Thrill Power

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http://www.freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2005_10_01_wedge_archive.html#112989617695895290

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 21 October 2005 11:08 (twenty years ago)

I think that most thrill power is generated when a genre is in it's infancy - when creators are just throwing out a huge array of ideas to see what sticks and before the genre has developed conventions, a cannonical nack catalogue worthy of respect and before creators start feeling "teh anxiety of teh influence" etc.

― Mark C (Markco), Friday, 21 October 2005 11:27 (twenty years ago)

Hmm yeah but actually in comics this isn't the case - the Silver and Bronze Age heydays are full of thrill-power but the genres weren't necessarily new, and boys' action comics were hardly new when Action! and 2000AD came along.

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 21 October 2005 11:42 (twenty years ago)

I was thinking that a story like Nemesis the Warlock is hardy a typical "boys action comic" story it's very much a "2000 AD" story - a seperate genre on own.

also I have a vague thought (ie will be instantly proved wrong) that early DC etc comics were more like war or crime comics untilt hey started embracing more SF and fantasy elements and recognisably becoming superhero comics...

hand waving a go go

― Mark C (Markco), Friday, 21 October 2005 12:04 (twenty years ago)

Do video games have thrill power? Like Doom, when it was new and KRACKAKRACKABOOM!
When I was in high school in the early 90s, some of my fellow writing club members who were far more into the sci-fi scene invited me to a special Doom party they were having at the university (the building's location: #1 RESEARCH DRIVE!!!) where they would be playing on some sort of network against people all over the world. I told them that sounded like Voodoo and that I'd rather go smoke pot with my stoner friends. But clearly, there was some Thrill Power at work in Doom.

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Friday, 21 October 2005 14:01 (twenty years ago)

Games these days are too long for sustained thrill power.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Friday, 21 October 2005 15:50 (twenty years ago)

O.G. Doom still has thrill power! Kinda!

― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 21 October 2005 15:54 (twenty years ago)

And too comlicated. You can't win them by hitting fire really fast anymore.

xpost

― chap who would dare to violate the least amount of laws of physics (chap), Friday, 21 October 2005 15:54 (twenty years ago)

Well one of the things about thrill-power is that once something has it, it rarely loses it. I think it's related also to what Anthony Miccio on ILM calls OMGWTFLOL or whatever, except the awesomeness is stronger than the can't-believe-it-ness maybe.

I don't know about Doom cos I don't know the circumstances in which all those kind of games were made. I picked early 80s UK videogames because it was all kids writing completely mental games in their bedrooms desperate to make the big £££££££ and become famous and about 50 of the things were coming out per month and so the time pressure meant that the creative process was under huge pressure, and so the crucial qn of "Is this idea stupid?" was not being asked.

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 21 October 2005 15:58 (twenty years ago)

Could we say that thrill power = the feeling one gets whenever a new Girls Aloud single leaks?

― iodine (iodine), Friday, 21 October 2005 15:59 (twenty years ago)

(tough there is mastery in Xenomania's execution. Thinking of ZTT, but there's a great deal of talent in the delivery there.)

― iodine (iodine), Friday, 21 October 2005 16:09 (twenty years ago)

(didn't really wanted to put "talent", it's more of "care" in the delivery)

― iodine (iodine), Friday, 21 October 2005 16:15 (twenty years ago)

Is Thrill Power linked inextricably to the making of something brand new or not? For instance, I got a serious jolt reading Alan Moore's work for the first time when he was new over here, but now I'm getting the feeling that he's just doing pastiche or didactics these days.

Highly subjective stuff like this is always tough to gauge, though.

Or am I, as usual, missing the point altogether?

― Matt Maxwell (Matt M.), Friday, 21 October 2005 17:21 (twenty years ago)

I'd say Swamp Thing, Halo jones and LOEG have thrill power and everything else by Moore doesn't (which isn't to say it's not brilliant). Don't know I think that, I just do.

― chap who would dare to violate the least amount of laws of physics (chap), Friday, 21 October 2005 17:31 (twenty years ago)

Argh, I forgot to capitalise Thrill Power. A Rigellian Hotshot may be flying towards me as I type.

― chap who would dare to violate the least amount of laws of physics (chap), Friday, 21 October 2005 17:35 (twenty years ago)

I'm not sure, by the definition I made up for it this morning, that Swamp Thing does, maybe the first couple of issues, I don't know. AM is an interesting case because he has a very individual voice, but his 2000AD stuff before Halo Jones only really seems to have that voice because we've learned to recognise it.

Also his work is generally pretty cerebral, but I'm really not sure I want to include 'cerebral' in the 'enemies of thrill-power' list, it seems too reductive.

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 21 October 2005 17:42 (twenty years ago)

Is Thrill Power the NOIZE ROCK of comics?

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Friday, 21 October 2005 17:43 (twenty years ago)

NOIZE may very well be thrill-powered, except indie stuff hardly ever is because there isn't the enormous commercial/time pressure to get product out there. There are ways to get round that - like with rave or reggae music there's pressure from DJs to get the latest white labels or dubplates so the speed-factor is introduced without there being a corporation saying PUBLISH SOMETHING NOW PLS.

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 21 October 2005 17:46 (twenty years ago)

Also, Noize Rock is boring, Thrill Power isn't.

― chap who would dare to violate the least amount of laws of physics (chap), Friday, 21 October 2005 17:49 (twenty years ago)

I think we can create a Thrill Power 'North Pole' in terms of things that Definitely Have Thrill Power and then maybe a South Pole of things that Don't.

PLEASE LET ME DROWN BEFORE THE GIANT SCORPIONS GET ME has the Thrill Power, James Robinson's Starman doesn't. For example. But that's getting away from the serious discussion and into a goofy list thread territory, so perhaps one should be created for this purpose.

― Vic Fluro (Vic Fluro), Friday, 21 October 2005 22:05 (twenty years ago)

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