No emotion = no readers
Comic Reviews for week ending 5/15/2022
Good morning, my friend,
A few weeks ago, I gave you the inside scoop on building curiosity the right way by opening questions in the reader’s mind. If done correctly, questions hook the reader and pull them forward in the story. When you get them asking the wrong questions, readers get frustrated, and you lose them.
Intentionally, I left out a key ingredient to hooking a reader. That key ingredient has to come first, and without it, a comic feels flat, uninteresting, and boring. That ingredient is EMOTION.
Emotion is the bridge that connects a reader to one or more characters in a story. When a reader makes an emotional connection, they care about what happens to a character. Readers become invested in the character’s journey. Readers care about what happens, and if the journey is good enough, they remember the story long after the reading is done.
Without emotion, there’s no mental bridge that establishes a bond between the reader and the character, and the character’s journey is as interesting as watching mannequins pose in a shop window. Lifeless and boring.
How do you get readers emotionally invested in your characters? There’s no one, right way to pull that connection off, but the simplest approach is to have the main character, or a side character who acts as the audience surrogate, project their emotions in an obvious way. Within comics, characters express emotions primarily through the eyes (with the brow) and the mouth.
If you’re an artist, spend as much, if not more, time honing different emotional reactions through character faces. If you’re an artist, spend as much, if not more, time honing different emotional reactions through character faces. Manga has such an avid, loyal fan base because of the use of comically big, expressive eyes, which make it very obvious for an artist to express emotion.
If you’re a colorist, hone in on the color palettes of a scene with the emotions the scripts call for. Pinks are soothing colors. Reds project anger and heat. Blues project peace and calm.
Here’s a handy list of colors and their corresponding emotional reactions.
If you’re a letterer, concentrate on adjusting your balloons, bubbles, and captions to reflect the emotion of the character’s voice at that moment.
Emotion is the initial hook that gets your reader invested, and the questions are the line that pulls them along to your final destination. If you get the emotions right (in the art and the script) and pull them along with forward-thinking questions, you’ll have a potent mix to keep your readers coming back month after month.
If you’re a creator, comment below with your favorite tips for evoking an emotional reaction out of your reader. If you’re a reader, comment below with the comics you remember because of how they made you feel.
Now, time to review the week that was.
This Week’s Deals of the Day [DotD]
[DotD] WandaVision: Shattered Reality by Adam Schickling
[DotD] Thor: Breaker of Brimstone print
[DotD] DC Comics Variant Covers: The Complete Visual History
[DotD] Avenger's Endgame Captain America - Sixth Scale Figure
NOTTINGHAM #7 – Review
ROBYN HOOD: HEARTS OF DARKNESS – Review
BÊLIT & VALERIA #1 – Review
KING CONAN #4 – Review
VAMPIRELLA STRIKES #1 – Review
IMMORTAL RED SONJA #2 – Review
BETTIE PAGE: THE ALIEN AGENDA #3 – Review
THE CIMMERIAN: HOUR OF THE DRAGON #3 – Review
THE BALLAD OF RONAN #1 – Review
TOUCHING EVIL #21 – Review
BLOOD ON SUNSET #5 – Review
COVER OF DARKNESS #4 – Review
SALTY SEDUCTIONS OF THE SALATIOUS SEAS – Indie Review
LOST MAGIC, SEASON 1 – Indie Review
Belle: Labyrinth (Zenescope Entertainment)
Speed Republic #4 (Mad Cave Studios)
Hell Sonja #5 (Dynamite Comics)
John Carter of Mars #2 (Dynamite Comics)
Nyx #6 (Dynamite Comics)
Jennifer Blood (Vol. 2) #8 (Dynamite Comics)
Doctor Wilder #2 (Black Box Comics)
Rise of Dracula #5 (Source Point Press)
In His Own Image #3 (Source Point Press)
Buzzard & Bone #1 (Source Point Press)
Life Zero #4 (Ablaze Publishing)
Armorclads #3 (Valiant Entertainment)
Heavy Kill (Indie Submission)
Clodagh #2 (Indie Submission)
That’s the shortlist. We’ll add more as time and resources allow.
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Have a great day!