How many panels fit on a comic page, and how long an issue runs

Five or six. That’s where most of my pages land, and it’s where I’d start on a first issue.

The number moves around, and what moves it is pacing. Here’s how I think about it while I’m laying out a script.

Written by Nor Sanavongsay, who scripts Sahtu Press comics in this format.

Panels per page

A comic page is a fixed amount of paper. Every panel you add takes its space from the panels already on it, so the count is a pacing decision before it’s a layout one. Nine small panels and three big ones cover the same paper, and a reader gets through them at different speeds.

Five or six. The working average, and where I start.
Nine. A grid, and it reads as one: even, ticking, deliberate. Past nine the art runs out of room.
Three or four. Room for each panel, which is what a beat wants when it lands.
One. A splash. It says this is the moment, and it keeps saying that as long as you’re sparing with them.

Talky pages run shorter. A panel carrying three balloons has less room for art than a silent one, so I drop to four when everybody’s speaking. Write nine panels of people talking and your letterer will come back to you about it.

What a balloon actually costs is in the lettering guide.

The page turn

A reader sees two pages at once. The left one is already in view when they turn, so the right-hand page is the only one that can surprise them.

When a reveal matters I put it on an odd page and count backwards from there, giving the pages before it whatever panel count gets me to the turn.

How long a script runs

Comic scripts are counted in comic pages. That’s the unit the artist, the letterer and the printer all work in.

A single issue is 20 to 22 pages of story.
A short for an anthology is 6 to 10. Good length to learn on, because the beats have to land fast.
A graphic novel runs 100 to 200, most often near 120.
A webcomic episode has no fixed page, which changes where the beats fall.

Written out, one comic page comes to somewhere between a third of a script page and a whole one, depending on the dialogue. So a 22-page issue usually lands around 12 to 20 pages of script.

Two-page spreads

A spread is two facing pages carrying one image, so it costs two pages out of the twenty-two. I count it as two while I’m planning.

It also has to land on the right side of the fold. Page one is on the right, so two and three face each other, four and five face each other, and a spread starts on an even page. On an odd page it comes out with the staples down the middle of your best image.

What you type

# EXT. LIGHTHOUSE ROCK - NIGHT [SPREAD]

## SPLASH SPREAD. The beam cuts the storm in half.

Mark the page and the panel. More on spreads and the panel keywords in the comic script format guide.

The numbers count themselves

Pages and panels number themselves from where they sit in the file. Write a # and it’s the next page. Write a ## and it’s the next panel.

What you type

# INT. BUS - CONTINUOUS

## Janida moves down the aisle.

## She stops at a seat that is already taken.

What you get

INT. BUS - CONTINUOUS

Janida moves down the aisle.

She stops at a seat that is already taken.

Cut a panel out of page four and everything after it renumbers, on every page. I renumbered a script by hand once. Once was enough.

When somebody needs the numbers written in, so an editor can say page eight panel three, download the numbered copy. That’s the one to hand over. The file you work in stays as you left it.

Planning twenty-two pages

At five panels a page an issue comes to about 110 panels. I keep that in mind before planning a scene that wants forty of them.

Page 1. Where and who. Fewer panels, sometimes a splash.
Pages 2 to 20. The story, five or six a page, opening out to three where a beat needs the weight.
Pages 21 to 22. The turn. The count drops, because the last image wants the room.

That’s the ordinary shape of an issue. Write a few and you’ll know the moment you’re doing something that isn’t ordinary.