Panel 6:Jughead doesn’t look up from his book but raises an eyebrow as Comic Book Guy moves the coffee cup away from the edge.
Panel 7:Close-up on Lydia, wishing slow death upon Comic Book Guy.
Lydia
In this condition, it sells online for ten. If that.
Panel 8:Comic Book Guy and his doppelgänger exchange a look.
Comic Book Guy
Then shop online.
Panel 9:Jughead, without looking up, swipes his left arm across the counter.
Rule: When there’s a really exciting moment, build anticipation by slicing it up, forcing the reader to slow down.
Panel 10:Close-up on Jughead’s hand an inch from the coffee cup.
Panel 11:Even closer on a fingertip a centimeter from the cup.
Panel 12:The pad of Jughead’s finger is so close to the cup we can almostseethe friction.
It’s maddening, right? It’s edging in art form.
And here’s the even wilder thing. I’m not even going to show you the moment when Hal’s hand hit the cup. Because it’s what’snotdrawn on the page that makes comics so special. The space between the panels can represent a split second or a hundred years.
Rule: Let the reader picture the most exciting moment in their own mind. Draw the moment after.
Panel 13:Comic Book Guy yells. His crotch is soaked with a dark coffee stain.
Comic Book Guy
FFUCKKKK!
Ten minutes later, Hal found me sitting at a sidewalk table at a coffee shop down the block.
“Feel free to apologize anytime for getting me fired,” he said, pulling out the chair opposite mine, even though I hadn’t invited him to join me. He dropped Camus onto the wobbly café table.
When he told me how little he was making at the comics store, I didn’t feel quite so bad.
“If anything, you should apologize to me for ruining the issue I was trying to buy.”
“There’s probably a hundred of those issues available on eBay.” Hal immediately annoyed and intrigued me—a highly charged combination for my overactive brain.
“There’s nothing more boring to me than buying comics online,” I said. “Collecting is a tactile hobby.”
“You prefer buying them from men with comb-overs who barely pay their employees minimum wage?”
“Only when the other guy behind the counter can’t be bothered to look up from his grad student starter pack,” I replied. A few minutes later, I would learn that Hal had moved to Columbus for the MFA program at Ohio State and dropped out a semester shy of graduation.
“Hey, I sacrificed a perfectly shitty cup of coffee for you.” He leaned in. “And I would’ve been open to negotiation on the price of that book.”
“Really?” I sensed I was being toyed with, but my in-personsocial skills atrophied during quarantine and this was the most exciting IRL encounter I’d had since I’d moved in with my mom.
“Hell, you could takeVision and the Scarlet Witchfor free. It’s C-tier artwork at best. Why do you want it?”
“Magneto discovers that Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are hischildren,” I said. “It was supposed to be a Father’s Day gift.”
