Panels 5-7 constitute a storytelling device that I do appreciate keenly, but rarely employ: a multiple-panel sequence with a fixed camera angle, in which the scene’s key narrative element either approaches or recedes from the camera, preferably in a dramatic and exaggerated manner. (Here, the key narrative element is a visibly panicking Thugboy racing towards us; why, s**t must really be getting real, ’cause he’s taking off his sunglasses!) I rarely bother with this riff, however, because drawing the same background over repeated panels aggravates the hell outta me. 

Note that this narrative device is not to be confused with a similar technique now common in American comics, in which the same panel is repeated but with very few—or no—changes other than the word balloons. This visual riff, beloved by comics writers in love with their precious dialogue and intoxicated with a supposedly “cinematic” storytelling bent, bores me to tears. Flat, repetitive, and visually uninteresting, this device turns what should be a collaborative storytelling medium into a mere delivery system for a writer’s beloved “snappy patter.” (I’m not a big fan of this trend, as you might guess.)

By the way, I really prefer a third, semi-related narrative approach: the “progressive zoom-in” or “zoom-out”, in which the camera either moves in close to the subject or pulls away over a number of panels. This is even more of a nightmare to draw than a “fixed-camera” scene, though, as you have to redraw the background elements at different sizes in each panel. (If artists are lazy or just pressed for time, the artwork can just be scaled up or down in Photoshop to produce the desired effect, but the visual artifacts of this shoddy approach are so blindingly obvious that few bother with it.) In fact, I’ll insert a rare Empowered example of the “progressive zoom-in” below, featuring an oft-repeated page of the Caged Demonwolf:

This page’s shifting scale of backgrounds and Demonwolf were so aggravatingly time-consuming to draw that, after first using the artwork in Empowered vol. 3, I’ve directly reused it for later volumes and one-shots. (Note that I left the original page dialogue-free so I could just paste in different Blazing-Eyed Devilgoat word balloons as necessary.)

-Adam Warren