Like it says up top, this is a short and easy tutorial about how to divide a row (or “tier” as it’s sometimes called) on a comics page into three equally-sized panels. Why am I writing about this? Because I was really surprised by the fact that a Google search for how to do this didn’t yield a quick tutorial on it… so hopefully this’ll get indexed and folks will find it useful.
Some background: The nine-panel grid, based on a grid of three rows of three panels each, used to be a pretty standard comics page layout back in the “golden age” of comic books. Look at an old Superman page and that’s pretty much what you’ll find. While superhero books have largely dropped this as their basic grid, you still see it used in “homages” like Watchmen, and in other genres of comics. For example, my first book for SLG, Farewell, Georgia, was entirely based on the nine-panel grid. Chances are at some point, no matter what type of comics you do, you’re going to need to divide some area into thirds.
Dividing an area into two panels is easy both mathematically (measure and divide that number in half) and on the page (just make an “x” from corner to corner, and the center is at the crosspoint). Dividing into thirds, though, can be trickier because of us Americans and our back-asswards insistence on measuring in inches, which don’t break down fractionally into thirds very well. Even using centimeters, you often wind up with things not dividing evenly. So what to do?
If you don’t mind drawing on that cheap paper that’s got a light blue panel grid already printed on it, you can use that; I think it’s got thirds marked on it. Personally, I’d just as soon try to draw on a Kleenex as use that stuff. So, usually what I do is work in a page area that’s designed to be easily divisible into both halves and thirds. So, for Midnight Sun, I worked at 12″ x 15″–both those measurements being easily divisible by two and by three. (Midnight Sun has an unusual trim size. For a “standard” comics page shape, I do 12″ x 18″ which also works well.)
Sometimes, though, you just gotta deal with an area where the measurements just won’t cooperate and divide equally. Here’s how you do it:
First, here’s our area I’m going to divide into thirds, shown in light blue dotted lines.
1) Take the area you want to divide into thirds, and divide it into halves using an “x” drawn from each of the corners. Make a vertical line at the center-point, dividing the area into halves.
2) Now draw a diagonal line connecting each bottom corner to the top corner of each half-area you created in step one. (Works in reverse, also obviously.) Draw a vertical line at the points where these new lines intersect the lines you drew in step one. The three sections you’ve created by doing this are equal widths.
3) Finally, give yourself some gutters and you’re done! (Technically, the center panel will now be very slightly thinner than the two outer panels because it’s had a bit lopped off from both sides to create the gutter, whereas the outer panels have had only their inner-facing sides docked… but, hey, it’s close enough for me.)
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Hey, that’s a handy method, and it doesn’t require any measuring! I’ll have to remember it.
As for the gutters: I have a crummy little clear plastic ruler that has grid-lines on it (I think they’re 1/8″ apart). When I need to make a gutter around one line on the page (as you’re doing in your third drawn step), I look through the ruler to make the line on the page bisect the first row on my clear-ruler grid, draw a new line, and then do the same thing in the other direction.
I guess the center panel still winds up 1/16″ narrower, because the outside panels get cut into once and the center one gets cut into twice, but that’s still not a bad method if you can find that particular tool. The best thing about that little ruler is that it works for diagonal gutters, too.
Wow! I am totally doing that method from now on.
No more rulers and math and angry eyebrows for me.
Author
I’m glad that post is proving useful. I feel I’ve done my duty to The Internets by getting it out there. I think I discovered this method on a website about Origami. I was tired of dealing with all the math and weird fractions, and I just figured there HAD to be a way to do it geometrically.
…And I’ll be on the lookout for a clear ruler for gutters. That’s a great idea.
Wowie! As much as I like to agonize over the numbers and measurements of panels, the simplicity of this method has won me over. Tremendous!
Not to be a smartypants, but… line trisection is a basic geometric construction, requiring only a straight edge and compass. (You can be clever and do it with only circles, but that’s showing off.) For artists in a hurry, your method is fine, using a t-square, a straight edge, and a right triangle.
Step 4) Using the same intersection, draw a horizontal line connecting the two intersections. Draw another parallel horizontal below that line using the intersections of the original “X” with the perpendicular verticals drawn in Step 2. Voila! Nine equal panels.
(And in Step 2, the vertical lines must be perpendicular to the bottom of the rectangle.)
Author
@Torsten – If the compass method you mention is the same one I’m thinking of, you’d need a hell of a big compass to do it on a 12 x 18 inch piece of paper!
Thanks for the fourth step… I can’t imagine too many folks wanting that many panels in such a small area, but maybe it’ll be of some help to Chris Ware fans ;-)