Power Panels 1

Power Panels are, in my opinion, the most creative, best-looking, and overall most effective uses of panels and page layouts in comics. The great panels in comics are part of the reason I love to read 'em so much.

Probably my favorite artist of the current generation is JH Williams III, who just made a huge splash with Batwoman: Elegy.

The panel that first caught my attention showed up on several comic reviews pages:

That's actually a two-page splash of Batwoman taking out a group of armed thugs. It's pretty typical of Williams's work with fight choreograph - instead of showing a blow-by-blow breakdown in a series of panels, he breaks the fight down into its major components and frames the action around a larger picture of the main character - almost like a stained glass window. It's a pretty effective way to show the violence of the scene while still creating the type of gorgeous artwork most comic fans look for.

For my money, though, the best example of J.H. Williams's brilliance comes from this sequence here:

I frequently hear critics state that music is impossible to portray in silent media for the obvious reason that the reader can't hear it. As true as that criticism is, I think Williams captures some of the more important aspects of music and dance in the above sequence. There's a great rhythm to the panels, especially those smaller panels framed in music notes that capture the small details of the situation. The larger action is not broken up by panels, which helps convey that sense of timelessness that comes from getting lost in a dance. Finally, even though we can't hear the music, we can still "feel" it, as lines of music literally surround the characters and pervade every aspect of the scene.

It's an effective demonstration that wouldn't work quite the same in any other medium.