column_breakout.gifDo you like to inflict pain? Do you like to make people cower in fear? Do you like to torture them? Do you like it when they’re filled with tension wondering what you’re going to do to them next? Do you like to leave people in tears? Do you like to make them double over in pain? Do you like it when they laugh so hard milk sprays out of their nose? Do you like knowing they weren’t drinking milk at the time?

This probably seems like an odd topic to throw into a conversation about good qualities for comic creators, but what it breaks down to is simply…feelings. If you really want to set yourself apart from the rest of the pack, your work needs to speak to people…it needs to make them feel something. You want to tug at their feelings and emotions to provide them with a story so compelling that they won’t want to set it down. Laughter, surprise, humiliation, sadness, horror, terror, fear, trauma, peacefulness, happiness, extreme joy, love, loss…these are just some of the things that grab readers, hold them down, and steal their lunch money. These are some of the things that need to be mastered to help reach your audience.

Most emotional situations are a matter of controlling expectations. But building up those emotions and delivering on strong feelings is an art in itself. That’s why I picked “sadism” to represent this topic. In one session alone, you could let your subject see the weapon beforehand…demonstrate how much damage it can cause. As you set yourself up, they tense their muscles ready for the strike…but their anticipation is met with the weapon slowly, gently caressing their skin. They know it’s there…they know you could strike at any time, so as you pull away, they ready themselves again. But they’re met with whispers this time. You tell them what you want to do to them–just flat out tell them. You encourage them to reach out with their imagination and join you in this runaway fantasy, and they soon get swept away in it all. WHAM! You hit them with their guard down. Now, will they be taken by surprise if you hit them at the beginning next time? How many other variations could you run through to keep a tight rein on their expectations? How many different emotions could be delivered in a manner similar to this? What if that “WHAM!” were a punchline instead (some super-powered types crash through the wall in the middle of a fight and they stop the fight so one of them can snap some pics with his digital camera)? Or a potential tearjerker (pull back to see the video is being played in a courtroom in the middle of a child custody battle as the parent watches their familial hopes slip away)?

But do emotions and feelings have to be so elaborately set up? Nope…and they shouldn’t. If you drag it out every time, people will start looking for it. You need to keep it fresh and exciting, and good emotions can come from a lot of simple things as well. A choice glare here and there from a fiery character, a subtle brush of the hand against a character’s own cheek in remembrance of times long lost, a dark, moody setting to a scene, a slow shift in colors from panel to panel to enhance the shifting emotions, a change in the inflection represented in the words. They may seem like minor things, but in the right situation, they can be just as effective as an elaborate setup (in fact, they can even be part of the setup or the payoff). And these are little things you can learn easily by just watching the world around you.

If people can look at your artwork or read your writing and feel something, they’re going to remember it. Entertainment at its core is a means of escapism…people want to feel new emotions; they want to let their imagination wander through new experiences, new adventures, and new hardships. They want to feel what all of that’s like…because feeling reminds them that they’re alive.