Overused intros in comics

[redandblack64]

Nah, it's more of an action-comedy. I left some details out... but you get the point.

EDIT: I thought of this by simply turning my writer's boring invincible hero with no personality into a chronic masterbator, a moron, and a misogynist who thinks "women = crazy" due to his atittude towards them in general, which gets him kicked in the nuts, kicked out of someones house, and turns his training exercise into a living hell, all due to his sexist comments. This suddenly made the comic enjoyable again.

[mitchellbravo]

Well, it does sound interesting, but I would probably avoid reading it as it sounds unpleasant.

edit: Not, obviously, that I speak for everyone else.

[Patroness]

1.) Infodump
2.) "Ah! I'm late!"
3.) Dreams/Nightmares
4.) Flash back/forward
5.) "Hello! My name is [insert name here]! I am [X] old and. . . "
I don't really consider it the same as an infodump, because it's more like a lazy character introduction. (Appears A LOT in shojo manga too...)

[blankd]

Nah, it's more of an action-comedy. I left some details out... but you get the point.

EDIT: I thought of this by simply turning my writer's boring invincible hero with no personality into a chronic masterbator, a moron, and a misogynist who thinks "women = crazy" due to his atittude towards them in general, which gets him kicked in the nuts, kicked out of someones house, and turns his training exercise into a living hell, all due to his sexist comments. This suddenly made the comic enjoyable again.

You might want to be careful with that actually, just piling on a bunch of undesirable traits onto a character doesn't necessarily make it a good introduction, it could actually come off as a strawman setup or the beginnings of an overly preachy comic.

[redandblack64]

Nah, it's more of an action-comedy. I left some details out... but you get the point.

EDIT: I thought of this by simply turning my writer's boring invincible hero with no personality into a chronic masterbator, a moron, and a misogynist who thinks "women = crazy" due to his atittude towards them in general, which gets him kicked in the nuts, kicked out of someones house, and turns his training exercise into a living hell, all due to his sexist comments. This suddenly made the comic enjoyable again.

You might want to be careful with that actually, just piling on a bunch of undesirable traits onto a character doesn't necessarily make it a good introduction, it could actually come off as a strawman setup or the beginnings of an overly preachy comic.

I know, that was an exaggeration, and isn't really the focus of the comic. It's the result of a joke a friend made when I told him about the main character, saying "You know what you should make him? A. Chronic. Masterbator." He was mocking my writer's flat characters by making a joke of a useful piece of advice, which was that giving your characters flaws makes them interesting, but giving them too many makes it as bad as a flawless character. Details ahead.

Spoiler! :

Actually, I'll post the revised script of the first 7 pages of the comic sometime soon (It shouldn't derail things, as it is an example of an intro that's used a lot.). The comic is plot driven, and is a bit of a parady on the action, adventure and shonen genres. The main character has some qualities, such as being selfless and actually caring for people in general. So he isn't a masterbator and isn't looking to totally abuse his powers, and isn't aware of his attitude towards women.

[blackmoongirl2424]

Thanks! That clears out a lot of things. For some reason the sitcom "The Office" comes to mind because they look at the camera once in awhile giving meaningful glances to the audience (it's not an intro thing though, they do this consistently lol. )

Intros that introduce many characters at once or in rapid succession annoy me, even if the introductions themselves aren't bad.

I am curious to know what rapid succession means? Is it in the context of number of pages? Sequence of events?

I think it depends on the author's approach - if you introduce characters just to throw in names (ie like how it's the first day of school and the teacher makes each and every kid introduce each other in front of the class *yawn*) then it's a bad idea but if it's to enhance/advance the plot because these characters are introduced to the story by doing things/participating in events that is (or will soon be) related to the main plot, then it's not so bad. The latter will more than likely make the character memorable.

I've actually seen this done in Western Comicbooks (I read X-Men so there's always the imperative 'introducing the character' section for first time readers). Characters doing different things to show their personalities and what not. Some of these actions may or may not be related to the plot but more like what they are doing that will lead them to get into the main storyline. Not saying it's a good or bad approach but as a reader, I personally don't mind seeing new characters that are introduced by doing things related to the storyline itself (or in some cases, they are directly related to the story: e.g. the princess that was kidnapped that the hero named Mario needs to rescue) and doesn't make me feel like the writer just wants to throw names in for the hell of it.

On another note and this is where I see what Eishiya is talking about: there's this one anime that I did not even bother finishing watching because they introduced too many characters at the beginning and kept the audience in the dark on what their purpose in the storyline will be in such a long time. I saw them as wasting scenes because I don't care about them or what they are doing and they didn't seem to have a good chemistry with the other main characters.

I understand that some things need to be kept as a mystery until later but they didn't do a good job keeping me interested with the characters until the mystery is revealed (yes CHARACTERS - they did it to more than one. So it's like watching a bunch of people you don't really care about do things =S). Oh on some of these side/minor characters, they made you watch their origins first before you find out how they relate to the main plot/protagonist. I usually find myself interested in the character's origin after I've seen (or while seeing) what his/her role is in the main storyline.

It made me not want to watch it anymore so I quit...I can't even remember the name of that anime lol.

So yeah sorry for the long rant/babble lol. ^^

Well it's better than what I end up doing sometimes: you don't even know a character's name until later (I had realized I had yet to say the names of 3 of my characters after 3 chapters of them showing up) but it tends to be because I try to make the speaking very natural and normally me and my friends rarely ever talk with us saying our names unless we're calling out to some one. :/ No wonder some of my friends' names I never learn 'till months later. I'm trying to fix that. >3>;

[CautionCreepBitez]

Ahh this is my first post here on the forums...I'm to shy for my own good but everyone seems really nice here so...

Alright I think I'm quickly going to throw my two cents in on this matter.

Intros I dislike is when they introduce the character straight up, no build up, no setting. Just "Hey my name is DERP and I like to HERP, Here have all my personal info your going to forget anyways." Usually this happened while the characters are A) Getting ready in the morning B) Staring at something unrelated.

I also "dislike" (only if done wrong) the whole "First day of school at a new school/ just moved there." But that's just my opinion.

Now I have a comic in the drafting stage :S and I have an intro for it that ...Might not be everyone's cup of tea?

I'm the type of person that loves backgrounds Can't draw them worth a damn and scenery. I love showing my character in the world they live in with out openly telling anyone about them, so In my comic I have the first page mostly showing the scenery and how my character fits in with it. I love others that do this to Makes me feel that the world has a meaning and the character has a meaning for living in that world.

I don't know that's just me you can agree or disagree with me. It's nice to know everyone has their own opinions in life ^^

TL;DR "My name is..." intros "Meh".
Backgrounds for a purpose good.

[blackmoongirl2424]

The main character wakes up from a dream and, realizes they're late for their first day of High school

LMAO SO TRUE!
Mostly in animes from what ive seen- they always WAKE UP AND ARE LATE FOR SOMETHING; school, work, kawaii desu sex!

Whelll DUUHHHH, it makes them automatically and irreversably relatable to the audience! Your readers can't HELP but like the character after they have this shared experience!

Someone should make a comic that starts with the character being ridiculously EARLY for school instead. Like they get there an hour ahead of time and feel embarassed that they forgot to turn their clock back.

Does Alice 19th count? Senario:
Alice (main) is texting about some boy she likes. Looks at the clock and is like: "HOLY CRAP! I forgot to wake up my sister." Her sister is the one who's screaming "she's late for practice" and leaves. Figures her sister WASN'T late and was actually early to school considering they didn't even have practice that day.

So I guess that's pretty much "going uber early instead of late to school" and the main not being late for school.

[mitchellbravo]

Huhuhuhuh. It is a pleasant twist

[Aeridis]

Nobody has really said anything about the "Villain Opening Scene" intro. It's my favorite one, mostly due to the fact that a lot of other media I've seen doesn't really establish the main villain until the darn thing is half way done. I just thought these things happen randomly, now you're telling me that some mastermind was behind it?! I hate those! I just like to know who the villain is and what it is that they do, especially when the hero is unaware of it. It just makes me anxious to see how their first meeting will turn out. I also like in media res. When your'e in the middle of the action, you wonder what's going on and get curious. "What happened to this old destroyed city? Holy crap, was that a missile? OMG, THERE'S A WAR GOING ON! LOT'S'A SOLDIERS GETTING KILLED! Who's this guy with the awesome eyepatch and robotic arm from the blue team?! SHIT, HE JUST GOT SHOT!Oh, no worries. He's still alive..."

My least favorite is the infodump, or better yet, the wall of text. I also hate intros where the main character, usually female, new to the school, and extremely shy, is walking through the halls, after saying goodbye to their parents, taking one of the classes already, and goes to her locker to collect an exaggerated amount of books and papers, and bumps into a guy and all the books and papers fall to the floor and both of them are picking them up apologizing to each other, then both of them reach for the last paper but stop because they see the other go for it then look into each other's eyes and the girl falls in love with him. After that, random outgoing girl with another socially awkward (or a little less outgoing) friend tells the main character that the guy is super popular and has a super popular girlfriend or the guys a punk and probably does drugs. Either way, it's a borefest and all comics that start this way usually end the same.

[MemaiShirosaki]

That's the usual shojou tripe :< It's frustrating to read through comics that start like that, because then everything else starts becoming more cliche. Like how the teacher will then start asking everyone to make the main character girl more welcomed and she's already paired up in a group assignment/sits right next to the guy she likes and it gets all awkward and cute. And how they never go on dates or anything and yet they fall for everything they all do and take cutesy pictures. Bleh. I like shojou manga (guilty pleasure), the art's usually to die for, and I'm glad that there are other authors/creators who don't just use the tried-and-true tropes to get the story started, which make much more interesting stories.

Infodumps are a pain to read through :< I understand that if it's a big world with an elaborate history and whatnot, I can see infodumps being useful sometimes. At the beginning of the story though? Not so much. Even then, it has to be related to the story at hand somehow. I've read a number of fantasy (web)comics where they go into so much detail about a particular race/creature/profession/country and it is SO minor and unimportant that it ends up being a waste of time. I want to see our heroes vanquish evil, not learn about a tribe that has very little to do with the story. I know there are some readers who are interested in things like that, and I know that the author probably spent a lot of time cooking up this magical little world of theirs and would like to share it, but I think long, elaborate infodumps like that should be put into its own separate section on their website or something.

Wow, this ended up longer than intended .___.;; Sorry guys.

[Iceloli101]

Most over used, deffinately shojou opening and info dump. But most disliked by me would probably be in medias res when its done wrong. That just kills me. Or when the author just kind of expects you to know the characters. Youre dumped into this little world with these people you're just supposed to know. I'm fine not knowing the characters' names if they look different enough and act different enough but when you know their names and nothing else about them it's just weird.

Spoiler! :

On the topic of shojou openings, I recently had a discussion about them with a friend of mine. She said she thought it'd be funny to start with the typical insane amount of info about the chick that you really don't need to know being sort of narrated and then her saying "Omigods I'm late!" and running off to school but instead of it following her as she runs, it pans over to show her window where someone is watching and they are who was giving the info. Some creepy-ass stalker who ends up being the protagonist. I've been thinking about doing that a lot since she said it but... does it seem interesting?

[mitchellbravo]

Wow, this ended up longer than intended .___.;; Sorry guys.

Sounds like your discussion of infodumps


*puts on sunglasses* was an infodump. YEEAAAHHHHHHHHH

Spoiler! :

it wasn't, i agreed with what you said and it wasn't that long.

And iceloli, that does sound kinda cool. It could be used either creepy/serious or creepy/funny

[blankd]

Spoiler! :

On the topic of shojou openings, I recently had a discussion about them with a friend of mine. She said she thought it'd be funny to start with the typical insane amount of info about the chick that you really don't need to know being sort of narrated and then her saying "Omigods I'm late!" and running off to school but instead of it following her as she runs, it pans over to show her window where someone is watching and they are who was giving the info. Some creepy-ass stalker who ends up being the protagonist. I've been thinking about doing that a lot since she said it but... does it seem interesting?

I have seen one done with a male character (who's kind of a loser and a deadbeat) and the narrator/info-dumper hates his guts, does that count?

[jtpetro]

My least favorite info dump are the fantasy kinds where they throw all kinds of made-up names at you at once and expect you to remember them. My ADD brain has trouble remembering historical names/facts of the real world, let alone some fantasy world I'm unfamiliar with. To wit:

"1000 years ago, the Priestesses of El'Kryniah sealed away the ancient Gem of Foreboding from the power-hungry kingdom of Vu'Lor'Neeh. The legendary warrior Krysstrrk must battle the demons of F'Nrth to destroy the Gem before his enemies get it, and also here is the complete history of Vu'Lor"Neeh including all the kings and queens and their favorite colors, there will be a test..."

Only WORSE because high fantasy isn't my strong suit. :/

Also, almost as bad, is when they have two characters talking about said names and historical facts between each other in the beginning to create a sense of "mystery". I don't like this mainly because it is unnatural. How many times have you heard two people from the same country just talking about their history like this? It's like two people talking about how they are siblings in every conversation.