Choosing the mythic beat: from Edda verse to one panel

A verse is not a shot list. When someone quotes the Lay of Thrym at the Milton table, the temptation is to draw the whole feast. That page dies as a panel: too many hands, too many jokes, nowhere for rain to live in a three-second loop.

We look for the hinge. In Thrym it is often the moment the hammer is still boxed and Thor’s helmet sits wrong. The joke is costume; the drawing is discomfort. Once that is named, Marvel-style anatomy can do its work — the bulk, the clenched jaw — without stealing from the verse.

If two hinges argue, we sketch both at thumbnail size and see which one still reads when the motion is only a rattle of a horn. The NFT comic will not save a busy composition. It will only repeat the mistake.