Advice needed from writers, illustrators and everyone ! :)

[young-dash]

hi hope everyone's having a good day.

to make a long story short im making this post so i can get some advice on something i have been thinking to do for a while.
it all started when one writer on a very old forum posted this....



she described the above as combining the art of great and detailed third person storytelling with the great artwork which is mostly found in graphic novels to give the story that extra boost of imagination to bring it to life.
i remember she said the reason she wanted to this was because she loved graphic novels and the way the panel art would pop out but she felt her writing was restricted when trying to write a graphic novel so she wanted to combine the two and avoid having to use speech bubbles.


the way i see it is some pages could have more art than writing while some could have more writing than art.
there could even be one whole page of writing followed by one all page of panel like artwork pieces to bring that writing to life.
there could be times when the layouts are different also.

i accept that there is a chance the above is a bad example and doesnt really use graphic novel aspects but i hope you get the general gist

i just wanted peoples thoughts on what they thought of a book like this which combined the descriptive storytelling which graphic novel type panel artwork just minus the speech bubbles and the possible disadvantages and advantages of doing it.

hope to hear some opinions on this and thanks for reading.
have a nice day and sorry if i am poor at explaining anything
tiredness levels are at a all time high

[Aaron Walther]

This kind of thing has been done before, but never to much success, I think. Three high profile examples off the top of my head are Grant Morrison, Terry Pratchett, and Neil Gaiman. Some years ago Morrison did an issue of Batman that was a prose story about the joker with some kind of 3d art(I forget the artists name, my apologies to him). One of Pratchett's Discworld novels, The Last Hero, was fully illustrated by the regular cover artist Paul Kidby. Likewise, the first release of Gaiman's Stardust was fully illustrated by Charles Vess. Startdust was later released as a standard paperback without the illustrations and found more success in that format. It's too bad because Vess' illustrations were beautiful.

I think the above example you posted is very poor because the reading experience is too disrupted. First I look at a block of text, then I look at a block of art, then I look at another block of text, then another picture, etc. I don't think there should be more than one picture on each page. Otherwise, the art and the text needs to be integrated so that it's a smooth, singular reading experience. But at that point, really you're just making a comic, aren't you? Sure, it may be stylized and prose heavy, but if it's an integration of art and text then I say it's a comic. I don't know. I disagree with the notion that comics as a format are restrictive to writing, but that's just me. There are loads of prose heavy comics out there.

I've given a lot of thought to doing something similar to this, as well (and I still might). I think the danger lies in not having a strong market for such a product. In my experience, average comic readers respond poorly to prose pieces mixing with their comics. Likewise, it's a tougher sell to the book market because it can't be printed as a standard (and cheap) paperback. Book publishers are probably less interested in something like this because of the higher production costs involved.

Which is not to say it can't be done. Personally, I really liked Stardust and The Last Hero (Morrison's Batman not so much). Were I to do it, I would let the text carry the weight of the storytelling and use the art sparingly, with tiny illustrations on the text pages and the occasional full page of art.

[young-dash]

firstly thanks for your reply. i am aware that the above is quite a bad example although i have found some more really goods one but im not sure if i can post it on the forum because im not sure who the artist is that did some of the artwork, wouldn't mind pm'ing em to you.

and yeah i do agree with you that the main problem really lies with making the art and the text blend into each other so it doesnt provide a confusing read. like you i have been wanting to do something like this for ages its just a matter of how to do it correctly. also as you said the target audience would be very hard to market to as comic readers really prefer not to be bombarded with so much text and litruatre readers dont like to have art which forces them to imagine something they thought of differently and also who would sell it for you ?
would comic stores accept it and would book stores accept it ?

the thing is i woudnt mind if it was simply called a comic even though it was done diffrerrntly, think its just a matter of how to really have the great panel artwork you do in comic/graphic novels and then to also not have to stick speech bubbles all over the art but instead have the ability to write a strong story just as if you were writing a book. (not to say comics and graphic novels dont have a great story i grew up on them and actually prefer them to anything else)

i think the way you mentioned it would be the best way
to have maybe one or two small pieces of art
and then when needed follow up a page of writing with a full page of art .


i dont know maybe my imagination is just getting out of hand and doing something like this just cant work :/ i really want to try do something like this and hopefully have it well received

[cheeseisgood1918]

Gaiman also did one with Yoshitaka Amano that I liked quite a bit, but didn't get a ton of attention either.

[young-dash]

seems its quite hard for alot of them to get the attention they are looking for, anyone would think the best of both worlds style would be loved

[CHWolf]

I think one successful way this could be done (IMHO) is a format of "page of text followed by full-page illustration".

In other words...

[ TEXT | PICTURE ]


I know "occasional full-page illustration" is done in a lot of books, but I'm specifically saying EVERY page of text would be followed by an image.

The key would be to make sure each seperate page of text 'hits the mark' of having something intriquing to present on the opposite page.


It's sort of a "children's book" format, I suppose, but who says that's all it has to be?

[young-dash]

yeah tbh i also think thats the best method of doing it
i mean heres a few more examples below but it still seems it would be hard to pull of unless like you say its one page of writing and one page of art







(all credit goes to artist btw ) thought i should say that hah

i assume those white outlines are only there to show where the text would go

[SuperMonkey]

The Prosecomic is something I've always found fascinating, but it's very rare to see it done right. A few of the early Grendel books used a format much like the first few pages you posted (only better). I feel the need to mention those, because they were very well-done and seem to get overlooked when discussions like this come along.

As Aaron pointed out, though, there is a fine line between "thoroughly illustrated novel" and "comic book". Those last few pages you posted definitely cross that line, in my opinion, but I'm sure someone will figure this out eventually.

[young-dash]

Hi thanks for your post firstly also do you think you could kindly direct me towards some of the early Grendel books As I can't seem to find them.

And yeah I do get the point about the fine line and tbh the last few images I posted are more along the line of what I assumed a combined effort of graphic novel and literature would look like . But as you have mentioned it is more towards the comic side
So if that is the case
Do you think a comic would be accepted or even doable in that format
For example the layout of the art would be simlar but you wouldn't have the speech bubbles and instead you would have narrative written slightly more detailed and more in that 3rd person view like most books do?

[MBirkhofer]

Originally Posted by Aaron Walther

This kind of thing has been done before, but never to much success, I think. Three high profile examples off the top of my head are Grant Morrison, Terry Pratchett, and Neil Gaiman. Some years ago Morrison did an issue of Batman that was a prose story about the joker with some kind of 3d art(I forget the artists name, my apologies to him). One of Pratchett's Discworld novels, The Last Hero, was fully illustrated by the regular cover artist Paul Kidby. Likewise, the first release of Gaiman's Stardust was fully illustrated by Charles Vess. Startdust was later released as a standard paperback without the illustrations and found more success in that format. It's too bad because Vess' illustrations were beautiful.

I think the above example you posted is very poor because the reading experience is too disrupted. First I look at a block of text, then I look at a block of art, then I look at another block of text, then another picture, etc. I don't think there should be more than one picture on each page. Otherwise, the art and the text needs to be integrated so that it's a smooth, singular reading experience. But at that point, really you're just making a comic, aren't you? Sure, it may be stylized and prose heavy, but if it's an integration of art and text then I say it's a comic. I don't know. I disagree with the notion that comics as a format are restrictive to writing, but that's just me. There are loads of prose heavy comics out there.

I've given a lot of thought to doing something similar to this, as well (and I still might). I think the danger lies in not having a strong market for such a product. In my experience, average comic readers respond poorly to prose pieces mixing with their comics. Likewise, it's a tougher sell to the book market because it can't be printed as a standard (and cheap) paperback. Book publishers are probably less interested in something like this because of the higher production costs involved.

Which is not to say it can't be done. Personally, I really liked Stardust and The Last Hero (Morrison's Batman not so much). Were I to do it, I would let the text carry the weight of the storytelling and use the art sparingly, with tiny illustrations on the text pages and the occasional full page of art.

Those are some great points.
I think it might be interesting. I'm working on some "golden books" atm. Childrens books tend to work like this. Large artwork, with a good chunk of prose either on apposing page, or in a text block within. Look at Dr. Seuss books also.
That we stop using this format for young-adult and adult I think might be a mistake. I mean, why not? I think the possibility of doing it right exists.

[Tanja]

The recent "illustrated novel" that I think of in the style you're considering is THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET by Brian Selznick. It's targeted to middle grade readers which may be one of the reasons it worked successfully. It's somewhat in the format that CHWolf mentioned...text, picture, picture, picture, text.

I look at it as more like bit of writing to tell the story, then add in a storyboard sequence with key images showing actions that carry the written bit even farther, and then some more story with an occasional image showing key elements/settings/characters, more story and then another set of sequential action images or storyboards. Rather than the images necessarily showing what was already written like for a picture book or the traditional illustrated novel, the images move the story forward without text and are key to the overall storytelling.

- t

[young-dash]

i mean ive added writing to the pages just to see how it would blend in and tbh i think it ends up looking quite nice and reading well also

although then again i could just be an idiot

anyways what do you think guys ?

[SuperMonkey]

Originally Posted by young-dash

Hi thanks for your post firstly also do you think you could kindly direct me towards some of the early Grendel books As I can't seem to find them.

And yeah I do get the point about the fine line and tbh the last few images I posted are more along the line of what I assumed a combined effort of graphic novel and literature would look like . But as you have mentioned it is more towards the comic side
So if that is the case
Do you think a comic would be accepted or even doable in that format
For example the layout of the art would be simlar but you wouldn't have the speech bubbles and instead you would have narrative written slightly more detailed and more in that 3rd person view like most books do?

This is the only Grendel comic I can vouch for being in something close to a prosecomic format, though I'm pretty certain there were others as well. I think it alternates between that style and a more traditional comic format, but I haven't read it for the greater part of a decade, so I may be off slightly there.

I think the real problem would be achieving a coherent flow. If you're going to have "panels", where the dialogue (and/or narration) is embedded elsewhere within the page, the reading is going to be broken up slightly as soon as you hit one of the larger blocks of prose. It has to be an integrated experience with a consistent sense of pacing, and that's hard to do if the reading experience feels like you're switching back and forth between a novel and a comic book. If I were to try something like this, I would do away with speech balloons entirely. As I see it, you could retain the panel method of layout, but I would prefer to see the prose (including dialogue) embedded in standard caption boxes, rather than it being a separate element that dominates its own portions of the page.

There's also the Watchmen option, where you can have your main story told in pure sequentials, with bits of prose stuffed into the back. But that's kind of like stitching a horse and a donkey together and calling it a mule, so I take it you're looking for something a little more hybridized. The Grendel book above, assuming my memory can be trusted, is the closest I've ever seen to that, and it was enjoyable.

[Bishop]

Originally Posted by cheeseisgood1918

Gaiman also did one with Yoshitaka Amano that I liked quite a bit, but didn't get a ton of attention either.

Yes, this one was very good.

[young-dash]

Originally Posted by SuperMonkey

This is the only Grendel comic I can vouch for being in something close to a prosecomic format, though I'm pretty certain there were others as well. I think it alternates between that style and a more traditional comic format, but I haven't read it for the greater part of a decade, so I may be off slightly there.

I think the real problem would be achieving a coherent flow. If you're going to have "panels", where the dialogue (and/or narration) is embedded elsewhere within the page, the reading is going to be broken up slightly as soon as you hit one of the larger blocks of prose. It has to be an integrated experience with a consistent sense of pacing, and that's hard to do if the reading experience feels like you're switching back and forth between a novel and a comic book. If I were to try something like this, I would do away with speech balloons entirely. As I see it, you could retain the panel method of layout, but I would prefer to see the prose (including dialogue) embedded in standard caption boxes, rather than it being a separate element that dominates its own portions of the page.

There's also the Watchmen option, where you can have your main story told in pure sequentials, with bits of prose stuffed into the back. But that's kind of like stitching a horse and a donkey together and calling it a mule, so I take it you're looking for something a little more hybridized. The Grendel book above, assuming my memory can be trusted, is the closest I've ever seen to that, and it was enjoyable.

yeah it does seem like the main problem i keep hearing from people is that the text would be interrupted alot and that seems like something that would be hard to get around.

unless there was a way to try and convince people that the reason there are two different blocks of text on a page
is because they ARE meant to be read separately and not in one consistent phase. look at each block as one scene for example.

like if you look at a earlier post above i have a layout where a panel was going through the middle and there were two different ext boxes one at top and one below.

i assumed the way that page would be read was

read the top block describing a scene.
look at the middle art which in a way is telling a story as well

and then go on to read the bottom as a new scene and look at the art next to that
and so on

i dont know if im explaining this correctly tbh aha and sorry if what i said is confusing but yeah it does seem like as you say people expect consistency and that seems like the main stumble in doing something like this correctly. it seems until something like does is done in the mainstream which a nice amount of funding it may be hard to convey to people how it is meant to be read

i do really want to try something like this and have been playing with layouts for ages hah maybe im just being over the top and trying something thats just not possible hah .