Let us take a look at some of my favorite examples of introductions to Graphic Novels with interesting ways of trying to “hook” the reader into continuing on.
The introduction here begins with visual interpretation lines from the Book of Revelation (quotations) and leads into a warning about turmoil to come as the “hook” at the end.
Simply 1-page, dialogue heavy preview of what is to come in the story with an air of mystery about the fate of Superman with image of a statue erected in his honor.
One witnesses, in B&W, the violent encountering of peaceful protestors with cops during the marches in Alabama during the Civil Rights movement. The “hook” ends with someone beaten down and page going blank in darkness.
This opening uses the relationship of a father and daughter and compares/contrasts it through the act of playing “airplane” to connect to the myth of Icarus in order to set up the “hook” that aims to inverse the original myth’s tragic outcome and warning from affecting the child to having its impact on the parent instead.
BA in History from Northwestern State, MA in English from Northwestern State, and PhD in Rhetoric from Texas Woman's University. Big into comic books and visual rhetoric. Assistant Professor of English at Claflin University, Orangeburg, SC.
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