Crossover: Fantasy vs Sci-Fi - CG/Photo Comic

Looks cool, Shawn. The visuals are spectacular.

I like the art, but the dialogue seemed to drag a bit. Uncle Jim says to start with action, action, action, like a chess game, move the pieces across the board. I suggest you move your chess pieces sooner instead of just telling us a conversation between niece and uncle. just my two cents. (See how much you learn from Uncle Jim's thread?? )

kim

ShawnW said:

Originally I didn't have a prologue. I started in the heat of battle. People were confused because I hadn't established the world yet, and were subsiquently emotionally distant from the characters.

It bombed.

This issue will climax with a battle, but I felt the need to establish the human element first and give the reader a reason to care about the action.

Click to expand...

Starting with a prologue won't bring the reader any closer to the characters and does nothing for world building. What you have is a bunch of info dumping, which makes the story drag. Don't make the mistake in thinking you don't need to study writing techniques to write a manga/comic book. You use the same techniques in both the written novel and the graphic novel. If you want the reader to care about the MC, then you get into his head, so to speak. Feel what he feels, see what he sees and show it with your pictures, i.e. the horror of the war, the sadness of losing loved ones, the destruction. Walk along side him and experience the world with him.

You bring empathy to the reader by having the MC act as the reader would in the same situation. I.e. I'm watching "Apollo 13" and Tom Hanks looks out of the ship's window to the earth below and at the same time, his wife looks at the sky from her window in her house. There's that connection that brings tears to the audience's eyes b/c they understand the fear of losing a loved one and the connection married people have. It's as if they are talking to each other. In fact, I have the movie on mute now and I still get the same impact without the music and words b/c of the people's body language and facial elements.

In otherwords, you want to show the emotions through your pictures. That makes the reader care about the characters.

As for world building, you weave that into the background, through dialogue, culture traits, sexual roles, family roles, etc. A prologue won't do it for you.

I suggest you go through the Writing with Uncle Jim thread in the novels section and the Sci-fi section under genre. This will help you understand more about writing and world building. Good luck!!

kim

Honestly I believe the piece was more appealing to me because the prologue was there. I agree that it would have been "emotionally distant" for the story to open with the colder, less human imagery that opens the main story after that prologue. Whether the prologue sells via info dump may or may not have much to do with it.

(Does it drag? I didn't think so at first; but opinions clearly vary on whether you can let a conversation without significant action go on for three pages in a comic book. Dancre's points are well taken. Obviously you're too far along for drastic changes, but maybe it's not too late to condense that prologue?)

Opening with the cute little girl contrasted against the horrific battlefield scene was a great idea for your story in general. It seems like a good way to get the reader used to the technique of combining photos and comic art right away, perhaps better than the later scenes where the technique is less obvious (although I imagine the color schemes, settings and clarity of the photographic elements continue to vary throughout your book).

Is there any sense of urgency about where the uncle and niece are traveling and why, in the context of your story? It seems there would have to be some urgent reason in order for the dude to walk the little girl through all the death scenes, but nothing as such is indicated other than the reference to getting wherever they're going by moonfall -- for all I know the battlefield is merely on their route by coincidence. As it is, it appears that their journey is incidental and mere backdrop for the conversation about what happened ten years before. If you have the leeway to edit the dialogue at this late stage (even while keeping the same layouts for the prologue) you might consider emphasizing such urgency and making some "story" out of it, if it fits. For example, maybe some tension can be added by the uncle wishing he hadn't brought her near the place (but perhaps he had no choice) and he might be reluctant to discuss it with her. The dialogue in the frames might consist of a sort of argument where the "info dump" is finally dragged out of him by the tired child's questions. That would make it more of a story scene. That's just one approach; maybe there are a hundred others more in harmony with your context.

Absolutely beautiful!

Man, if I saw this in the comic store, it'd be going on my "buy" list straight away.

And for my 2c, I don't think it dragged.

Really loving the art--finding the storyline a tad difficult to follow.

The opening is fine as it is.

Great work.

crowlett

Good art work!

Wow....just...wow.