multiple eye-flow sequences in one panel (disregard prior!)

[Phlip]

(Teaches me to read the fine manual!!!;)

I found an excellent example of eye flow over dialog.

Here's page 28, panel D, of Tall Tales, Book 1 by William Messner-Loebs:

<img src="http://flea.sourceforge.net/tallTales28d.png"/>

From right to left, the characters are Pierre-Jean Lagrosse, an openly dishonest trapper, Joshua MacAlistaire, a stalwart frontiersman, and Pierre's whiny nephew.

The nephew is whining because he recently picked a fight with Joshua, who skillfully refrained from damaging him, but ripped his shirt.

Because the characters' expressions and positions don't change during their conversations, Bill Loebs draws many dialog balloons in one panel. This is the strict chronological order, of course denoted by position:

<img src="http://flea.sourceforge.net/tallTales28 ... ical.png"/>

However, Pierre and Joshua are not responding to the (apparently unnamed) nephew. They interact with each other, so a lazy reader can easily follow only Pierre's perception of the conversation:

<img src="http://flea.sourceforge.net/tallTales28 ... ntal.png"/>

Within that eye-flow, the reader attends to Pierre and Joshua's conversation, and then takes care of the nephew's whining. From Joshua's point of view, he is talking with Pierre, but paying attention to his surroundings. So he can recall the nephew's words and offer to mend his new shirt.

The nephew is not paying attention to their conversation, so the lazy eye flow also reflects this situation. When Joshua offers "hand it over", the nephew does not understand. So when the eye flows from "huh" to "give me the damn shirt" and up to "hand it over", then the reader understands the nephew's perception. He says "huh", hears "give me the damned shirt", and remembers "hand it over". On the next page, Joshua skillfully mends the shirt.

Time in comics can compress or expand. When it compresses, the artist must take care that more than one eye flow adds value to a scene.