8 June 2026
Reading a gutter out loud
Rowan’s first pass is still a pencil on printed boards. The seconds come after the sentence makes sense.
Before any file is opened, Rowan prints the sequence and reads the balloons in order, including the silence between panels. That silence is the gutter. If you cannot hear where a breath belongs, the motion will invent one in the wrong place.
A typical three-pager from an Uncanny fight might contain one true hold and two eases. The rest is still ink. We write hold lengths in seconds on the board margin so you can argue with them on paper. Helen Crowe argued for a week about a held breath in a fight page. The print companion still follows that decision, which is the only reason guests understand the NFT.
Bring a pencil to the viewing if you like. The boards are meant to be marked.