Found a weird trick for writing dialogue after reading a comic book

I've been stuck on a scene where two characters are just talking in a kitchen for like a week. Nothing felt natural, it all read like a boring transcript. Then I picked up an old issue of Calvin and Hobbes at a yard sale for 50 cents. I noticed how Watterson would have Calvin monologuing while Hobbes just had a blank expression in the panel. The silence said more than words. So I tried that in my story - I cut half the spoken lines and just described what my characters were doing with their hands or where they were looking. Suddenly the conversation had tension. Has anyone else borrowed tricks from comics or movies to fix a writing problem?

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drew_chen45m ago

Dude you got a Calvin and Hobbes at a yard sale for 50 cents?! That's insane. Those books are gold, I see people trying to sell them for like 20 bucks on eBay all the time. But yeah that blank face trick is real, I've noticed that too. Watterson could make Hobbes just stare and it hit harder than any word bubble. I stole a thing from comics where they use a big panel for a quiet moment, like no text just them sitting there thinking. It makes the reader slow down and feel the awkward pause instead of just speeding past it.