Prose Comics

[TeamContract]

Hi all,

I'd like to know what people's take is on comic books in written prose form. I've seen a few novels based on popular storylines which make sense marketing wise, as there is a build in audience, but is there any appetite for original stories, written in the same way? By this I mean a central character or recurring team written episodically, like short stories or novellas.

So do you prefer your comics to stay comics because you dig the art just as much as, or even more than, the story?

Do you view novels as a totally different art form and expect a different form of entertainment from them? i.e. never the two shall mix.

Or would you pick up a comic style novel even if it didn't feature known characters?

[Sharkerbob]

Hi all,

I'd like to know what people's take is on comic books in written prose form. I've seen a few novels based on popular storylines which make sense marketing wise, as there is a build in audience, but is there any appetite for original stories, written in the same way? By this I mean a central character or recurring team written episodically, like short stories or novellas.

The only thing I've seen that directly was designed to be, and feels like, "prose comics" would be Dave Van Domelen's ASH Universe. Especially the earlier works, they really read like comic books: short, to the point, but with a continuing narrative along multiple plotlines. Annoyingly, they also got into the habit of crossing over storylines between the various titles, but since it's all free, and all listed on the site, it's not too much trouble to follow. I'd recommend it, it's a pretty creative universe.

Outside of that, I've never quite seen a "prose comic" really work the same way. Even something like Worm or Legion of Nothing are paced more like actual novels. I rarely got the sense that each chapter of each arc was comparable to an individual issue of a comic book. Although, these days, comics are so decompressed, I guess even comic book issues don't feel like single issues they way they did in the 90s or 80s, so make of that what you will.

So do you prefer your comics to stay comics because you dig the art just as much as, or even more than, the story?

It really depends on how well the author can pull it off, I think, and how much of the visual detail just can't be captured in words as well as in pictures. With a great artist, especially with action scenes and especially physical comedy, you really need the visual to pull it off just right.

On the other hand, I've read comics that are slow paced, with mostly just dialogue, and drab art that would have worked just as well, if not better, as prose, where prose, especially depending on perspective, can convey more narrative and character detail than the panels can.

Do you view novels as a totally different art form and expect a different form of entertainment from them? i.e. never the two shall mix.

I mean, I've read novels based around comic book heroes. It's not that the concepts can't mix, but novels are a different mechanism of expression than comics. There's just certain styles and conventions you can do in one that you can't do as effectively in the other.

Or would you pick up a comic style novel even if it didn't feature known characters?

I've read several with known and original characters. It all comes down to skill of the author, but I don't think it can't be done.

One thing to consider, though, as media evolves, people seem increasingly more attracted to quicker to read, easier to digest, flashier work. How many people would rather watch the movie than read the book? A lot of people would probably rather read a Spider-Man comic than a novel. When I was a kid, straight up through High School, I read a lot, and I read a good number of the Marvel novels coming out at the time. If I'm being honest, these days I have a hard time sticking with novels, even novellas, unless they are really engaging. There's just too much other stuff to get invested in. Ask me if I want to read a Spider-Man story in a comic or novel format, I might pick the comic just because I can flip through it quickly, and get it done in one sitting. Still, I might check out the novel, but unless it really hooks me, I doubt I'd keep up with it, or if I did, I'd probably take forever to finish it.

On the other hand, present me a Spider-Man short story, or parse the novel out in quick, comic-book-style "issues", it might work out better. This way, you can read one "issue" at a time, in one sitting a week, or wait a couple months, then read a whole bunch in a row.

Hope this helps.

[Shawn Hopkins]

Well, it's not a comic if it doesn't have pictures. Full stop. But novels and short story collections about superheroes are welcome. The old Wild Cards series from the 80s and 90s is a good example.

[Silvermoth]

Not really related but I just read some poetry of Ocean Vuong's called night sky and exit wounds and I absolutely loved it (and I'm not really a bit poetry guy before now too). I would love it if Ocean decided to write a comic book some time

[Spike-X]

There's no such thing.

[pearlofthepacific]

I was a bit confused by your question, because "prose" made me think that you meant comics with little or no dialog (i.e. the story is given in little boxed-off chunks of prose). To me, "sequential art" isn't enough, so beautifully and successfully narrated picture books are not comics (they might be graphic novels, but I expect a lot of dialog in a comic).

I'd like to know what people's take is on comic books in written prose form. I've seen a few novels based on popular storylines which make sense marketing wise, as there is a build in audience, but is there any appetite for original stories, written in the same way? By this I mean a central character or recurring team written episodically, like short stories or novellas.

Superhero stuff is *not* my culture, so I'm *not* familiar with the characters and storylines, and there's no reason for me to choose superhero comics over original or adapted storylines.

So do you prefer your comics to stay comics because you dig the art just as much as, or even more than, the story?

Never willingly read a comic with bad art BUT I do read nonfiction comics journalism with very unpolished art, because I really want to hear what the author has to say. Artwork that is unpolished is OK, but artwork that is just taking up space, like "talking heads" comics or thematic decoration that is not related to the balloons or text boxes is not!

Do you view novels as a totally different art form and expect a different form of entertainment from them? i.e. never the two shall mix.
There are so many different types of novel, and the same is true for comics! Comics versions of "famous books" are sometimes excellent stand-alone comics.

Or would you pick up a comic style novel even if it didn't feature known characters?

If you mean an original stand-alone graphic novel rather than an original series, yes, I do it all the time! However...maybe series is the natural format for comics. There are only a handful of stand-alone graphic novels that I found really, really, stunningly successful, and some of them are more stories than novels.

Mixtures of prose and comics can really work, I think. In non-fiction, there's "The Influencing Machine", and in fiction, Posy Simmond's "Tamara Drewe" (2007). Simmonds is a veteran cartoonist and comics writer, but "Tamara Drewe" is still ahead of its time. Even if you're not the target audience, it is worth looking at all her technical tricks very closely.

[jeanvaljean]

There's no such thing.

How about Prince Valiant, where there is basically a prose story accompanied by drawings?

[Attila Kiss]

How about Prince Valiant, where there is basically a prose story accompanied by drawings?

Prince Valiant is a great example of the mixed media working well together.
I also enjoyed the Spider and Domino Lady from Moonstone in what they called a "widevision" presentation, which basically meant there was a double spread B&W illustration on top of a double page and text on the bottom part of those pages. This really worked well where there was little to no action and parts heavily relying in dialog, where sequential art would have slowed the pace down, considerably. The art that resembled the quality of a fine art, helped the cause as well.

[Sharkerbob]

I recall pulp stories, light novels, and some regular novels will get illustrations put in them, but don't exactly need them. I think a little art can certainly help, but its best when it's not necessary to convey the ideas of the story; otherwise, you may as well just do a comic.

[pearlofthepacific]

Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction, vols. I, II

This is a really interesting collection of different approaches to illustrated prose fiction. Per square inch, comics can give you more information about the story setting, the characters' emotions, and immediate action, but I think prose can pack in more information on complex cause/effect networks (thriller style). The interior monologues that easily come across as whiny comics can be more appealing in prose, too. Since southern India is very multilingual, I wonder if heavily illustrated fiction is particularly attractive for people who speak different languages for family/leisure and for work/school.

[Shawn Hopkins]

They aren't really comics, but if you ever see Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children issues floating in the bottom of your dollar bin, snap them up. Wonderfully twisted short stories paired with mind-fuck illustrations, it's one of the most interesting experiments to ever hit comic book stores.

[codystarbuck]

Illustration and "illumination" of writing goes farther back than comics. Comics grew out of that, as much as pictograms. Early comics used the conventions of illustrated fiction, where dialogue would appear as text, beneath the illustration. Word balloons eventually began to be added. Comics grew out of that, first in newspaper comic strips, then comic books and then graphic novels. Some of the early graphic novels were text heavy, like Gil Kane's Blackmark and His Name is Savage.

Prose is storytelling with words only. Illustrated fiction is prose with spot illustrations to emphasize moments of the story (mostly in literature aimed at children). Picture books are illustrated stories with minial text, for the youngest of readers, who are more visually oriented, at that stage. Comicsis where words and pictures really work together to tell the story. Even there, it varies. Some comics are more writer centric, while others are more art-centric. European comics, traditionally, were more static and more in line with traditional illustration, until the post-war years and the upheavals of the 60s brought a lot of rebels into the field. Manga and other Asian comics are very art-centric, with minimal dialogue and text. American comics tended to fall somewhere in between.

As for prose based on comics or comic characters; by far the best, for my money, was Elliot Maggin's two Superman novels, which coincided with the rekease of Superman and Superman II. They were original stories, not adaptations of the film scripts and were some of the best Superman storytelling ever. Prose requires more explanation and Maggin could paint pictures with words and would present Superman's feats with little strategies. He worked out what Superman was doing, when he dove into a tidal wave, to stop it (vaporizing parts, blasting a trench to divert some of the mass, creating a vaccuum to cause a backflow, etc...). The Wild Cards series is pretty good, overall, though it does vary a bit from book to book. As the series progressed, they went from an anthology of themed stories to long-form adventures. Both approaches had their pluses and minuses.

Robert Mayer's Superfolks, which is a social satire, with superhero pastiches, is a pretty darn good one. Austin Grossman's Soon I Will Be Invincible has many moments, though the villain's story is far more interesting than the parallel story of a super-heroine. Adam Christopher's books are a mixture of pulp and superheroes and are pretty good. Kim Newman treads a bit in this territory, in his Diogenese Club books, and The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School, where his future superheroine, Kentish Glory, gets her schooling at an odd Englush public school (boarding school).

The pulps are the real ancestors of the superheroes (along with mythology and folklore and similar fantasy) and the pulp characters like the Shadow, Doc Savage, the Spider, Operator 5 and the like really do read like the parents of Superman, Batman and the others. Of course, part of that is the young comic creators swiped liberally from the pulps and newspaper strips.