Geoff Johns Explains How Digital Changed His Writing

No, I’m not going to bash JL as usual just because it’s a Geoff Johns post! In fact, I rather enjoy this insight of his into how working under the consideration that his work will be going digital affects how he approaches the writing process.

Robot 6:

Geoff Johns explains how digital presentation made him re-evaluate his approach to writing  Aquaman  #1, as digital readers focus on stories panel by panel rather than page by page. He notes that they also spend more time on individual panels, taking in all the details before moving on: “It’s weird to go back and look at some of the old comics now. If you read something in this fashion you will notice stuff that you skipped over so quickly because your eye takes in the whole page instead of the panel individually. I think that’s probably one of the biggest advantages of digital.” Johns also reveals digital considerations have also led him to scale back on internal dialogue to “let the art and characters expressions speak for themselves.

It’s interesting, especially since I’ve noticed throughout the years that writing a blog post changes how I think about my own writing for this format. I know, think about my writing? Sure doesn’t show! More seriously, it’s interesting when I know that I’ll have to be incorporating graphics later, that I know people don’t like enormous chunks of text without some sort of viewable. Whereas writing for you know…the pre-digital world? Everything is just chunks of text.