Would a book/comic hybrid work?

I have a passion for both drawing and story telling.

However I think there are things I prefer to write inorder to explain the plot for instance dialogue not to mention writting can get deeper in some ways drawing can't. while in other situations I prefer to draw (fighting and character design) .

I think I would feel empty If I just wrote without drawings. But that way I would steal part of the magic of a book that is using your imagination to explore the fictional work.

On the other hand I feel like only using drawings would feel a bit like a cheap and discardable not reusable Dc/Marvell comic book .

Do you guys think an hybrid of a comic and a book would work?

edited 4th Sep '11 7:35:01 PM by FallenLegend

There are excerpts of fictional books related to the story (autobiographies by characters and such) at the end of every chapter in Watchmen.

Well, there's documents within the stories— like the articles and book excerpts in Watchmen, or the comic strips in The True Meaning Of Smekday (one character draws them for the narrator as a neat way around the Info Dump, and she includes them in her diary documenting the events of the book). Those are kind of hybrids, but they're mostly being

I've seen comics with heavy text, but they're still marketed as comics. They ended up being, formatting-wise, similar to children's picture books (text in one part, one large picture in another), although the content was more mature. Off the top of my head, one of the volumes of Alias (the Marvel comic) has an issue like that, and it was pretty good.

Sequential art is a very flexible medium, you can do pretty much any combination of pictures and words. Give it a shot; doesn't hurt to experiment.

edited 4th Sep '11 7:32:30 PM by Ronka87

Is this not the exact definition of a light novel?

You could do it in a manner like Homestuck and have the image illustrating the dialogue or whatever exposition you want at certain points. It gets very wordy at times but for the most part I would say that's a good example of how to blend the two. (Or three in this case as there are a few flash and game segments with audio.)

Keep experimenting with it!! I'm sure you'll be able to come up with something good!

Wasn't there a YKTTW for a Picture Novel or something along these lines?

edited 4th Sep '11 8:38:44 PM by MajorTom

Just do it and see if it works in accurately conveying the story you want to tell.

See, the problem with that is that a comic book is already a hybrid between prose and image art.

Illustrated novels, anyone?

I believe it's called Light Novel.

I think Diary of A Wimpy Kid does a pretty good job at blending the two medium.

@OP: I've been wondering the same thing myself. I have a passion for both drawing and story-telling. I have a whole notebook for the doodles of my characters. However, my artistic talent is quite limited. I'm pretty OK at drawing human and other living beings in general (monsters, robots, what have you). However, I suck spectacularly at doing scenery.

Not all light novels contain illustrations, I don't think. They're defined by their writing style.

Only ones that I can think of that doesn't feature any illustrations is Kara No Kyoukai. I'm pretty sure most do have some.

Yeah, Wimpy Kid and The Invention Of Hugo Cabret spring to mind.

Those two both worked extremely well with the premise so I don't see why not.

Thanks guys I think I will give it a try

Read Watchmen. It's a comic book, written like you would write any novel.

Which is what makes it incredible.

If it wouldn't, then I'm screwed.