The Dreaming Issue #3: Leading Eyes

            The concept of leading one’s eyes through the reading of a comic is a very important aspect that a creator must consider. Unlike a book or a movie where everything is presented in a linear fashion that is easily consumable, the reader of a comic book must piece together the various aspects of a comic. In this day and age however, this is a relatively easy thing for many creators to accomplish on a basic level due to the established history of comics. For example, if one were to read a comic for the first time, they would almost certainly know how to as long as its design is not overly complicated. In Issue #3 of The Dreaming, written by Simon Spurrier and drawn by Bilquis Evely, there are two splash pages which are immensely cluttered, complicated, and busy, so much so that even experienced comic readers may have difficulty with them. These two examples can be seen below:

            While readers will generally know to start reading at the top left most caption with both splash pages, there is a lot going on that may cause a reader to trip up at points. This can be observed as being the tension between the linear and the tabular, which Cohn explores in his “Mise-en-Page: A Vocabulary for Page Layouts.” “[N]o comics page is experienced purely as a linear series … or as a continuous tableau (a whole taken in all at once),” Cohn writes, highlighting the inherent conflict at the heart of any comics page: it can be taken in all at once, but it is more often than not meant to be read in a linear order (46). Despite all the noise present within these two splash pages then, they are clearly meant to be read linearly. This fact is easily observable by the placement of the caption boxes, which act as an orderly guide for the eyes to follow along. Cohn further observes, “authors [often want to] … exercise a tight control over the reader’s eyes, a control maximized by reliance on a visual layout organized like a verbal text,” which explains how the ordered nature of these caption boxes operate (49). The manner in which the eyes are lead in order to understand these two splash pages linearly however, is not done in the traditional manner.

            Normally, comics in the more traditional mode would employ panels, gutters, and tiers in order to easily guide a reader’s eyes. On the surface, none of these aspects are present in these two pages, at least not in their traditional forms. Consider the first example: the caption boxes start in the top left corner and guide the eyes downwards to a KKK rally, a few more caption boxes, and some speech bubbles from the character Dream. Instead of using more caption boxes to guide the eyes along however, the comic instead employs the visual of Dream dragging several people by ropes, leading up into the character of Judge Gallows and another caption box. Finally, the Judge brings his cane down hard on the person sleeping in bed to symbolize his giving him nightmares, which at the same time elegantly guides the reader’s eyes down to the final caption. Despite the busyness of the page then, it’s clear that the reader’s eyes are drawn along to take everything in in a smooth, succinct manner. While the second page operates in a similar manner, using train tracks to help guide the eye for example, it almost employs a subtle tier through the use of smoke. At first, the reader is lead to read the page from the left to the right, but then they come to a sudden stop with the Judge bringing down his gavel. Through the use of the smoke however, the reader is lead to understand that this page is essentially broken down into two tiers. Thus, when they reach the upper right of the page, they know by convention and by the context of the page itself that starting at the bottom right to read the rest of the page would be incorrect, leading them to start reading the second tier from the middle-left caption box.

Overall then, the tactics employed to guide the reader’s eye in these two busy splash pages are quite subtlety done. They serve as an excellent example of a non-traditional way to approach the layout of a comic’s page outside of the typical grids, panels, gutters, and tiers.