Why Isolation Works

Being alone in a life threatening situation is, safe to say, one of our major universal fears. The feeling that there is no one coming to save you. Where silence and estrangement are married with your senses while your thoughts turn against you.

In a desert with no food or water. In a dark alley where shadows play leap frog and street lamps are shattered. In the middle of the ocean on a piece of drift wood. These are text book cases that imbue a "fight or flight" syndrome in each of us.

So how do we put a character on a cover, with any myriad of formulaic situations to stimulate "fight or flight", and have the viewer empathize in a way to evoke fear?

I think the answer lies in the character depicted.

Can you relate to the character? So much that you feel they are an extension of your same thoughts? Brilliant writers do this on a daily basis to empathize with millions of people at a time. Some with a first person tone, while others from a 3rd person perspective.

Out of all the comics I've read, there are literally a handful that I can relate to when comparing the day to day situations they are placed in, out of costume. If a writer can achieve that, then when they are IN costume, their situations are emotionally more dire for us, the reader. When they get bruised, we feel the punches, when they get dropped of a cliff, we get the rush of the freefall. If they bleed, we feel the cut.

Speaking of blood, if that's what you're afraid of, then I suggest this frightening reality. I present Marvel's Kiss Super Special which features actual blood from the band members mixed with the ink. Now THAT's something
to be afraid of.