The Omega Men 32 page 3 by Dan Spiegle

Continuing this great story, the first horizontal panel offers a rest to the mother springcat as she is catching her breath after sprinting inside the city. I like how stressed she seems to be, looking around her, by the danger of the guards whereas her young is completely oblivious to it.

The second panel is the star of the page as it does such a fantastic job at visually establishing the threat of the guards from the worm view level of the cat. To do that, Spiegle expands the size of the panel and makes you pause. You really get a sense that the cat is stealthily slipping away. The fact that Spiegle took the time to include three guards in a row from the reader’s eye (fore, middle and background) really grounds the scene/page and adds so much depth to it. This is an artist really caring about his craft and offering thoughtful storytelling elements here.

Then we revert to cat level with a horizontal panel again which offers a lot of depth while showing you everything you need to instantly understand the scene. Again, no shortcuts here, just an artist who can do it all and do it so well. Case in point, notice the body position of the feline running? Well that it perfectly on point anatomically at a time when google did not exist and cat videos did not threaten to break the Internet.

The verticality of the 4rth panel makes you pause again as the mother is barely escaping the lasers. She is frightened and need to take more drastic action to protect her young.

The fifth panel may seem strange at first as she is running contrary to the direction of our reading sense, leading the guards away (who you can tell are running just looking at the position of their feet), and yet the observant reader will notice her young hidden at the far right of the panel, understanding her ploy, and resuming the fluid reading flow from left to right. Brilliant.

And then the cliff-hanger of a panel. Someone off panel has noticed the kitty and both the reader and he are wondering if it is friend or foe. And for that, dear reader, you only need to turn the page over.

Also of note is how many elements are pointing the reader from top to bottom and left to right: both felines’ positions within the panels, the feet of the guards, the elements in the background the use of shadows within each panel…Subtle choices that make for great fluidity.