Comic Strip Template: 6 Panel

Six boxes, numbered, nothing else

Two columns by three rows, all panels the same size, each numbered in the corner. No speech bubbles. No gutters to fill in. No title box.

What six gives you that four does not

Room for a middle. A four-panel strip is setup, complication, turn, punchline — a joke shape, and a tight one.

Six lets the situation develop before it turns. You can spend two panels establishing rather than one, or put two beats between the complication and the resolution, which is the difference between a gag and a short story.

It is also where pacing becomes a decision. Four panels nearly force the structure on you. Six leave you to choose where the time goes, and that choosing is the part actually worth practising.

Plan in words first

Six one-line descriptions, written before a pencil touches the boxes. It takes two minutes and it prevents the standard outcome: a beautiful first panel, a smaller second, and the whole ending crushed into panel six with a caption explaining what happened.

Six lines that do not work as a story will not be rescued by drawing. Better to find that out on scrap paper than on panel five.

The panels are equal on purpose

Real comics vary panel size for pacing — a wide panel slows a moment down, a small one speeds it up. That is a genuine technique and it is not what this sheet is for.

Equal panels remove a decision and let the writer concentrate on sequence. Once that is comfortable, ruling your own panels on blank paper is the next step, and it is the point at which somebody has started making comics rather than filling in a template.

Where it gets used

Retelling a story in six moments, which is a comprehension task disguised as drawing and works far better than a written summary for some children.

Sequencing in science, a historical event, instructions drawn rather than written, and a social story showing a situation and a way through it. Also, straightforwardly, a comic — which is a legitimate use of a lesson.

Printing

A4 or US Letter at 100%. Print several: anybody making a strip will want a second sheet for the redraw, and the redraw is almost always better than the first attempt.