FRANK F. GREENE EXPLAINS IT ALL FOR YOU

From the book How to Create Cartoons, by Frank F. Greene, published in 1941. (1941? The same year as the release of Citizen Kane! Coincidence? Yes, totally.)

Actually, Greene gets some things right, as in these two diagrams that can show how panel composition can easily go wrong. We used to call these "bad tangents."

The other mistake that gets made a lot is what Carl Potts likes to call "the unified field theory," wherein supposedly natural and random forms are drawn too regularly or too much alike, or placed at too even intervals without overlap.

There's a "cheat" in that second panel that supposedly fixes the composition wrongs. The background suddenly just stops as it approaches the figure. Sal Amendola used to call that "halation," where a white line seems to be inserted rather than carrying the background all the way to the black contour.

This works fine if the drawing stays in black and white...Try coloring that, though.

Finally, a reminder why artists used to work "twice up" or even larger, rather than "to size." Reduction is a very forgiving process.