You’ll have the tools to dissect and analyze the clever tricks of comic book artists after watching Hass Otsmane-Elhaou’s YouTube series, Strip Panel Naked. This week, Otsmane-Elhaou takes a look at the way Mark Waid and Chris Samnee control the movement of a Black Widow comic through panel composition. “You read something and it clicks for you, and you don’t necessarily know why. Black Widow clicked for me the first time I read it. You just breeze through that issue,” Otsmane-Elhaou says. But just a good read isn’t necessarily the most you can gain. 

Strip Panel Naked explores sightlines in Black Widow #1, illustrated by Chris Samnee. Sightlines added by Hass Otsamne-Elhaou. Screencap via the author.

Says Otsmane-Elhaou, this YouTube series was made in reaction to, “a lot of surface analysis. I wanted to try and take a deeper look at what the artist and writers were doing in their books that it seemed like a lot of people were missing or couldn’t put their finger on.”

Astounded by how easy Black Widow was to read, Otsmane-Elhaou decided to dig further. “I’m kind of a serial analyzer of things, so I took another read and tried to figure out why it worked so well. The eyelines it creates are one of those really simple things that can elevate an okay story to something that just grabs you. I think often when people read a comic and they get sucked in straight away, that tends to be because your eyes are being told where to go constantly.” In the end, it’s almost as if the reader has no choice but to finish the comic. “You don’t really have a chance to look away.” Check out Strip Panel Naked below: 

Catch up with back issues of Strip Panel Naked on Hass Otsmane-Elhaou’s youtube page.

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