Filler Material between Chapters - World extension

[NiWo21k]

We are going into our first two-week break of our comic.

When we started, we thought about using this time to tell a bit more about the world or events that are going on by using mock-up advertisements or newspapers and have a little bit of fun with it

Now I was wondering: Do people care about this kinda stuff, or are most more interested in reading just the comic?

I am really just curious what others think.
For me, I always kinda liked this idea, because sometimes you can use it to keep exposition pieces shorter so it won´t stop the flow or just tell side stories that just have no place in the story itself or show stuff from a different perspective.

But I also know that people don´t like it, because, in their eyes, it takes away from the immersion.

So I thought I listen to what peoples thoughts are about this topic

[DasIstWunderblyat]

They do care (at least from what I have seen).

In fact some of the readers often need a refresher or break between chapters. I am speaking as a novelist who have longer-than-recommended word count each chapter, comic might be different. I do "Intermission chapters" for every ten chapter.

I personally think your way of delivering it can be fun way to engage readers.

[darthmongoose]

I love this kind of supplementary info; it can really flesh out the world and characters, and also avoids that awkward problem in Fantasy or Sci-Fi stories and similar where to tell the audience something, a character would otherwise need to tell another character something everyone in that world would know. Nobody in my setting would say "As you know, the king has been in power for the past ten years and is very popular generally, but has detractors..." so I instead made one of the chapter covers a magazine cover commemorating his ten years in power and raving about his popularity, then immediately after in an update, we see graffiti protesting him on a building.

So far the audience response has been very positive, so I'd definitely recommend it personally. I would say that if it's longer than a few pages to maybe put it somewhere apart from the main story, because otherwise it could interrupt things a bit too much, but otherwise, go for it!

[ArhyaM]

It is true that filler material kinda takes away some immersion but I can't stop thinking about AoT anime (now that the last season is being aired), they give short bits of information regarding the worldbuilding or details connected to some recent event. I love these ones and I always stop the clip to be able to read them and admire the art composition.

As long as it's short and gives me any useful information (that's not spoiler material) I am happy and I enjoy it, but I think it's a matter of finding the right balance. Making it short, useful and intersting is hard so I'd advice you to think carefully what you want to show in such extras! In fact, doing mock-ups of advertisement and newspapers sound quite interesting and original!

[Iris-Grimoire]

I think as long as it's brief and fun, it can work! I have lore pages as Inksgiving goals (though I might move them to be chapter break content), and I always try to keep it to 3 pages max and still make sense in-universe to keep a reader immersed. It's like someone taking field notes about various things, with some questions left open to show that the story might tackle this more later.

[NiWo21k]

I think you hit the nail on its head with "Finding the right balance".

Working on it, you can quickly see how many traps you have to avoid to not do what you say, spoiler or making it too massive, so people might find it uninteresting or even boring. That is why I thought about this idea with advertisements and newspaper articles. It "limits" you in some way, at least that is what I hope will happen.

Of course, there are still some problems you have to avoid, but not as much as before.

[Iridium]

I very much like this idea; I plan to do that on Menmar when I finish the first season according to the script I wrote. There's plenty of material in terms of worldbuilding and I love to see those extras when I read another series xD

[spadedigsbutts]

For Inksgiving I did several cute short minicomics and while you could read the main comic without them, they do add backstory and lore that my enhance the story for readers interested in that sort of thing or who like figuring out plot with clues. I think the best world building filler material is that which the main story doesn't depend on it to explain everything, but also makes enough intrigue that people may draw connections or get more intrigued about the world from reading it!

[CursedBeasts]

I like reading filler material, and I insert some into Bestia's Wrath, usually between the chapters to pad things out. So far I've been inserting little character profiles that provide an overview of a character that people have already seen, give a small bio, some facts, and also a design timeline because I've had the characters for a while and they went through several iterations.

[DiegoPalacios]

This suplementary info is fascinating as long as it doesn't break the pacing of a chapter. Doing it between chapters is a great idea to not mess with the pacing and give readers a sense of wonder while working on the next chapter. I've seen it done wonderfully by a couple of comics.