Romance: A Niche' to Consider

 

As the larger publisher saturate the diversity market many indie publishers look for new niche's to dive into.  One such niche' is the romance market.  As more young women pour into the comic industry as readers, artists, and writers, this market may start making a come-back.  Romance lends itself to a wide variety of sub-genres that make it very robust for today's creators. 

The current reader requires a modernized version of that classical romance we are use to seeing.  The importance of romance is that the reader has to connect with it.  As a creator you need to explore pop culture.  Many things don't change from generation to generation, but the style and theme does so investigate. By no means is today's market as simple as "boy meets girl".  You should explore current issues and culture for ideas.

Romance is about relationships.  This is a great opportunity to create diverse and intricate characters.  Explore personality traits and work on interesting dialogue.  Remember that your main conflict should be a relationship problem.  Remember that you might find yourself replacing a lot of fist fights with kissing and crying.  Become familiar with emotional responses to situations.

Understand your age group and audience.  If you are writing to a younger reader keep the situation very simple.  Your story will be more about friendships, holding hands and maybe a first kiss.  When you deal with a much more mature audience you can dive into more complex topics like adultery, passion, polygamy, and raunchiness.  Learn your distributor's guidelines so you can property label your book.

Something to keep in mind: fashion can play a significant role in attracting readers to your book.  The art should contain modern styles if appropriate.  What I mean is if the story is set in a modern day high school use popular clothes on the characters.  It adds a layer of realism that helps the reader submerge into your story.  Of course if its in a Victorian age please don't give the characters jeans and tank tops.

Easy tip:  You can always try short comics (10 pages or less) to get a feel for your audience and develop your story telling style.  Get feed back.
   
 

Powers and Copy Right

All creators can testify to the satisfaction of making a character for their comic story.  And for the most part this is fun and always interesting.  Most indie characters end up on a self published comic of some sort and usually make their debut in a local comic convention or two.  These characters face many perils in their story but none as devastating as success.  You see once your character becomes popular you begin to gain many secret enemies.  And their weapon is intellectual copy right infringement!

First thing you need to know if you plan to make a professional character for a commercialized story, comic that you plan to sell, is that there is nothing new under the sun.  What I mean is that there are many variations of existing ideas.  what's very important to know is that you try to take very obvious elements from other characters...satire being the loop hole in all of this. 

One of the fist dangers is comes from the origin story.  Have you noticed that there aren't many "Super" anything outside of DC or that the term "Mutant" tends to stay within Marvel as "Metahumans/sapiens" deals with super heroes in DC.  These coined terms are some of the few ways large publishers can trip you up when you begin to head towards a recognizable amount of success.  Magic and religion seem still pretty open as most big publishers barrow from Greek mythology and various religions...especially in today's hot topic arena.  Topcows uses technology to explain their characters super powers and a touch of religion and magic as well.

When you start talking about where you characters get their powers, remember where the land mines are and choose a unique way to explain the source of their abilities or keep it a mystery.

 

Personal vs Commercialized Art

I keep running into this often so I've decided to touch base on it.  In my opinion there are two type of art that artists create: Personal and Commercialized.  Its very important that we understand this if we plan to make our art profitable.  Each has very distinct values and purpose.  This is a concept that has to be explored before we can reach a significant level of success.

Personal art is art that we create to bring us personal pleasure.  It gives us a sense of value and internal happiness.  This type of art serves to motivate us and explore our own style or expression.  This type of art is considered our voice.

Commercialized art is art that we create with the purpose of selling or profiting from it.  This type of art requires research and has can has specific requirements to fulfill the expectations of your target market.

The goal is always to try to merge the two.  Drawing comics is an incredibly creative way to express an idea through story and art.  Understand that to make a noticeable impact to your audience you need to see what's going on in that industry, especially in the genre that you want to create your story in.  Look at art styles and stories.  After a few we'll start to see a slight pattern, a rhythm.  Learn to work in that scope or pattern to shape out your comic.

Its not always what you want it to be so be prepared to step out of your comfort zone.  Know your readers.  Have avenues to communicate with them and listen to feed back.  People are talking to you because they want to continue reading your story and be part of the adventure.

When you draw for money you draw to please your buyer.  Look for art that sells or is really popular.  Learn why people like it from their point of view and learn how your art can take on that type of value.  It could be that you need to update your art style or choose a better gimmick for your stories.  What ever the case is you need to start looking into it.

Remember that personal art is for your own pleasure and commercialized art is art that needs to sell.