Panel One

From Comixpedia

Panel One is a webcomic by Alexander Danner hosted on Webcomics Nation updating every weekday. Described by Danner as a "metafictional experiment," the story follows a sentient comic book panel in search of content, who mostly spends his time arguing with his equally sentient caption. The only other character to appear thus far is Phoebe, who happens to be The Alphabet. Although not technically a static image comic, the artwork is exceedingly minimal, relying mostly on basic shapes and text, due in large part to Danner's admittedly inability to draw.

Panel One launched on December 12th, 2005, initially intended as a simple writing exercise, but quickly became Danner's most popular comics work after it was wanged by Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade on January 4th.

[edit] Characters

Panel One

Panel One is a self-aware comic strip panel. Trouble is, he's a panel without a story to tell. Function without form, narration without narrative. As the strip's narrator, he also has the unfortunate habit of speaking of himself in the third person. Which is doubly unfortunate since all he talks about is himself. To be fair, he hasn't really got anything else going on anyway, living in involuntary solitude as he does.

He dreams of someday housing an all-ages comic strip, and so has very little tolerance for naughty language.

He has demonstrated the ability to stretch his borders to accomodate larger images, though this has the unfortunate side-effect of leaving his borders temporarily saggy. He also has the odd ability to access information on his author's computer, due to certain incoherent logical maneuvers.

Caption

Caption is the small blue box that Panel One's dialogue appears in. Sarcastic, but pragmatic, she doesn't have much patience for Panel One's introspective angst. Also, she's a bit of a potty mouth.

Her own aspirations are unrevealed as yet. Panel One hasn't asked, and unlike Panel, Caption isn't inclined to run off at the mouth about herself.

On the other hand, she is very much inclined to run off at the mouth whenever she's confronted with poor logic or untruths--she has no patience for wrong ideas, no matter how innocuous.

She has also demonstrated a profound dislike for Phoebe, whom she considers both vapid and pretentious. Back to the Cast Page Panel One is a meta-fictional experiment designed to give me a vehicle for exploring some ideas I have about comics and visual storytelling. At the outset, it is taking the form of a daily four-panel gag strip. I realize this doesn't seem particularly experimental, but seeing as it's something I've never tried before, it seems a worthwhile challenge. At the same time, I reserve the right to change format on a whim, if some other form of experiment catches my fancy. Which I'm sure it will. This comic is about process more than product. I'll be trying a lot of different things, and some will work, and some won't. Either way is okay, so long as I learn something from the attempt.

The Alphabet (Phoebe)

1. The letters of a language, arranged in the order fixed by custom. 2. A system of characters or symbols representing sounds or things. (American Heritage Dictionary)

Specifically, the Roman Alphabet, as used within the English language. Except sentient. And female. And somewhat polymorphic, being comprised of discrete, free-floating letters.

She generally goes by the diminutive, "Phoebe," and has been seen to be distractable and easily bored. She has a rather high opinion of herself, considering herself "the root of language." When her worth is questioned, she sometimes loses her temper--she once responded to insults from Caption by confiscating all of Captions Es, leaving her with a bad speech impediment. Back to the Cast Page Panel One is a meta-fictional experiment designed to give me a vehicle for exploring some ideas I have about comics and visual storytelling. At the outset, it is taking the form of a daily four-panel gag strip. I realize this doesn't seem particularly experimental, but seeing as it's something I've never tried before, it seems a worthwhile challenge. At the same time, I reserve the right to change format on a whim, if some other form of experiment catches my fancy. Which I'm sure it will. This comic is about process more than product. I'll be trying a lot of different things, and some will work, and some won't. Either way is okay, so long as I learn something from the attempt.

[edit] External links

Panel One