History Main / SplashPanel

* ''[[ThreeHundred 300]]'' in its original Main/ComicBook form was nothing but two-page spreads. This created some difficulty when it was collected into a trade paperback, as there would have been a massive crease in the middle of every page, thus why the ''300'' trade is twice as wide as other graphic novels.

* The entirety of the last issue of ''TheDeathOfSuperman'' storyline was nothing but splash pages.

* Used in ''TheBeano'' especially in older ''Bash Street Kids'' strips especially when it used to be called ''When The Bell Rings''.

** The [[http://i696.photobucket.com/albums/vv324/immortalpictures/promethea32a.jpg final]] [[http://i696.photobucket.com/albums/vv324/immortalpictures/promethea32b.jpg issue]] of {{Promethea}} can be arranged in two sixteen-page splash panels.

* In ''[[ComicBook/{{X-Men}} Uncanny X-Men]]'' #275, Jim Lee drew a two page splash of the X-Men and Starjammers battling the Imperial Guard of the Shiar with no dialogue and just captions with each character's name.
* In ''NikolaiDante'' frequently uses two-page spreads to show something happening on a huge scale.

* Every issue of CableAndDeadpool opens with a splash page, usually of Deadpool fighting something. In one case, an army of evil clowns.

* The team behind the current GreenLantern series, as well as BlackestNight, really really really likes big, incredibly detailed splash pages. They also put a four page one into the end of BlackestNight, showing off the [[spoiler:heroes that were brought back by White Power Rings.]]

* A Steranko ''NickFury'' comic featured a 4-page splash, meaning people would have to buy two to get the full effect. It gets heavy LampshadeHanging in the narration. The collected version makes it a foldout.

** The second-last issue of ''{{Nextwave}}: Agents of H.A.T.E.'' lampooned Steranko's effort and featured ''six'' consecutive splash pages that could be arranged to make one big one in a very open attempt on the authors' part to get people to buy six copies.

* When writing ''[[ArchieComicsSonicTheHedgehog Sonic the Hedgehog]]'', Karl Bollers seemed to use two-pages splashes far too often. He put FIVE PAGES of splash panels in the first part of Home-- that's nearly a quarter of the twenty-two page issue!

* On most ''{{Asterix}}'' books, rather than devote several pages to the climactic battle, there is instead a full-page bird's-eye view of the whole thing, often with handy charts and footnotes showing who's doing what to whom.

* ''Main/{{MAD}}'' is best known for this with their TV/movies satires (notably, in the first issues, the splash panel would be a page long, while later on, they'd take up two pages).

* {{Mutts}} frequently uses all of the Sunday strip to depict a woodland scene.

* GeofDarrow uses splash pages often, one of his most outstanding instances using this trope was in ''Shaolin Cowboy'' where he uses multiple splash pages to depict a gigantic horde of [[CastOfSnowflakes bizarre]] {{mooks}}.

* ''IrregularWebcomic'' occasionally uses giant splash panels for dramatic scenery reveals: [[http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/1455.html here]] and [[http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/1497.html here]].

* ''{{Blip}}'': The fight between Liz and the VampireHunter was rendered almost entirely in splash panels.
* ''WapsiSquare'' makes use of these from time to time, such as Tina unwinding at the end of the day [[http://wapsisquare.com/comic/at-the-end-of-th/ here.]] However, considering the large size of normal panels, they are seldom needed.
* ''BladeOfToshubi'' has a two-page splash panel [[http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Blade_of_Toshubi/5338872/ here]].

* In ''ThistilMistilKistil'', [[http://tmkcomic.depleti.com/comic/ch05-pg25/ the fall from the cliff's conclusion.]]

* ''{{Bookhunter}}'' has a two-page splash to establish the impressive size of the Oakland Public Library.

Splash panels are extremely popular in Japanese comic books (or {{Manga}}) and entire issues can consist of characters doing not very much at all on a very large canvas. Although examples of splash panels can be found in Western comics going all the way back to the 1960's, the technique did not become popular until the late 1990's, when Creator/WarrenEllis and Creator/BryanHitch created ''ComicBook/TheAuthority'', which drew on the Manga mindset to create a "widescreen" comic in which splash panels were used liberally to emphasise the wide-scale action. This ushered in an era of [[Main/DecompressedComic Decompressed Comics]] with very little plot but great big pictures that ran to the mid-2000's before dying out. Splash panels, especially two-page spreads, do not work very well when collected into trade paperbacks due to the crease that is now in the middle of the page. This can be especially disastrous if there are significant speech balloons or captions in the vicinity of the crease.

In comic books, splash panels (also known as splash pages) are massive panels (the bits that contain pictures) that take up most or all of a page, or possibly even two pages. They are an important part of maintaining a comic's rhythm, and will most commonly be seen in the first pages of a comic (usuallly coinciding with the title page) and the last pages of the comic, usually coinciding with the cliffhanger. The specific purpose of a splash panel is to add dramatic weight to a scene, be it a shocking reveal, a character's entrance, an establishing shot of scenery or a building, a dramatic fight scene or something else entirely. When used excessively, they can be a contributing factor in [[Main/DecompressedComic Decompressed Comics]].

They are also useful when a dramatic scene requires a far more impressive sense of scale than an ordinary panel could manage. For example: A character steps into a totally unexpected underground kingdom - an open area far larger than it should be. In a normal panel, this would all just look like a bunch of shrubs with a tiny speck that may or not be the character. In a splash panel, the character can be shown in enough detail for the scale to get into the reader's brain.

Splash panels are extremely popular in Japanese comic books (or Manga) and entire issues can consist of characters doing not very much at all on a very large canvas. Although examples of splash panels can be found in Western comics going all the way back to the 1960s, the technique did not become popular until the late 1990s, when Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch created ''ComicBook/TheAuthority'', which drew on the Manga mindset to create a "widescreen" comic in which splash panels were used liberally to emphasise the wide-scale action. This ushered in an era of [[Main/DecompressedComic Decompressed Comics]] with very little plot but great big pictures that ran to the mid-2000s before dying out. Splash panels, especially two-page spreads, do not work very well when collected into trade paperbacks due to the crease that is now in the middle of the page. This can be especially disastrous if there are significant speech balloons or captions in the vicinity of the crease.

Splash panels are extremely popular in Japanese comic books (or Manga) and entire issues can consist of characters doing not very much at all on a very large canvas. Although examples of splash panels can be found in Western comics going all the way back to the 1960s, the technique did not become popular until the late 1990s, when Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch created ''Main/TheAuthority'', which drew on the Manga mindset to create a "widescreen" comic in which splash panels were used liberally to emphasise the wide-scale action. This ushered in an era of [[Main/DecompressedComic Decompressed Comics]] with very little plot but great big pictures that ran to the mid-2000s before dying out. Splash panels, especially two-page spreads, do not work very well when collected into trade paperbacks due to the crease that is now in the middle of the page. This can be especially disastrous if there are significant speech balloons or captions in the vicinity of the crease.

* In the 70s and early 80s, after it got the colour pages, ''JudgeDredd'' would always open with a two-page full-colour spread that gave a preview of the main story, which was told in the next four, black and white pages. This practise faded when colour became more common.

* PhilippeDruillet's comics consist almost entirely of splash pages.

* ''OnePiece'' deserves a mention too, particularly when Oda feels the need for some SceneryPorn.

* Mikanagi Touya's ''{{Karneval}}'' has these, too.
* ''TheLegendOfKoizumi'' takes this to the extreme. Then goes beyond that with it's penultimate chapter witch consist entirely of one of these... spread over 26 pages.
* Anything by [[LoveHina Ken]] [[MahouSenseiNegima Akamatsu]]. ''Anything''.

[[quoteright:300:[[{{nextwave}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nextwave-splashpanel.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''ComicBook/{{Nextwave}}: You will buy six copies of [[http://images.nonexiste.net/image/253139 this comic]].'']]

[[caption-width-right:300:''{{Nextwave}}: You will buy six copies of [[http://images.nonexiste.net/image/253139 this comic]].'']]

* Some later ''CerebusTheAardvark'' comics played with the idea of 2-page splash panels by putting the left half on the final page of an issue and the right half on the first page of the next.

* ''Main{{MAD}}'' is best known for this with their TV/movies satires (notably, in the first issues, the splash panel would be a page long, while later on, they'd take up two pages).

* ''Magazines/{{MAD}}'' is best known for this with their TV/movies satires (notably, in the first issues, the splash panel would be a page long, while later on, they'd take up two pages).

* ''BladeOfToshubi'' has a two-page splash panel [[http://www.drunkduck.com/Blade_of_Toshubi/5338872/ here]].

* WillEisner is probably one of the first people to use splash panels in Western comics (or at least is the TropeCodifier). Eisner used splash panels in TheSpirit to great success.

* ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' does this occasionally with the panel in question sometimes getting a colorized version in the sketchbook section. The sketchbook strips [[http://www.egscomics.com/sketchbook/?date=2010-10-14 here]] and [[http://www.egscomics.com/sketchbook/?date=2010-07-08 here]] are examples of colorized splash panels.

If the artist needs to focus on something specific in a splash panel, he may overlay smaller panels on top of or around it that enlarge and highlight specfiic sections, or that provide a commentary on the larger picture.

* ''TheDarkTower'' comic uses a whole lot of these, because the art style makes it incredibly difficult to make out anything in a normal-sized panel.