Aspects of a Good Comic Book

There are so many aspects that make a single story in a comic good that it would be hard to just work through it, but there are aspects to a good story that are not only found in novels. For the purposes of this discussion an attempt will be made to deconstruct what a quality comic book story can be. Most comic book stories of any worth involve heroes, villains, engaging storytelling, and an illustrators way of rendering images.

The hero is core to any comic book story. It has been this way since the first foundations of the comic book. A comic is not a funny enterprise that you would find in a newspaper; it is a different form of storytelling entirely. The hero is what differentiates the comic book. Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, the X-Men, there are so many different forms of heroes that the possibilities are endless. Even a grade A hero does not mean the comic book will be an engaging thing; there are many other absolutes that must be involved. The hero will have to react to a situation, whether it be drug deal or a murderer, and how they act upon it, how they question it, is the job of the writer. A good comic book story will employ a hero like Spider Man in a way that is different from the original mold. Originality is not key, but a new way of working out the problem is. The problems of drugs or a villain about to destroy a city is common, but how the hero reacts to them is what makes the comic book a classic.

Villains work in a way that can appall readers or make them relate. If the villain is like Dr. Doom (of Fantastic Four fame) then the horribly scarring of the face could make the character less of a pure evil, and more of a disturbed individual. A villain acts upon things in different ways than the hero, and that's what makes him or her integral to the story. The conflict between the good guys and bad guys is what makes for the majority of comic book stories, whether they are good or bad. To make a battle good there must be some dynamic added to the story, a reason for both the hero and villain battling. Batman fights villains like The Joker and Two-Face because he knows no one else can deal with their madness. Spider-Man fights the Green Goblin because the villain is too much to handle for the police. This makes hero important.

Engaging storytelling in comic books is found in many of the classics and some you may not have heard of. Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman are popular now because anything they write has an engaging narrative. Some writers will opt for the first person route, as seen many times in Batman. Even Alan Moore used this in his story "Watchmen" by employing a journal for one of his classic characters. Other writers tell the narrative from the third person-the most common-and show whether they have an ear for the language or not.

Unlike novels and short stories comic books need an illustrator to break down every page. The characters must be as human as possible in most cases because people need to relate to the characters. If they balloon up with huge muscles many readers just cannot relate, but if something happened to an ordinary person making them huge, like say the Hulk, then a reader can relate more. The illustrator is often sidelined to the writer, but imagery is a key aspect of any quality comic book story. It is what makes a comic book great. Frank Miller would be the prime example of this; graphic novels like "Sin City" and "The Dark Knight Returns" were so successful because Miller had a knack for showing just the right angles and colors.

Engaging storytelling, a hero, and a villain are key aspects to a good comic book story. These simple rules are followed by most writers of the craft, but it can be hard to break down a story in such a way. The true challenge is to do it in a way that the audience does acknowledge but does not actually see-they are reading with joy instead of noticing these things.