Comics have visual rhythm and language-based rhythm. Visual rhythm guides aesthetic harmony and flow. Language-based rhythm guides pacing and expectation. Both are capable of producing evocation as an outcome.

In Comics

Comics is a chimera capable of holding multiple disciplinary meanings of a device, due to its multimodality: comics encompass visuals and language.

Comics utilise rhythm like film, in that they both use rhythm to control pacing.

Panel Beat

The pace of reading as dictated by a pattern of regularity and/or irregularity in panel count and arrangement.

In poetry, rhythm is derived from the sounds or rhyming patterns of the poem as it is read out. There are several established types of rhyme schemes in poetry i.e ABCB, tercet, sonnet.

Roses are red | A

Violets are blue | B

Sugar is sweet | C

And so are you. | B

Rhythm is also identified in the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a sentence.

And so are you

Narrative rhythm can be consistent across an entire work; or it can change according to the flow (in the case of more twisty or personal stories). Additionally, different rhythms establish the speed of information as it is presented to the reader: how fast or how slow —, and the mood or feeling an author is attempting to express.

Earlier I discussed the grid template (the 9 panel, the 4 koma, etc), and how they provide regularity, like a musical percussion. Grids are then a type of narrative rhythm that establishes consistency in narrative.

If we imagine each panel as a beat, then the nine grid of similar gutter distance is

A A A

A A A

A A A

Again, this consistent rhythm can be broken to great effect/affect. For example, imagine a comic composed of grids of similarly-sized panels. Suddenly during an emotionally impactful moment, it introduces an unusual panel size, or a double-page illustration, before returning to the grids.

First page:
A A A
A B
A A A

Second page:
A A A
C
A A A

When the rhythm is broken once or twice, that is an intentional subversion, a loud message. But when it is a pattern that repeats many times across the story, then it says something more about the creator’s innate sense of narrative structure, and perhaps the thematic ideas underpinning said structure.

Evocative Rhythm

Panels are arranged in a pattern that evokes sound and/or movement. For example: the movement and sound of a horse galloping.

da DUP da
A B A

Further reading:

The Rhythms of Comics. Thierry Groensteen, Comics and Narration.