Friday, December 5, 2014

Controlled Chaos: Directing The Reader Through Fight Scenes in Rat Queens #5



Everyone loves a good fight scene. Stop looking at me like that, you know I’m right. Blood and gore is always a crowd pleaser (see bear baiting in Elizabethan England, gladiators in Ancient Rome, and MMA in the 21st century.) But orchestrating a fight scene which is both readable and exciting is much harder than you think.

But Kurtis J. Wiebe and Roc Upchurch, the minds behind the fantastic high fantasy meets Sex and the City shenanigans which make Rat Queens such a fantastic read, have figured it all out. This expertise can be seen most obviously in the two page spread on pages 5-6 of the series’ fifth issue. 

(I’ve got the spread split into two because my scanner is a failure.)

The layout Wiebe and Upchurch have created guides the reader easily through a wonderfully gorey fight scene. There’s blood! There’s eye gouging! There’s intestines! Yay! But before we get distracted by the epic ass kicking, let’s look at how Wiebe and Upchurch piece this moment of badassery together:

1.       The spread: This may not seem like a big deal, but having the fight scene spread across two pages gives more space for the action to inhabit. The fact that there is more space allows for large dynamic panels, which can display both detail and motion in equal measure without crowding. This decision maintains readability, which is essential to a comic.
2.       Including panels across a two page spread: This gives a feeling of chaos while maintaining a set narrative. If the scene had been depicted as a traditional spread or splash page the reader would be able to look wherever they pleased, creating a fight scene of their own making. That would’ve been another way to go, but Wiebe and Upchurch have a specific sequence of action in mind. So the panels act as a means to create a specific narrative for the reader. Hannah (Rock-a-billy elf mage in red) is methodical in unleashing her terrible fury, so it would be a disservice not to follow along closely.
3.       Sound effects and ‘magic’:  (By ‘magic’ I mean the white lightning-esque marks.) Both sound effects and the ‘magic’ act as an extra visual underscore to the order of the narrative. They push the eye from panel to panel: they are located at the end of the action and point in the direction of the next panel. This is done best in the final tier. The ‘shik’ and ‘choom’ effects draw the eye to the right of the first panel of the tier. The lightning bolt pushes the eye across the middle panels to the final panel where the final villain makes her entrance. 

There’s no question that Wiebe and Upchurch are masters of their craft and this spread exemplifies their skill. I highly recommend you pick up Rat Queens and give this title a shot.

-Christina Angeli

Rat Queens is created by Kurtis J. Wiebe and Roc Upchurch and published by Image Comics.

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