Doc's Diary: To narrate, or not to narrate?

I used to use narration as a storytelling tool  a lot more often than I do now, but I realized that way too often my narrations would end up describing the action that the reader could see for him or herself right on that very same page. For example, a panel might show Dr. Twisted walking into his lab, and like a schmuck I would write "Dr. Twisted walks into his lab..." That's just dumb and unnecessary. Plus, those narration boxes looked unsightly and took up WAY too much space on the page. The finished product ends up looking more like an illustrated novel than a true comic book, something I have tried to avoid.

Here's an example of too much narration from my 2005 story "Superheroine Squad": metrobay.eroticillusions.com/f…

Over the years I have learned to be a lot more succinct with my narrations, on the rare occasion that I do employ them. I certainly don't use them for exposition like I did back then. Nowadays, if I do use narration, it's to move the plot along - not to tell every character's life story. I try to tell my story using dialogue a lot more now, and I think it makes for a cleaner page and better story flow.

Here's an example of dialogue-based storytelling from "The Doctor Is In", circa 2013: metrobay.eroticillusions.com/f…

That's a HUGE difference, right?

Which storytelling style do you prefer? Narration-based, or dialogue-based?

- Doc