grid of windows. Credits inside the art.

**Mike Zeck, John Beatty, Secret Wars - T11 p.8**Secret Wars #11 p8, Zeck and Beatty. CLASSIC Marvel page: tiers, captions top left, every figure outlined.

**Mike Zeck, Spectacular Spider-Man #132 page 6- Kraven's last hunt**Kraven's Last Hunt (Spectacular Spider-Man #132) p6, Zeck. Dark, caption-driven, the panels narrow as the mood tightens.

**Stephen R. Bissette, John Totleben, Swamp Thing #24 p. 05**Saga of the Swamp Thing #24 p5, Bissette and Totleben (1984). Organic panel borders, dense ink. The page shape follows the story.

**John Byrne, Alpha Flight 10 Page 5**Alpha Flight #10 p5, Byrne (1984). The clean house line. Six panels, nothing wasted.

**John Buscema, Tom Palmer, Avengers #244 page 9**Avengers #244 p9, Buscema and Palmer (1984). The classic Marvel tiered page: wide, medium, close, action.

**John Byrne, Al Gordon, Fantastic Four - T289 p19**Fantastic Four #289 p19, Byrne (1986). Byrne lays the page out so the eye runs a Z without noticing.

**John Byrne, Dick Giordano, Superman: The Man of Steel #2 Page 18**Superman: The Man of Steel #2 p18, Byrne and Giordano (1986). A quiet talking page; balloon order is reading order.

**Bill Sienkiewicz, Elektra Assassin #3 page 12**Elektra: Assassin #3 p12, Sienkiewicz (1986). Painted panels inside a grid you can still feel.

**Bill Sienkiewicz, Frank Miller, Elektra Assassin #8 Page 9**Elektra: Assassin #8 p9. Panels break into shards when the story does.

**Bill Sienkiewicz, Elektra Assassin #2 page 11**Elektra: Assassin #2 p11. Collage and paint, and the gutters are still there.

**Bill Sienkiewicz, Elektra Assassin 7, page 10**Elektra: Assassin #7 p10.

**Elektra: Assassin by Bill Sienkiewicz, Frank Miller**Elektra: Assassin, Sienkiewicz and Miller. The far edge of what a panel can be and still be read.

**Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo**Akira, Otomo. Manga paneling: panels sized to the beat, backgrounds drawn to the last window.

**Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo, Steve Oliff**Akira, Otomo with Steve Oliff's color (the 1988 Epic edition). The first computer-colored comic, page by page.

**Brian Bolland, Tom Palmer, Camelot 3000 #9 Page 16**Camelot 3000 #9 p16, Bolland (1983). Baxter-era DC: crisp line, even panels.

**Camelot 11 pag 2 by Brian Bolland**Camelot 3000 #11 p2, Bolland.

Mike Mignola, Carlos Garzón, Jim Starlin, 1987 - Cosmic Odyssey #4 - Pg.5 — **Mike Mignola, Carlos Garzón, Jim Starlin, 1987 - Cosmic Odyssey #4 - P**Cosmic Odyssey #4 p5, Mignola (1988). Early Mignola: black shapes arriving.

**Mazzucchelli: Daredevil 233 page 7**Daredevil #233 p7, Mazzucchelli, Born Again (1986). Panels as a slow drumbeat.

**1986-08 Mazzucchelli: Daredevil #233 p23 Born Again**Daredevil #233 p23, Born Again. The splash moment, earned by the small panels before it.

**David Mazzucchelli, Frank Miller, Daredevil #226 pg. 15**Daredevil #226 p15, Mazzucchelli and Miller (1986).

**1985-04 Mazzucchelli: Daredevil #217 p25**Daredevil #217 p25, Mazzucchelli (1985).

**Bill Sienkiewicz, Frank Miller, Daredevil: Love and War page 29**Daredevil: Love and War p29, Sienkiewicz and Miller (1986). Painted page, grid still legible.

**Jaime Hernandez, Love and Rockets #28, pg. 25 (1988)**Love and Rockets #28 p25, Jaime Hernandez (1988). Clean black line, white space, real people. Indie paneling at its best.

**Jaime Hernandez, Love and Rockets #46, pg. 1**Love and Rockets #46 p1, Jaime Hernandez.

**Dave Sim, Cerebus High Society first page**Cerebus: High Society, first page, Dave Sim. A text-heavy page that still breathes.

**Cerebus 174 page 10 by Dave Sim, Gerhard**Cerebus #174 p10, Sim and Gerhard. Gerhard's backgrounds under Sim's figures: two hands, one page.

**Groo #1, page 9 by Sergio Aragonés**Groo #1 p9, Aragones (1982). Cartoon paneling: more panels, faster read.

**Kevin Eastman - TMNT page**TMNT, Kevin Eastman. Black and white, heavy borders, zip-a-tone shading.

**Dragon ball Z by Akira Toriyama**Dragon Ball Z, Toriyama. Speed lines, round shapes, panels tilted by motion.

**Steve Rude, Nexus "Insect in the Stone" Page 8**Nexus, Insect in the Stone, p8, Steve Rude. Clean 80s indie page, Kirby by way of Toth.

**Curt Swan, Frank Chiaramonte, Cary Bates, Superman #372 page 1 (1982)**Superman #372 p1, Curt Swan (1982). A title splash: credits and title inside the picture.

**Curt Swan, Tex Blaisdell, Action Comics 472 Title Splash**Action Comics #472 title splash, Swan (1977). The form every CLASSIC opener follows.

**Curt Swan, Francisco Chiaramonte, Superman 345 Title Splash**Superman #345 title splash, Swan (1980).

**Jim Aparo, The Brave and The Bold 133 Page 9**The Brave and the Bold #133 p9, Aparo (1977). Aparo lettered his own pages: balloons placed with the drawing.

**Frank Miller, Sin City - The Big Fat Kill #3**Sin City: The Big Fat Kill #3, Miller. Black and white only; the panel is a silhouette.

**Frank Miller, Sin CITY Hell and Back Issue: 6 Page: 23**Sin City: Hell and Back #6 p23, Miller.

**Mignola: Batman Legends of the Dark Knight 54 page 17**Legends of the Dark Knight #54 p17, Mignola (1993). Mignola's mature black shapes.

Ron Wagner, Bill Reinhold, Batman : Legends of the Dark Knight (1989) - Planche originale — **Ron Wagner, Bill Reinhold, Batman : Legends of the Dark Knight (1989)** Legends of the Dark Knight (1989), Wagner and Reinhold.

**Totleben: Miracleman 14 page 5**Miracleman #14 p5, Totleben (1988).

**John Totleben, Miracleman 12, page 5**Miracleman #12 p5, Totleben (1987). Fine-line ink, stacked small panels.

**Rick Veitch, John Totleben, Veitch: Swamp Thing 37 page 10**Swamp Thing #37 p10, Veitch and Totleben (1985).

**Howard Chaykin, Black Kiss issue 7 page 2**Black Kiss #7 p2, Chaykin (1988). Chaykin's type-and-panel design, as in American Flagg!.

Howard Chaykin, Archie Goodwin, Wolverine-Nick Fury "The Scorpio Connection" page 33 — **Howard Chaykin, Archie Goodwin, Wolverine-Nick Fury "The Scorpio Conne**Wolverine/Nick Fury: The Scorpio Connection p33, Chaykin.

Green Lantern #186 - John Stewart as Green Lantern! Sweet Action Page! Vintage 1985 Gibbons! — **Green Lantern #186 - John Stewart as Green Lantern! Sweet Action Page!**Green Lantern #186, Gibbons (1985). Gibbons on a regular Marvel-style action page the year before Watchmen.

**Walter Simonson, Art Thibert, Fantastic Four #344 pg. 4**Fantastic Four #344 p4, Simonson (1990). Simonson's angled panels and drawn sound effects.

**She HULK by John Byrne**She-Hulk, Byrne. Byrne breaking his own grid for a joke.

**George Perez, Joe Rubinstein, The Infinity Gauntlet #3 Page 8**Infinity Gauntlet #3 p8, Perez (1991). Perez packs twelve figures into a page and it still reads.

Carmine Infantino, Klaus Janson, Daredevil (Vol 1) #149 : Catspaw!, page 3 — **Carmine Infantino, Klaus Janson, Daredevil (Vol 1) #149 : Catspaw!, pa**Daredevil #149 p3, Infantino and Janson (1977). Pre-Miller Daredevil: the page Miller would tear up.

**Bill Watterson cartoon**A Bill Watterson cartoon. One panel, one idea.

**Mike Mignola, Hellboy: The Island #2 Story Page 25**Hellboy: The Island #2 p25, Mignola (2005). Where GRIT ended up.

**Al Milgrom, Mike Machlan, West Coast Avengers - Issue 25 p19**West Coast Avengers #25 p19, Milgrom and Machlan (1987). An ordinary 1987 Marvel page: this is the baseline, not the exception.

What it teaches a spread: every one of these pages is a grid first. Count the panels on a Watchmen page and a Secret Wars page and an Elektra page. The grid is there every time; what changes is how hard it is held.

Pages hosted by 2dgalleries.com, a collectors' original-art registry; each link goes to that page's record.

13now us

The same rules on our own photos

☐ Collapsed. Expand brings it back, and it stays how you leave it on this device.

Everything above, applied to a photo from a soccer game. Nothing drawn by hand. Photoshop steps in the INK AND FLATS job.

**ONE PHOTO, THREE LOOKS**The same photo built as CLASSIC (64-grid flats and paper), GRIT (secondaries, no paper) and TOON (four colors, thick line). The look is a decision, not a filter.

**WHAT WE HAVE VS THE BIBLE**Left: what our spreads look like now. Right: the same photos under the Design Bible: grid, 3/16 gutters, one bleed, yellow captions, newsprint.

OUR SECTION COVERA section cover built on the form: corner box (1), logo band (2), seal (3), UPC box (4), blurbs (5), one converted image (6). Compare it to Secret Wars #8 above.

**OUR HOUSE AD**A PULP AD mode recruitment page built on the Charles Atlas and X-Ray Specs skeleton: headline, burst, drawn art, coupon, legal line.

**DOTS: RIGHT AND WRONG**Left: fine dots in the flats, face and words clean. Right: pop-art dots over a face and under type.

**A FINISHED SPREAD**The varsity soccer spread from Design Bible section 01, built for real. Hold yours next to it.

If the real pages above and the built pages here look like the same family, the Design Bible is working.

If yours does not, the Design Bible tells you which rule you skipped.

Comic images are low-resolution copies hosted by Wikipedia for commentary and study; each links to its source page and credit. Covers and pages are copyright their publishers and artists. Photos in the "now us" section are from Unsplash (free license). This is a classroom study page.