frbd1-10, Exercise 1: Reading a page

Model answer (check the details), for a single Tintin page from a Brussels-school album:

1. Layout: a regular grid of rows of panels of the same height, which gives an even pace and leaves room for a cliffhanger in the last panel.
2. Line and colour: the clear line, with flat bright colours and accurate backgrounds, so the eye follows the action at once.
3. Words: captions and speech balloons in neat lettering; dialogue carries information and jokes (Haddock's oaths); the text and picture mostly agree.
4. Sequence: small steps of action, with the gap between panels filled by the reader's inference (a door opens, someone appears); a surprise is held back to the page's end.
5. Context: originally a weekly instalment in a magazine, collected into an album later (Chapter 3), and drawn for a young but wide readership.
6. Effect: clarity, momentum and a wish to turn the page. These come from answers 1 to 4 working together.

Care: the reading will differ for other pages, which is the point of the method.