Genres That are a Hard Sell for Comics

[Phantomskyler]

I know this is a subjective discussion, but what are some genre's that you feel like don't mesh well with comic readers?

For me its Police Dramas. To be clear I'm talking straight Police Dramas, no superheroes, urban fantasy, sci-fi or supernatural genres mixed in. Pure Law & Order, Blue Bloods, Cold Case Police genre.

that's always been a staple genre of television, but not so much for comics, unless you added a fantastical element to it.

it is disappointing for me, since I basically grew up on Law and Order reruns and have an appreciation for cop shows most these days don't.

And trust me...I can understand these times why a lot of younger folk aren't big on shows with cops as the leading characters...

But I have always wondered how a straight police drama with no fantastical elements would work out in comic format, since it's more of a tv kind of genre.

but what's some other genres you think are hard sells in comic format?

[sarrowsmith10]

I think autobiographies are a hard sell. I've seen them around, but they aren't usually super popular.

[KoreanTacos]

Magical girl series seem to be a hard one to sell...

[Phantomskyler]

Really? That seems like a pretty popular genre in the right circles. Are we talking western comic style attempting the Magical girl genre or dark Madoka Magical Girl genre stuff (because for that one I at least know that's due to burn out of too many Dark Magical girls that happened after all the Madoka clones came out)

[silacinnamon]

I think the more "realistic" genres are less popular in comics, except for romance... I have a friend who successfully published a good handful of horror and sci-fi comics, but his least popular comic is probably the one that's a biography of a historical figure.

[Lucca_Vendramel]

Maybe it's just the reading. People probably don't wanna invest into reading something unless it has something special about it

[gempompadour]

Are we talking about sailor moon/tokyo mew mew and that kind of thing? Isn't stuff like that super popular though? Super cutesy, bubbly, girly power comics with light hearted, easy to get into story and romance.

I'd think horror is something that's super hard to sell because horror is very audio/visually linked. You need to really know how to work the comic form a la Junji Ito to make people feel tension and fear.

[KoreanTacos]

In a webcomic environment its kind of hard to really promote it without an immediate comparison.

At least with horror its less likely you will hear, oh so its like "blank". With magical girl unless you do something completely unique or have a good enough gimmick it will always be, "so its basically "blank""

[AilyneGouveia]

Crime/noir is not that easy to make popular, even if the genre fascinates me ^.^

I guess it's a lot due to the fact that you find serious and very mature themes in them. Drama often unfolds in a gray world where a lot of moral issues arise. Many readers just want to escape into a completely different world, more simplistic who the nice guy and the bad guy are clearly indentifiable. A realistic story (which can or could have taken place in the real world) must not be very seductive for them.

I also like a good fantasy story from time to time ^^

[spadedigsbutts]

Definitely biographical and just any general gritty realistic story with no fantastical elements or gimmicks. I fell like there isn’t a ton of popularity for the straight up procedural or serious stories because there was just so many of them in the 90’s and we’ve moved onto to having fantastical be the more popular trend. I remember in the early 2000’s it was almost impossible to have heard of a Good” super hero story or fantasy until the Lord for the Rings movies popularized fantasy and the MCU changed the standard for superhero movies? I think it’s just changing trends and the ones we don’t see now that are “hard sells” will return again maybe?

[AVXP]

This is just weird to see us/you/y'all discussing what's tough to illustrate as a comic and start to name things that remove the "comic" from its essence.

COMIC is comic. An exaggeration of something.
What does a [stand up] COMIC do to punch or be funny?
Exaggerate the frequency or intensity of something.

That's what a COMIC IS.
An exaggeration of a idea.

Even the "comics" that have almost nothing happen exaggerate how important all that nothing is.
Great drama over no drama fits this mold.

[Shanny8]

THIS. I find it really hard to read horror comics because I feel it's really hard to capture the element of fear and hit right cues to scare readers. It might be just me...

[rmdooley]

I enjoy your comic specifically because of the genre. It's got a 'Road to Perdition' vibe that is just delicious

[AilyneGouveia]

Oh ! Thank you so much for that ! I loved the comic and the film (The darkest role that Tom Hanks played so far if i'm not wrong, even draker than "The Green Mile").
It's a great source of inspiration for me, i'm happy to read that i was able to catch a bit of the vibes and put it in my story ! ^.^

[darthmongoose]

I think one thing to add to the conversation is that being a poor fit for comics or being a poor fit for webcomics aren't always the same thing.
A lot of the serious dramatic genres being discussed here as a "hard sell" are the bread and butter of print publishers like Self Made Hero, which pretty much specialises in literary adaptations, biographies and serious drama, and then you have a lot of the best selling "graphic novels" that wouldn't generally be associated with the term "comics" being some of the few that break into bestseller lists and the like, transcending the usual specialist comics market.

But of course, the problems with trying to do a comic like that as a webcomic are:
1. You can't put it on a place like Tapas or Webtoons and rely on the kind of audience the's already regularly hanging out on and browsing on Tapas to read it. The readerbase are largely here specifically to read pulpy stuff and romance. Wherever you host it, your audience will likely come from communities that are into that kind of thing.
2. You can pace waaaaay slower for print. In print, a page where nothing happens is suspenseful and atmospheric. In webcomics, a page where nothing happens is an update where the reader got excited to see it pop up in their inbox then goes... "Oh, he walked up some stairs. Okay, waiting for next week now...". Print comics are in books, the ultimate page binge medium. Comfortable to read, pages load instantly because they all are in front of you in a physical form, and you get the entire book at once. Webcomics have different pacing, based more around something interesting, funny, emotional or exciting happening every update, so thoughtful, slow burning suspense is hard to work with. Yes, you could break this rule and just go slow paced, but when in order to trend you ideally need to get likes and comments every page... it's gonna be hard to gain visibility.

[lacoticus]

there's audience for anything, you just have to find it. if you look at the books there are people who do very niche specific things and make a nice living out of it. most people just assume you need a lot of people to like your thing, but in truth some of these people like it because it touches some parts of what they like but not specifically what they like.
For example humor, a comic may be funny, but there are different types of humor - childish humor, dark humor etc.

[Eightfish]

Really? Some of the most popular comics I follow are autobiographical, of the journal / slice of life variety, like Johnny Wander. They're also some of the most popular ones on webtoons. I've also seen a few that are more serious, like DAR, which actually ended up having a very good story arc for being about a real person's life

[vfinnigan]

Funny, because noir was hugely popular in the early Golden Age of comics.

[Swamp]

Biographical comics aren’t big online, but they’re huge in indie print. Fun Home, Persepolis, Stitches, Blankets, Maus, They Called Us Enemy. You might not see many on tapas or webtoon, but they’re a huge part of the print market.

Partially because auto bio tends to either be the funny/relatable type that does well online or are about truly unusual and remarkable lives, which, considering the writers here skew pretty young, it makes sense that they aren’t ready to tell a life story.

[SilentHamster102]

I'm actually agree with OP. Because I'm on my own a fan of the genre, but adding not only a police, but a criminal too. And I don't see many comics in the genre, and even less are popular.
I'm making a such comic on my own, but not too realistic drama (some of my future plans including that genre, anyway) more action-oriented stuff, but anyway, it's close.
My first comic ended with 22 subs for almost the year of making. Current one is 11 for about 3 months, which is better, but anyway a small number. If I didn't had fun doing this, I'd quit already.