Looking at the new JLA, which I'm gonna give a chance, its obvious that Meltzer is drawing out the story-line (i.e. "writing for the trade"). As opposed to the first issue of a team book in the 1980s (my formative period) or beforehand, where they would get the formation "done in one." Maybe most stuff was overwritten, but you could get one issue that had characterization AND a battle royale.
what say you, nerdlingers?
― veronica moser (veronica moser), Thursday, 19 October 2006 14:22 (nineteen years ago)
― It's the lazy and immoral way to become super hip. (Austin, Still), Thursday, 19 October 2006 14:28 (nineteen years ago)
― chap who would dare to welcome our new stingray masters (chap), Thursday, 19 October 2006 14:33 (nineteen years ago)
― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 19 October 2006 14:56 (nineteen years ago)
The main justifications for them I guess are:
- gives the artist uninterrupted space to show us beautiful things (this wd be great except it rarely actually happens - what you usually get is 5 pages of a kitchen or an aircraft hanger from lots of different angles)
- gives the writer room to build character and write realistic dialogue (again, gets old fast - plus there are ways of building character economically! I find naturalistic dialogue jarring in a cape comic, too.)
- allows storytellers to pace stories better and build tension (this is well and good except most of today's writers don't seem good at it - it requires a lot more plotting and writing skill than they have, I guess. Also if your idea of 'tension' is 'lots of pages with no dialogue' all that will happen is a lot of people read them quicker.)
My knee jerk reaction to it (which I think I've expressed on ILX before) is that it's a result of an uncritical equation of comics scripting with TV/screenwriting (cos, like, words and visuals, right?).
That said it clearly has its uses - something like 52, as a weekly project, would have been a great place to try decompressed techniques: if a reader felt 'ripped off' by a nothing-happens issue then they only have to wait a week to get more of the 'meat'.
The other solution is to actually publish stories 'for the trade' AS TRADES of course but fat chance of that.
― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 19 October 2006 15:22 (nineteen years ago)
Yeah, I think the crucial mistake of decompression is that people simply do not read comic books the way they watch movies - the reader has total control of the speed at which they process pages, so what would translate to tension in a medium that controls its audiences time (film, radio, music), in comics pages with lots of big illustrations or not much happening registers as dead air.
But yeah, it's a problem of comic creators mistaking their medium for cinema, and being realllllllllllllly quite wrong about that.
― Matthew Perpetua! (Matthew Perpetua!), Thursday, 19 October 2006 15:31 (nineteen years ago)
― Matthew Perpetua! (Matthew Perpetua!), Thursday, 19 October 2006 15:33 (nineteen years ago)
― It's the lazy and immoral way to become super hip. (Austin, Still), Thursday, 19 October 2006 15:36 (nineteen years ago)
I suppose decompression might be okay if comics were still 50p.
― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Thursday, 19 October 2006 22:37 (nineteen years ago)
That said, I generally do love long stretches of people just talking to each other -- the New Avengers Illuminati comic was probably my favorite of the last year, and it was really just 30 pages of yadda-yadda.
― The Bearnaise-Stain Bears (Rock Hardy), Thursday, 19 October 2006 22:54 (nineteen years ago)
― Matthew Perpetua! (Matthew Perpetua!), Friday, 20 October 2006 00:22 (nineteen years ago)
― Huk-L (Huk-L), Sunday, 22 October 2006 05:01 (nineteen years ago)