Beat Panel/Playing With

Basic Trope: A panel lacks speech or thought bubbles.

• Straight: In one panel, Alex says something stupid. The next panel shows Bob, without a word, walking away.
• Exaggerated: And so do the next 84 panels.
• Justified: It is necessary to convey an awkward or otherwise silent moment.
• Inverted:
  • One panel shows Alex deep in thought, with words absent. In the next, he says something stupid to Bob.
  • Or: In one panel, Alex says something stupid. Bob fills the next with a Wall of Text.
• Subverted: In a comic, a panel depicts a loudspeaker calling for a moment of silence. Until this moment is up, the kids in the class are as loud as they can be, with words in every panel.
• Double Subverted: At least, until the final panel of "silence", when the teacher performs a Death Glare and they shut up.
• Parodied: There's one in a middle of an intense fight scene.
• Deconstructed: Upon Bob's silent exit, Alex begins to wonder if he's worthy of Bob's friendship, and this puts a strain on their relationship.
• Reconstructed: Upon Bob's silent exit, Alex says, "Okay, maybe that joke wasn't that good."
• Zig Zagged: ???
• Averted: Every panel has text.
• Enforced: The editor feels the joke doesn't flow well without a beat.
• Lampshaded: "Let's just have a beat panel so I can catch my breath."
• Invoked: Someone in the comic shoves a picture of what the scene looks like into the camera and invents a single-panel speech bubble-blocker.
• Defied: Someone makes a machine to form speech bubbles in panels without them.
• Discussed: "A moment ago, when I was silent and my mind was blank, I felt so . . . singled out!"
• Conversed: "This comic tries too hard to get a beat panel in. The panels surrounding it are walls of text."

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Beat Panel