COMICS RIFFS I LOVE: More of Frank Thorne's L-shaped panels!

Following up from last week's COMICS RIFFS installment highlighting Frank Thorne's unusual use of L-shaped comics panels in Red Sonja, here are s'more examples of the technique I dug up online, plus a few pages showing my own use of the layout riff.

As seen in the page above, Thorne shares an interesting characteristic with Shirow Masamune: Namely, both artists can draw compelling action scenes using relatively teeny figures, as seen in the Appleseed Databook page below:

Verrrrry few artists can get much dynamism and energy out of wee figure drawings; it's a difficult task, I can assure you!

Below, behold two concentric L-shaped dealies in a page from Korak, Son of Tarzan(?):

In the Star-Spangled War page below, Thorne uses the L shape to set up a right-to-left action sweep, and danged if it doesn't work just fine:

Check out the really unusual tier of panels 4-9 in the Dracula(?) page below, the layout of which feels almost abstract (or impressionistic? or abstract impressionistic?):

Below, an unusual take on the (inverted) L, with insert close-up of Sonja at the juncture of vertical and horizontal sections. (Insert close-up shots are another fave riff of mine, which I'll blither about on some other Friday.)

Let's be honest, though, folks... Much of the time, the L-shaped panels are used to claw free space in which you can stuff (often excessive) dialogue, as seen in the dismayingly chatty pair of pages below: 

 Finally, I'll close this post out with a pair of L-shaped panels of my own from Empowered vol.11 (on sale now, folks!). First up, an action panel from the technically demanding tower-crane fight early on in the book:

Below, another L from the Caged Demonwolf scene later on in the book. (Attentive readers might notice that the right leg of the L features a reference to an admittedly cryptic scene from Empowered vol.6.)

Amusingly enough, I've found even more examples of Thorne's unusual panel structures online (including U-shaped and V-shaped panels!), but I'll give you folks a break and take a few Fridays off from flogging this riff. (Plus, I'm likely gonna order a few collections of his Red Sonja stuff, which will likely yield even more examples.)