Wally Wood’s 22 Panels that Always Work!!
Thursday, July 28th, 2011 • Horrorthon Posts
“Or, some interesting ways to get some variety into those boring panels where some dumb writer has a bunch of lame characters sitting around and talking for page after page!”
Legendary EC Comics/MAD magazine artist Wally Wood (one of the “holy” triumverate of Wood, Elder and Davis working under Kurtzman and Gaines in the 1950s) drew this comic book artists’ compositional guide, called “22 panels that always work,” I’d never seen this before but apparently it’s very famous…an awesome peek behind the scenes of the magical art of comic books. (Wood was also famous for saying, “Never draw anything you can copy, never copy anything you can trace, never trace anything you can cut out and paste up.”)
According to the Wikipedia article, it’s been made into a short film, and “In 2011, cartoonist D.J. Coffman had all 22 panels tattooed onto his left arm.”
