Comic Book Echo Chamber

I have a love for comic books. As a kid, they were my escape from the real world. The mixture of pictures and words carried me away on an adventure I could never have on my own. As I got older, I started to read books on top of the comics. Today I have a large collection of both.

Deciding to make my comic book idea into a prose book was my wife’s idea. A comic book writer and artist told me I should turn my idea into a pulp book. Put out a few chapters at a time and find someone to do some simple black and white art to go along with it. My wife said that if I was going to do that, I might as well go all the way and write the whole book and get it published. After a few weeks of turning that thought around in my head, I grabbed my laptop, sat down at our kitchen table, and started writing.

My books aren’t meant to take the place of comics; they’re meant to come along side of them. A comic book can look great because you have an artist that can bring the characters to life, but if the writing is poor then you’re not going to keep collecting them no matter how good the art is.

I have a lot of comics in my collection that have great stories while the art isn’t as good as I’d like it to be. Comics might sell a bunch of issues off the art but eventually they’ll die out due to poor storytelling. Books, on the other hand, live and die by the story. Books need to be great right out of the gate while the ‘art’ is provided by your imagination.

Superhero prose books can augment comics. You can get inside the character’s mind more than you can a comic book. While over time you’ll come to understand the characters in comics, books put you there almost right away. It’s almost like reading a great book then watching the movie about it. While the movie is visually pleasing, it’s superficial at best. A book not only can give you a deeper perspective of who the character is, but it can give you the excitement you crave from a comic. You just need to give yourself over to it.

I follow several people on YouTube that talk about and review comics. A few have even come out with their own comics to show the big two (Marvel and DC Comics) that comic books can still sell. A lot of people support them in their work and buy these comics. I have a few myself. However, there seems to be a bit of a comic book echo chamber going on with these creators. They hype their comics as well as the other YouTubers comics in this sphere and little else is discussed. There is a large community of indie comic creators trying hard to get noticed, but if you aren’t part of the echo chamber, you will go unnoticed.

It’s the same for indie authors. I have two books I’ve written and trying to get people to notice them has been the hardest part of the writing process. Superhero fiction is a very narrow genre and it’s not one people might be aware of. I know comic books are first and foremost a visual medium, but they still have words. People still must read them to understand the story. That’s why I don’t think it’s too much of a leap from comic books to novels. Sure, they’re going to take longer to read, but you’ll get your money’s worth. There are all kinds of superhero fiction books out there. There are young adult superhero books. There are erotic superhero books. There are romance superhero books. I try to make my books more in line with what a traditional comic book is, and leave out all the young adult, romance, erotic stuff. I want it to be read just like a comic book.

I think, given the chance, people will like reading superhero fiction as much as comics. You can think of them as Un-graphic novels. They have all the great superhero action and adventure you want, but you must provide the pictures. Plus, they’re priced lower than most comic graphic novels. So you’re getting a great deal. For less than an average drink at your favorite coffee shop, you can own an eBook of Deadlock or Fallout.

Hopefully, I’ve given you something to think about. There is enough room in the world for all our stories. Whether they’re written in chapter form or in panels with awesome art, superheroes and their tales will always be a great escape from the ordinary world, no matter how old you are.