Do you have tips for formatting webcomics? I genuinely love the way LR is set up and nothing feels empty
ouu so this sounds like it has less to do with formatting and more like, composition?
Because from a formatting standpoint, webtoons are... I don't wanna say easy because there are still some really unique things you can do with the format (and frankly I feel like a lot of creators don't push those limits as far as they could) but there's definitely less to worry about when it comes to overall formatting because it gives you so much space to work in. You can create these nice big focused panels while putting the dialogue virtually anywhere you want, whether it be in the panel itself or in the gutters. You don't have to worry about page sizing limitations or multiple panels having to co-exist in one image together. That's definitely one thing I like about the webtoon vertical format, though it's not a format that works equally for every kind of comic, some really benefit from it while others definitely benefit more from traditional page format.
BUT based on the wording of your question, it sounds more like you might be asking about composition! Which has a lot to do with both panelling and just understanding how to setup a scene within the panels. Knowing what's necessary to a single shot and what isn't, and all that good stuff. When it comes to vertical webtoons, all that vertical space with limited width basically makes it feel like framing a movie (or at least, one of those movies that are made exclusively for Tiktok LOL) and so it helps to approach it from that angle, to think of every shot you sketch out similarly to how you would frame it if it were in a film or TV show. That's purely regarding vertical webtoons though, for page format you have like a whooooole extra layer of visual storytelling to consider, from how the panels share the space to even how the panels are delivered to the reader through the art of the page turn.
When I draft out a page, I like to make sure each page follows a sensible 'flow' from start to finish, whether it be through the dialogue or the delivery of the artwork. Even though these are just small snippets of an overall whole, I still want them to feel structured and contained within the room they were given. This also means everything will be 'connected' properly so I can utilize the gutters as needed, without there being any 'gaps' in between the pages.
(Page 6 with Persephone hijacking Kore wouldn't have worked as well if it weren't all on one page! The start of the page shows the beginning of her emotional breakdown, and the end of the page shows the conclusion).
I also typically follow a strict order of operations when designing an episode. I'm usually always working from a script that I've had drafted out roughly for a while (anywhere from weeks to months to even years in advance) which gives my brain enough time to 'reset' and approach the script with fresh eyes when it comes time to sketching them (and that goes for the episode sketches as well, I like having them prepared in batches ahead of time so then when it comes time to actually producing them, I'm more likely to pick up on things I don't like, mistakes, etc.) And then, when I sketch, that's when I make tweaks or other inclusions to the script. Oftentimes I find when I start sketching a page, I realize that certain dialogue isn't working, or scenes I thought would make sense when I wrote them down don't anymore LOL
It's also so, so important to include your text while you're sketching. This is so you have a rough plan of where the dialogue will actually fit, especially if you're planning on putting them inside the panels.
I am personally NOT a fan of when artists shove the dialogue into the gutters, I get that it's sort of part of the appeal of vertical scrolling but it just feels so disconnected when I'm scrolling through a comic and the dialogue is miles away from the panel it's relevant to. And it's often just to make room for character art that doesn't even need to be that big to begin with, because nothing is happening in it that's contributing to the delivery of the dialogue.
That can work if you're trying to build suspense as to who's talking or if you're trying to make their voice sound 'distant' or whatnot, but it doesn't work for like, normal conversation between characters LOL
Like it actually feels like those aforementioned "Tiktok movies", where you can tell when something's been shot exclusively for Tiktok, it ends up robbing the character acting and environment design of its nuance and contributions to the storytelling because it's way too focused on 'filling the frame'. There's a reason widescreen as a format was such a huge stepping stone for film, it gave room for the director and cinematographers to play with the space the same way they would with a stage in a play.
I think that's largely what's lending to that "emptiness" that's commonly encountered in a lot of vertical webtoons, it's a symptom of creators slapping down huge scrolling panels without any actual plan of what to fill them with, so all the readers wind up getting is empty space with talking heads while the dialogue is floating elsewhere in the gutters. They're not treating the vertical format as part of the art.
And I don't even think this is purely the creators' faults, I feel like Webtoons itself also encourages this because it sort of helps to artificially 'inflate' the reading length, because the longer someone has to scroll to get through an episode, the more they're convinced they actually read something, even if nothing really happened or progressed or changed. That's not always the case of course, because longer scrolling can actually do a lot to benefit the pacing (esp for horror webcomics that are building suspense) but there are a lot of cases where it feels more like a sneaky little trick to get away with dragging. It also doesn't help that creators usually have a minimum panel requirement, so oftentimes panels are copy pasted incessantly with text bubbles separated per panel to inflate that panel count without any real extra work.
(awful, terrible, no flow, no mood, no connection between the dialogue and the person speaking it, nothing in the environment contributes to what the reader is supposed to interpret, and there was no reason for Hera's dialogue to be split up per sentence across so many repeat panels with such massive gutters in between besides inflating the reading length and panel count).
Anyways, mild tangent aside, I like to keep dialogue spoken directly by characters within their respective panels, unless there's an opportunity to put the text in the gutters where it would have the most impact. This also works particularly well with a comic like LR where the text is color coded, it wouldn't necessarily work if all the text was black like in most other comics.
Using some of the pages from Episode 84 as an example-
While the speech bubbles weren't actually added in until the end stages of this page, the text itself was, so that I could design the panels with those speech bubbles in mind.
As for the compositions within those panels, it really all comes down to what you're trying to convey. For this page, I wanted to express the snappiness of Hades and Hecate's conversation, juxtaposed against Minthe who's having a breakdown in her kitchen. She doesn't have any dialogue and you don't see her eyes, neither of those are necessary because her posing, expression, and the environment does the talking for her.
(funnily enough tho, I'm just now realizing I never added in the smoke that was supposed to be billowing out from between her teeth... oh well LOL)
One composition I'm personally super proud of is from this very same episode, when Hades promises the Weekly Nark 'won't affect Kore' and we see the panels of him and Hecate speaking laid on top of the scene of the eyeball reveal.
Initially I thought to have some kind of snappy, lowkey silly cutaway to the guy receiving the eyeball in the mail, but while sketching the scene, I realized I didn't want to disconnect the present dialogue from the scene like that, so instead, I left it on just a single panel of the eyeball, while the text was spoken over the imagery. This definitely made for a better composition overall because it really sold the tone of the scene, keeping it serious, without disconnecting Hades from what he'd done - you see him, and you see the eyeball in the bag of ice, there is no separating him from his actions here. And it still gets to have a little bit of a punchline when Hades sips his coffee and mutters 'nothing you can prove'.
I guess if I have any advice, it's just to keep in mind that the panelling is like a character in and of itself, you can achieve a lot of visual storytelling in how you choose to use the space you're limited to. And again, when it comes to compositing, consider how you would want the scene to look if it were a movie. Where would you want the actors (characters) placed? When would you want the camera pulled back far, or held in close? What kind of lighting would sell the mood of the scene?
And most of all, if you want to get better at understanding panel formatting and composition, you should also read lots of comics with great panel formatting and composition! For this, I actually recommend staying away from vertical webtoons, at least exclusively. Go read trad page comics as those are the ones where you'll find some really clever and ingenious formatting / panelling / compositions, and many of those methods can be applied to vertical webtoons.
Point is, you won't learn how to do better formatting and panelling and compositions if all you're reading are vertical webtoons, especially if they happen to be vertical webtoons with poor formatting and panelling and compositions LOL
Sooo yeah! That was a lot but I hope that helps! And if I completely missed the mark on what you were asking, please just let me know with extra clarification and I'll try my best to answer properly!