I first came across Wally Wood's "22 Panels" piece in high-school. It was an entire mini-comic/article devoted to finding better ways to visually represent a conversation. "How quaint!" I thought, and tossed it aside. I suppose I was too busy drawing splash pages to worry about dialouge. Ten years later (and hopefully a bit wiser) I appreciate the usefulness of Mr. Wood's creation much more.

The truth is, conversations are sequential art's blindspot. It takes a gifted writer and artist to mold a scene that is natural, because people can spot a fake hobbling their way. A well paced and illustrated scene can free up the burden of the writer. In other words, good conversation art equals less focus on talking heads more focus on highlighting interesting characters or plot.

Click HERE or on the image to download this helpful, inspirational tool by Wally Wood. Many thanks to Joel Johnson for purchasing and restoring this classic for comic fans to continue enjoy. Now to divert to a wildly different area of sequential art...



Bill Watterson is one my favorite cartoonists due to his whimsical illustration style and his heart-warming characters. A few minutes exploring and you'll find that Watterson hates interviews. As a matter of fact, I've only been able to find two in existence. (Full Interview here)

But back to the point - Watterson's feelings seem to echo Wally Wood's:



Christie: When you sit down at the drawing table, though, do you do one at a time or just keep going?

Watterson: I write separately from the inking up. I'm sure this varies from cartoonist to cartoonist; I find that the writing is the hard part and the drawing is the fun part. I like to separate the two so I can give my full attention to one or the other. Writing it, I'll sit down and stare into space for an hour and sometimes not come up with a single decent idea, or sometimes no idea at all, and it's very tempting to go do something else or just draw up a strip, but I find that if I make myself stick to it for another hour I can sometimes come up with several good ideas. And when I get to the drawing, I really enjoy taking a big chunk of time and working on the drawing and nothing else. That allows me to make sure that I'm really challenging the art, making each picture as interesting as I can...stick in a close-up or an odd perspective. This way, the writing doesn't distract me while I'm drawing and vice versa. I can devote my full attention to each.

There you have it folks. One hundred percent proof that you should make dialogue scenes visually interesting for you and the reader. It just makes sense, no?

- Josh