Are Comics with Voice Acting, Music and Audio a bonus or not?

[matthewfrancisj]

Hey Guys! Newish Tapas Creator here! but I'm an experienced writer, producer, and director.

I'm turning my published novel into a tapas here:

Read PRAX and the Hazardous Countdown (Comic) | Tapas Web Comics

But my question is, do you think people would enjoy added elements like Voice acting, music, and sound design! I'm testing it out! let me know!

Here is my first two pages and planning to add a new Audio Comic Page to this playlist each week!

Do you guys think this is a bonus to the experience? Let me know!

EDIT
For all the wonderful people in the comments. I still plan to release the comics as is here on tapas/webtoons. This is just ADDITIONAL medium for those i may not normally read comics since I already have a youtube audience, the published novel version and audiobook version to now pair with the visuals. I realize this is just "scrolling" and not motion. The idea is to release each page as just scrolling, then when entire chapters are done, I may also add more animation/motion movements.

I'm building the story in stages to offer many different ways to enjoy it.

-Matthew

[BlairFujin]

Personally, I don't really care about such stuff (mostly because I prefer reading at my own pace, way faster than narration in your video '^^)

Oh, but I'd suggest to rather than slowly scrolling through whole page up and down, zoom in on a panel that is being voiced, you know, focus on what you'd want the reader to be focused on at the moment

[darthmongoose]

I've done a lot of stuff with comic dubs in the past (most notably as an admin and VA on Let's Read Homestuck for over a decade), and to me, they're really kind of different products with a different audience. A lot of people like Let's Read Homestuck specifically because Homestuck is extremely text-heavy and hard to get through for people who struggle with reading really long, dense passages of text that's often full of obscure words, written in coloured text or even with "quirks" similar to L33tspeak. I have been involved in dubs of more typical comics, like Paranatural, but they tend to have a much smaller audience.

I'm not personally a fan of the decision to narrate the content of all the panels, as to me, as primarily a comic artist, it feels like it's repeating information readily apparent through the art... but if the intended audience are people with vision issues, making it more like an audio drama with supplementary illustrations, I can see how maybe somebody else might like it.

I wouldn't really call this a "motion comic" Though. There's no real motion, the camera is just panning over static pages, and I think it'd be more visually impactful if instead of a constant, slow scroll, the panels were chopped to be displayed one or two at a time as they become relevant.

[ar-ninetysix]

I'm personally all for it! I think you should do whatever you think it takes to make the idea as fully realized as possible. I love the idea of an author going to such lengths to make their story super entertaining. But that's just me, would others enjoy all that stuff?

To be truthful.. a lot of it might just end up underappreciated by most people, and ignored by some. Part of the fun in reading is in going at your own pace and imagining the extra stuff yourself to suit your own idea of what fits the scenes, right? So I can easily see how someone might feel like the extra stuff becomes restrictive and even unappealing in some sense. People not like the voice actor representing their favorite character, or they might think the music doesn't fit the vibe of the comic- I'd imagine only a small portion of your audience would be willing to accept and enjoy everything you decided on, in this instance.

So all in all, you gotta decide if you're okay with the work not getting the love it deserves, especially if you decide to do this for every installment. If you're gonna do this, make sure that it's mostly for you, otherwise.. it's gonna be a bad time seeking praise and validation from readers.

[Aeneas1]

I suppose so. In the sense that they render your comic more accessible to people who may lack the patience or particular capacity to derive much pleasure from the fun of reading, such as the visually impaired. The problem is that some people may have opposing viewpoints upon how, for example, a certain character ought to sound, and an official “motion comic” could potentially colour their perception. But that does not mean it is not worth the attempt. I think more webcomics should have that treatment, even though not every webcomic is guaranteed to receive it. Edit: plus, if you have the necessary means, you can listen to them at night.

[Lensing]

I dig it and I love when comics have a soundtrack and seeing a commercial of a book with voice actors
can raise my interest in a comic

[powerplantanimations]

My dubs have been getting a lot of views on YouTube Shorts (112 SUBS IN JUST A SPAN OF TWO WEEKS. WHOO!). I suggest taking that format if you plan on doing something like that. I like to split them up and make them extra short. Each video being one joke. And then once an arc is done, I compile them into one long video. Like the sheer absurdity. My comic hit 2,000 views for example and that was around when we happened to get a bunch of views.

(BTW WE'RE GOING TO DO CHARACTER THEMES :v :v :v)

[DNoble]

I'd recommend treating it as a different project entirely: you make your comic as a comic, meant to be read in silence, and take advantage of the medium to do what it does best. THEN you cut apart the panels, get some VAs together, do some foley, and make some music to create a separate 'version' of your story with all of those things (Motion graphics also go a long way towards this kind of stuff: panels being able to move, slide, or transform a little to add extra 'oomph', especially regarding sound design stuff) and make use of the new elements in order to take advantage of the different (not better) things that the new medium does best.

Attempting to incorporate it from the ground up and straddle the line between 'making a comic' and 'making a voice-acted illustrated audio drama' is going to kneecap your ability to make the best version of either.

[VibrantFox]

i definitely have to second DNoble's point

i used to consume a lot of (Archie) Sonic comic drama's and those are definitely their own format as opposed to just posting a comic page with voice acting/narration

Like some of my favorites came from folks like doomarang3, donniegirl12, DarkCloudVA and Adrenaline Dubs and even for ones that were just spliced panels with motion effects and music like SonicAmyMcDo's uploads it was still done with decent pacing for sort of theatrical effect

What you have might work for short form like they've got on TikTok, IG Reels or YT Shorts but even then if it's for promo making sure that those videos will capture a potential viewers attention and holds them is gonna be important coz it can take a split second for someone to decide if they stay and watch or just scroll by

[bulgariansumo]

But my question is, do you think people would enjoy added elements like Voice acting, music, and sound design! I'm testing it out! let me know!

Yeah, I think that would be a good idea! Though I don't know how well the conversion rate would be from viewers watching these videos to readers on Tapas / Amazon.

As for the videos you posted:

I like the music and sound effects. This is actually my first time checking out the comic version of your story, and it looks nice so far. The art's nicely done and conveys what it needs to. I also like the narrator's voice; I'm guessing this is the narration from the audio book, and it's great for that!

However, audio book narration does not quite translate to comic dub. I agree with Darthmongoose that the descriptions feel a little redundant unless you're trying to accommodate for an audience with vision issues, but in that case, having an audio book + a novel version up for free on Tapas that can be read with a screen reader already covers that base. There would also be the issue of some of the comic-specific text not being read, like the boxes establishing the setting and Ava. (But that last thing wouldn't be too big of a deal if you're going for a non-visually impaired audience.)

Other people have already mentioned that comic dub videos tend to focus on one panel at a time, usually having the text visible until it's said. Here's a quick example:

Dialogue tags also become strange when presented as a comic dub. Things like "she wheezed" and "he stammered like a child" are expected to come through in the vocal delivery since it's not a book narration. The same goes for other audio cues, like the people screaming outside. I think a lot of this could be worked around by only using audio clips of the dialogue + fitting sound effects where needed.

My final nitpick is the titles. Quotes from the story can be good if they establish a premise. Something like (made-up example) "What do you MEAN my dog is the chosen one??" establishes that some character's dog is the chosen one for presumably some kind of magical adventure. "Ava Harlow burst into the office..." establishes that a character rushed into an office. There would be the lingering question of "Why?", but people burst into offices for so many reasons, often kind of mundane. I don't know if I would be compelled to find out more.

You have a gripping, hooky prologue! Even if there's no direct quotes that properly sum it up, you can title the first video something like "A Woman, A Corpse, & A LOT of Assassins | PRAX Comic Page 0.1 / Prologue" and the second something like "1 Employee vs. 6 Thieves | PRAX Comic Page 0.2 / Prologue". (You don't have to, these are just examples). This is the trend I notice when looking at original comic dub video titles. However, the ones I've seen so far are usually one-offs. If you're planning on posting your entire story to YouTube, I'm not quite sure how viable this naming strategy will be in the long run, but something like it should be good for the prologue, at least.

[system]

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