Even In Arcadia
Script

For this comic, I'm taking a different approach than I normally do when writing a story. I usually just write until I have a story, and then draw from there, but in this case I have to fill out a precise number of pages. Instead of doing a rigid outline, I'm stealing an idea from fantasy author Laurell K. Hamliton and putting my major plot beats onto sticky notes. That way, I can rearrange my story fluidly in order to make it fit the page count.

My sketchbook has 22 thumbnail-size pages laid out, on which I'm sticking my notes. Once I have the pacing worked out, I'll write a proper outline and start fleshing out the dialogue. After that, time to thumbnail everything!

Progress

Beat chart
Sticky notes
Arranging outline

To-Do

Outline
Dialogue

Research

So in my quest to discover how to properly pace this thing, I turned to some of my favorite comics artists to see how they do page layouts. I'm not going for a super-deep analysis here so much as just quick impressions.
Bleach by Kubo Tite - Primarily 3-tiered pages, rarely 2 or 4 tiers, with the occasional full page or spread. Tends to alternate "freeze frame" single panels on a tier with split up tiers displaying multiple actions. Pretty talky for an action manga.
Scott Pilgrim by Bryan O'Malley - About half 4-tiered pages, the rest 2-3 tiers, with big epic splash pages when necessary.
El-Hazard by Hidetomo Tsubara - Primarily 3-tiered pages, with lots of action breaking out of panels. Introduces characters with half-page, full-length drawings.
Pilgrim Jager by Mami Itoh - Generally 3-4 tiered pages, but with lots of un-aligned panels and action breaking out of the panel borders. I don't think any two pages are alike. Definitely not on a grid, but it fits with the sketchy artwork.
Escalator (series of short stories) by Brandon Graham - Technically a digest size book, but it's got manga-style pacing. Mostly 3-4 tiered pages.
Blade of the Immortal by Hiroak Samura - More of a sense of verticality than the others I looked at. Less of a consistent use of tiers than the others, though pages tend to be split either into halves or thirds. Hard to say whether this is the artist's original intent, however, as I only have the Dark Horse release where they chopped up and rearranged all the panels. Would like to see this one un-flipped and un-cut.

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