One of the more interesting things about the format of European comics is that a lot of them were serialized half a page at a time. This has led to a preponderance of European comics pages with a horizontal line through the middle, even on those pages that weren’t serialized half a page at a time. It also means that it’s easy to spot where the creator thought to provide a filler half-page installment that doesn’t move the story along in any appreciable manner – like the bottom half of this page. Nothing really happens, but it’s a clever use of word balloons. And sometimes that’s enough.

(Heavy Metal issue #96, March 1985 – Page 58 An Author in Search of Six Characters by Manara)