• Home
  • Contact
  • FAQs
    • What is Webcomics.com?
    • Member Benefits
    • How To Post an Article or News Item
    • How to Post a Webcomic on the List
    • How to Post a Comic
    • Terms of Service
  • WebComics List
  • Benefits
    • Print Vendors: Get multiple quotes
    • Banner stand: Discount
    • Consultation discount
    • “How To Make Webcomics” book: discount
    • “Webcomics Handbook”: discount
    • ALL benefits
  • My Account
    • Welcome
    • What is Webcomics.com?
    • My Subscription
    • Join us!
  • Account
  • Membership List
Twitter Email RSS

Webcomics.com

How To Make WebComics

Webcomics Handbook

‹ ComicLab Ep. 109 — Should you build your audi... Eisner awards: Call for entries ›

One More Panel

Writing humor is something many of us grapple with. In the past, I’ve discussed a method that I advocate called Fermentation. And in many critiques and discussions, I’ve found myself advising writers to push or push further or push to the Funny. And every time I write those words, it occurs to me that the phrase is somewhat ambiguous and my advice may be missing the mark.

So I’m going to try to refine the Fermentation method, and I’d love for those of you who are working in humor to try it out and let me know how it worked for you. (More on that later).

One More Panel

Once you’ve written your joke — refined the set-up and fine-tuned the punchline — I want you to leave it for at least 24 hours. I think this is crucial. It allows your subconscious mind to come into play and it brings you in fresh on the next day.

Now, look at what you’ve written and add another panel. Your job now is to use your punchline as a set-up to another punchline. Take the concept one step further. If an action has happened, explore the after-effects.  If a surprise was introduced, top it with a bigger one. If the punchline was word-play, warp the words another step.

Finally, reduce the comic to its original panel count. Let’s say you do, indeed, produce a four-panel strip. Either lose the fourth panel and go straight from Panel There to Panel Five (making any necessary wording adjustments) or incorporate any crucial parts of the fourth panel into the third panel.

And “crucial” is the operative word here. The point is not to write longer, it’s to write better.

The optimum outcome should be to arrive at a sequence in which the word-count is very similar to the original.

Case Study

Before I go any further, I want to thank member Oskar van Velden of Mojo who graciously agreed to allow me to use his most recent strip as an example. I noticed Oskar’s update on Google Plus, and it struck me that this was a perfect subject for this conversation because, although the punchline was good, I think it could have been taken to a higher level. Click on any of the images for an enlarged view.

This was Oskar’s most recent comic.

It’s a decent punchline.

But when I saw it, I couldn’t help but think about how the really funny stuff happened in the unseen next panel.

So, let’s allow our minds to wander for one more panel.

The idea of trying to stop nicotine cravings by slabbing slices of turkey meat on you skin has a really nice silliness to it. And the turkey slices look enough like the nicotine patches to make the concept cross over effectively.

But now it’s too long. The third panel doesn’t do a thing to advance the set-up. It doesn’t charge the tension, and if we leave it in, it actually telegraphs the joke, draining away much of the Funny. Since it’s pretty much extraneous…

I’m not even necessarily saying that this particular fifth panel is the best of all possible fifth panels.

And you could definitely refine it. For example, I might have added a skinny panel between Panel Two and Panel Three in which the penguin and the cat walk away from the man, having removed their patches. It might prevent a reader from thinking that the nicotine patches are being removed in the final panel.

I feel confident in saying that it’s an improvement, but I’ll bet there are dozens of “fifth panels” that you could dream up that take this very good set-up and push the concept to a much funnier place.

My challenge

I’d love to see this in action. So I’m placing a challenge. Choose one of the following:

(1) Go through your archive and improve a couple strips using the Fifth Panel method. Post Before and After strips here for discussion.

(2) Use this method as your writing future strips, and post the results. The “Before” could be a written script and the “After” can be the finished comic.

If you’re interested in subscribing to Webcomics.com, you can get access to four posts a week containing news, tutorials, information and advice that applies directly to your career as a cartoonist — plus the private forum and exclusive member benefits.

A $30 membership gets you access for 12 consecutive months. But if you’d like to try it out for a month to see what you think, you can get a no-strings-attached one-month trial membership for five bucks.

Still on the fence? Scroll down. You won’t be able to read the full articles yet, but you can see the diverse topics and useful information that make this site a daily stop for so many working cartoonists.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
by Brad Guigar on January 24, 2020
Posted In: Archive Dive, Writing
Comments available to logged in users only.



Recent comments

  • rpmichel on Humor Writing — One Step at a Time
  • Stan! on Should you do a 2025 calendar?
  • Jaycee Knight on Some brilliant marketing advice — and a warning
  • Brad Guigar on Some brilliant marketing advice — and a warning
  • Jaycee Knight on Some brilliant marketing advice — and a warning

Search



Webcomics.com Poll

I design my comic specifically for smartphones and digital tablets.

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...
  • Polls Archive

Categories

  • Archive Dive
  • Articles
    • Advertising
    • Art
    • Business
    • Community
    • Conventions
    • Creativity
    • Crowdfunding
    • Digital publishing
    • Image prep
    • Lettering
    • Marketing / Social Media
    • Merchandise
    • Print publishing
    • Tech
    • Web site
      • Web Site Design
    • Writing
  • ComicLab
  • Edited and Ready
  • Events
  • Guest
  • Hot Seat critiques
  • Information
  • Interviews
  • Livestream Chat
  • Mail Bag
  • Member Benefits
  • Promos
  • Site News
  • Surviving Creativity
  • To-Do List
  • Uncategorized
  • Video
  • Webcomics Confidential
  • Webcomics Weekly
  • Webcomics.com Poll

Tags

ad revenue AdSense advertising Comic Easel comments composition contract copyright creativity exercise credit cards Crowdfunding digital lettering digital publishing Facebook holiday Humor IP KDP Kickstarter Kindle legal lettering line weight Longform comics Manga Studio merchandise NCS panels Patreon Promotion PulsePoint readers revenue SEO shipping social media Square taxes trademark Twitter typography Web design word balloons WordPress writing

Recent Posts

  • Webcomics Confidential: Infinite Reader Theory
  • Accepting criticism
  • Understanding BISAC Subject Headings
  • ComicLab Ep 386 — Special Guest Scott C
  • Clip Studio tip: Draft layers

Recent Comments

  • rpmichel on Humor Writing — One Step at a Time
  • Stan! on Should you do a 2025 calendar?
  • Jaycee Knight on Some brilliant marketing advice — and a warning
  • Brad Guigar on Some brilliant marketing advice — and a warning
  • Jaycee Knight on Some brilliant marketing advice — and a warning
  • My Subscription
  • Store
  • Terms of Service
  • Account
  • Membership List

©2007-2025 Webcomics.com | Powered by WordPress with ComicPress | Subscribe: RSS | Back to Top ↑