You want to show the action from someone's point of view, but walls of text are often a good way to lose readers in the typographic flood. Rather, some authors choose to employ a method for showing the action as it's being told (or thought about), by enclosing the relevant comic panels inside the speech or thought bubble.
Speaking in Panels doesn't require that the entire narrative be laid out definitively, though that's certainly an option. Some authors may instead decide to show only specific key parts of the story and allow their readers' imaginations to take over between the panels.
Distinct from the Rebus Bubble in that Speaking in Panels actually includes full comic panels that show or imply a narrative, while Rebus Bubbles are more simply icons and/or equations to indicate a line of reasoning or thought process.
Compare Pictorial Speech-Bubble, Separate Scene Storytelling. Subtrope of Flashback.
Examples:
- There are some flashback scenes in early ElfQuest where a character's thought or sending (telepathy) bubbles occupy entire pages.
- Used in Tamara Drew. We see a scene and then this device shows us Tamara is remembering and thinking over these events.
- The Cartoon History of the Universe uses this when showing Odysseus describing his voyages.
- Happens in Never Mind the Gap when Gretel recounts her last encounter with Miwa.
- Occurs once in Question Duck on this page
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- StupidFox uses this on page 27.
- Think Before You Think does this all the time, especially as a way of showing people's thoughts.
- All the time in Today Nothing Happened, starting on the second page.
- xkcd:
- Shows what a cat is dreaming in this strip.
- Is used for an Imagine Spot in "Fantasy".
- "Mutual" has an infinite loop of this.
- Shows what a cat is dreaming in this
- In El Goonish Shive, Sarah has a fantasy of what the Magitek transformation watch Nanase's wearing might do to her.
