Panel Density and How the Reader Is Not Overwhelmed

    In Oliver Issue # 2, there is high panel density among the pages. How is it that we don't lose the reader's eye? How is it that a free form comic with a complex layout can manage to keep this much clarity. Some free form comics opt to use a layout that isn't terribly demanding, although that doesn't mean that it's lacking in complexity. Let's take a look at this page.

    The tiers are clearly defined and the panels within those tiers always run the length of those tiers. The panel width, however, is what varies. That is what makes the reading order so orderly and uncomplicated while allowing for variation.
    This type of free form page layout however carries the eye through a winding path that lends to greater risk of being read out of order or confusing the reader. I discussed earlier that the artist can find inventive ways in which to lead the reader's eye, such as breaking the panel, leading lines, placement of object (such as word balloons), and another way is to keep page density minimal. But here's an example of a page from this issue of Oliver. Every page is free form, and some of these pages have up to nine panels, such as page four.

In the grid format, this is nothing spectacular, but the average panel density per page in a free form comic where panels vary their lengths along the tier is usually six panels per page.
    Pages like Page six have up to nine panels as well, but sometimes clusters of panels can be abstracted as their own isolated landmarks that allow the reader to abstract the sections of the page. This sequence of nine becomes a sequence of three. But how is that so? The human mind is able to intuitively chunk these sequences based on the geographic unity within the landscape of the page.

     So for instance, on page 6 we can see the top 2/3rds of the page. On one half is one panel, on the other half is a sequence of four panels. The one panel has equal visual weight as the four panels. They are both competing images that lead the eye vertically downward. The bottom tier is visually separate from the rest because it leaves a horizontal trail and the second panel keeps this sequence from aligning with the top two tiers. If the bottom sequence was even, then the gutter would have split the page in such a way where the delineation between different areas would have become confused in terms of surface comprehension.

    One of the ways this chunking is maintained is that panels do not break the tier. The panels stack within the tier. Here's a visual example.

The offending panel is in red. This is a disruption of the free form reading order and it's because the tier border is violated. The eye is encouraged to go to three different panels as the next in the sequence. Of course, there are comics where the panel layout is so un-anchored to any principle integrity, such as some dream-sequences or panel-sequences meant to depict something other worldly or surreal.
    And so, what would have been a sequence of nine or more is now a sequence of three or less.