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A kind and generous Crivvie gave me the above Facsimile Edition comic - The Tomb Of Dracula #10, featuring the first appearance of Blade. The kind Crivvie shall remain anonymous unless he wants to identify himself, but all Crivvies could do a lot worse than follow his example by likewise donating their unwanted comics to me. Not every comic they don't want, mind, just ones that I would, not any old pish. (Valuable pristine condition comics preferred.)
Note the clever way in which I cunningly contrived to pad out this post with pointless preamble just so it appears more effort was put into it than actually was. (I'm clever that way.) Anyway, that's enough 'filler', I'll now get to the point - such as it is. Take a look at the splash page below. Try reading it so that you go from the captions at the top of the page into the smaller panel in a way that makes sequential sense. Not easy, is it? At least, not if you read the captions and dialogue in the larger panel in the order they're presented.
Presumably the smaller panel (as in picture) should be assimilated into the reader's consciousness before he moves onto the second, even though the first four captions (three running above with one dropped slightly) should be read before reading the caption and speech balloons in the first panel, before then moving on to the balloons in the second. However, the placement of the lettering is confusing. I finally managed to work out the intended order after studying the page and re-reading it a few times. The fourth sequential caption appears to be a later addition, presumably to clarify things, but it does the opposite.
Things aren't helped by the positioning of the vampire's first speech balloon, which I'd have placed lower and nearer to the man's balloon in the larger panel so that one would lead into the other. In fact, that fourth caption seems superfluous and the page would read better without it. Or the man's second balloon could have been partially positioned in the lower portion of the first panel, overlapping into the second, with the vampire's first balloon following it.
What do you think, Crivs, am I talking out of my @rse, or do you see the merit in what I'm saying? Can you remember any other examples of confusingly-placed speech balloons or captions that impeded your grasp of what was happening, rather than making it clear to you? If so, the comments section awaits. However, before you start typing, below is an amended version which, in my humble view, 'scans' just a little more smoothly. (Incidentally, in the credits below, Jack Abel's name has been misspelled.)
I know I've burbled on before on your blog about different inkers working on Gene Colan, but I recently looked at a Daredevil issue where Gene the Dean had been inked, as above, by Jack Abel and thought Abel had done a good job on Colan. Not sure the above page from ToD 10 is the best example, but I thought Abel done pretty well inking Colan.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't paid attention to the credits before starting to read the issue, DS, and halfway through wondered if it had been inked by Vince Colletta. When I checked and saw that it was Jack Abel, it made me realise that their styles weren't dissimilar.
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