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Thoughts On Writing Comic Strip Comedy
13 years ago
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Here are some thoughts on writing comedy for comic strips.
Jokes have a three act structure. Those three acts may be described thusly:
1) Introduce a situation
2) Create a repeating pattern from the situation
3) Break the pattern in an unexpected way (a.k.a: the punchline)
The comedy comes in step three, when the audience is forced into a little mental back-flip by the breaking of the pattern set up in acts 1&2.
This is why you see a lot of comic strips with three panels, because those three panels play directly to the structure outlined above. Setup, Repeat, Break. If you study the strips in your local paper, you'll likely see that any "gag" strip with three panels tends to follow this formula.
This is also one of the reasons why 3-panel comics tend to get stale after awhile. Whether it's Peanuts of Hagar, the 3-panel structure is all about the format. It's very rigid, and after awhile, repetitive.
Hence, the 4-panel comic.
While it's possible to follow the 3-act structure in a 4-panel strip, by stretching the first or second act across two panels, that extra panel also opens up an opportunity for a completely different kind of joke. This 4-panel style of gag is what you find in comics like Doonesbury, Bloom County and Calvin & Hobbes.
I tend to think of this style as the 1-2 punch. Because basically, it involves having two punchlines.
You lay out a three panel gag, as described above, but then you add on, in that fourth panel, a second gag.
This second gag can build on the previous panel - acting as an added emphasis on the original gag, or it can instead completely subvert it, allowing you to flip the audience's expectations not just once, but twice. There and back again.
The 4-panel layout therefore allows the writer a little more creative freedom, and by changing the style of joke from time to time, it allows a comic to be less formulaic, and less prone to becoming stale through repetition.
Comments?
Jokes have a three act structure. Those three acts may be described thusly:
1) Introduce a situation
2) Create a repeating pattern from the situation
3) Break the pattern in an unexpected way (a.k.a: the punchline)
The comedy comes in step three, when the audience is forced into a little mental back-flip by the breaking of the pattern set up in acts 1&2.
This is why you see a lot of comic strips with three panels, because those three panels play directly to the structure outlined above. Setup, Repeat, Break. If you study the strips in your local paper, you'll likely see that any "gag" strip with three panels tends to follow this formula.
This is also one of the reasons why 3-panel comics tend to get stale after awhile. Whether it's Peanuts of Hagar, the 3-panel structure is all about the format. It's very rigid, and after awhile, repetitive.
Hence, the 4-panel comic.
While it's possible to follow the 3-act structure in a 4-panel strip, by stretching the first or second act across two panels, that extra panel also opens up an opportunity for a completely different kind of joke. This 4-panel style of gag is what you find in comics like Doonesbury, Bloom County and Calvin & Hobbes.
I tend to think of this style as the 1-2 punch. Because basically, it involves having two punchlines.
You lay out a three panel gag, as described above, but then you add on, in that fourth panel, a second gag.
This second gag can build on the previous panel - acting as an added emphasis on the original gag, or it can instead completely subvert it, allowing you to flip the audience's expectations not just once, but twice. There and back again.
The 4-panel layout therefore allows the writer a little more creative freedom, and by changing the style of joke from time to time, it allows a comic to be less formulaic, and less prone to becoming stale through repetition.
Comments?
limiting yourself to 3 or 4 panels is limiting the style of joke you can deliver.
admittedly your writing does need to be tight and clear but don't arbitrarily try to condense it to a pre determined number of panels if it wouldn't fit / work better with say 7 panels.
the beauty of internet comics is the incredible freedom we get moving away from the linear, confined space of paper. ( and people are able to do beautiful things with graphic novels / comic books already.
yet so few people make any use at all of this infinite canvas and just try to emulate newspaper comics.
now if the comic / joke / story only needs 3 panels to deliver then by all means go for it, nothing wrong with it but don't restrict yourself for no real reason.
Interesting thoughts, though.
That being said. I enjoy your comics! They have always had a really smooth rhythm. Easy to follow and fun to read!
I've done 3s, 4s, 6s, 8s
My writing tended to be pretty basic, One shot gags and mini stories were my preferred style.