hsut@pur-ee.UUCP (Bill Hsu) (12/06/85)
Kathy Li brought up some interesting points which I've been wanting to discuss for awhile, but was afraid no one was interested. Well, here goes... It's too bad not many people realise the potential of comic books as a creative medium. Like science fiction/fantasy a few decades ago (and to a slightly lesser extent today), many people see comics as a lower class product whose major targets are small children. Many creators working in comics also have this "ghetto" mentality that their work will not be respected anyway, so there is no need to aspire to high standards of story-telling, art and general creative innovation. There are of course exceptions, even within Marvel, the company we love to hate :-) :-). It is perhaps because of this "comics are for kids" stigma that comics as a creative medium are seen to be far inferior to books and movies. I see comics as an excellent middle ground between books and movies, with the potential to benefit from the strengths of either medium while avoiding the weaknesses. Comics can provide the visual impact approximating the film medium that is difficult to achieve with pure text. It also allows dramatic soliloquys and subtle psychological discourses which do not come off well in the cinema (see Dune for an example of a novel that should not be adapted as a movie... save flames and discussions for net.movies, please! :-)) It is a good compromise between the static quality of another visual medium, painting/sculpture, while it also has the ability to depict movement, one of the strengths of the cinema. Good comics utilize some (or all) of the strengths of literature/cinema/painting. Cerebus is almost cinematic in its panel sequencing, while there is room for Sim to fill us in on the background by inserting page-size panels with lots of text. This will not work well in a movie. Swamp Thing is another good example of an almost perfect marriage of the subtleties of text and the visual impact of the cinema. It is obviously difficult for creators in comics to escape their status as second class citizens because of their medium. It is also difficult for comics to escape being almost exclusively superhero funnybooks. My hope is that eventually the market will change sufficiently that comic books will have to change, that more adults will become interested in good comics or enough comic buyers will grow up and demand better comics (unfortunately, there will also be more kids demanding more trashy Secret Wars IIIIIIIIIIII...) A big effort has to be made to "sell" comics to adults (I've seen isolated attempts). I certainly hope the more adventurous Independents will survive long enough to help change things. Comments? Bill Hsu pur-ee!hsut
soren@reed.UUCP (Soren Petersen) (12/08/85)
In article <3554@pur-ee.UUCP> hsut@pur-ee.UUCP (Bill Hsu) writes: > > It is perhaps because of this "comics are for kids" stigma >that comics as a creative medium are seen to be far inferior to >books and movies. I see comics as an excellent middle ground between >books and movies, with the potential to benefit from the strengths >of either medium while avoiding the weaknesses. Comics can provide >the visual impact approximating the film medium that is difficult to >achieve with pure text. It also allows dramatic soliloquys and subtle >psychological discourses which do not come off well in the cinema >It is a good compromise between the static quality of another visual >medium, painting/sculpture, while it also has the ability to depict >movement, one of the strengths of the cinema. Good comics utilize >some (or all) of the strengths of literature/cinema/painting. Cerebus >is almost cinematic in its panel sequencing, while there is room >for Sim to fill us in on the background by inserting page-size panels >with lots of text. This will not work well in a movie. Swamp Thing >is another good example of an almost perfect marriage of the subtleties >of text and the visual impact of the cinema. > > It is obviously difficult for creators in comics to escape >their status as second class citizens because of their medium. It is >also difficult for comics to escape being almost exclusively >superhero funnybooks. My hope is that eventually the market will change >sufficiently that comic books will have to change, that more adults >will become interested in good comics or enough comic buyers will >grow up and demand better comics (unfortunately, there will also be more >kids demanding more trashy Secret Wars IIIIIIIIIIII...) A big effort >has to be made to "sell" comics to adults (I've seen isolated attempts). >I certainly hope the more adventurous Independents will survive long >enough to help change things. > Welllllll, I was a kid once, and I certainly hope that, for the sake of future kids, that some comics will still be kids stuff--heck, I started reading them because they were fun, and because they taught me a a lot. All those Marvel morality plays about what being human was all about, or Mutant hysteria, which we all think are so trite nowadays was new and important stuff once. My reaction when I read Secret Wars I was that I would have loved it when I was 10--and why not? I have been rereading a lot of my childhood favorites and dislikes and I find that I have in many ways totally reversed my opinions on a good number of them. My favorite title when I was 10 was Daredevil (this was pre-Miller, and terribly bland), and the ones I like now, like the Starlin Captain Marvel and the Englehart Dr. Strange I found totally incomprehensible, and Howard the Duck just plain puzzled me. Indeed one problem I have with today's society is the contempt with which Children's entertainment is held. It has, I admit been a while since I've seriously looked, but I have seen nothing for kids lately that wasn't simultaneously a series of books, a TV series, a line of toys, a video game, and a candy (I'm serious, I just saw Gummi Transformers at 7-11). Certainly the sensitivity of most comic fans to charges of reading "kid's stuff" does nothing to change this. I have nothing against adult comics, but I am worried that what is going to happen is that there will be a specialized adult market of fair quality and a kid's Ghetto. I personally think this would be a tragedy--comics get a lot of their appeal from the fact that they originally had to be written in such a way that they could be understood by your average 9 year old and thus were forced to be less sophisticated and flashier than adult material. I should maybe get off my pulpit here, since I do agree with what Mr. Hsu said. Comics do have potential as an art form. They are the most malleable form of narrative, being both more graphic than prose and more controllable than cinema (which has to operate in real time, limiting its effectiveness). My favorite example of the effectiveness of comic art is in the X-Men graphic novel where Xavier reaches out his hand to Magneto, which Magneto starts to take, but in the end refuses. This happens over three of four horizontal panels where we see only the hands. I believe that this portrays the tension and the symbolism of the moment, much more directly and economically than either prose or cinema could. It's getting late, and I am running out of things to say. . . Have a Nice Day, Soren Petersen
moriarty@fluke.UUCP (The Napoleon of Crime) (12/09/85)
Not much of a comment, other than I agree with you 100%. However, more
adults are reading comics at this time, I'm sure, than ever before;
obviously something is attracting them in. I think that comics ARE being
marketed for an older audience these days (Ambush Bug being advertised in
colleges, etc.).
Your comments on the abilities of the medium were absolutely on the mark --
I've often thought of how I'd adapt a good comics story (the Englehart
DETECTIVE Batmans, for instance)into a film, and often had to compromise the
story due to the limitations of the film medium. It works the other way,
though -- I think of Thought and Voice Balloons almost as dialogue these
days, but it takes a while to get into the habit of reading them that way
(I've also been ignoring sound effects ("THOOM!") for years...).
"Tourists -- have some fun with New york's
hard-boiled cabbies. When you get to your
destination, say to your driver, "Pay? I was
hitchiking."
-- David Letterman
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
ARPA: fluke!moriarty@uw-beaver.ARPA
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<*> DISCLAIMER: Do what you want with me, but leave my employers alone! <*>henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (12/10/85)
Polarization into "adult" material and "kiddie" material is already here,
alas, partly because of the attitude that anything which isn't clear to
a five-year-old imbecile is too complicated for the kiddies. This produces
polarization automatically, since it makes the "kiddie" stuff so drivelous
(is that a word? it should be...) that older people can't stand it.
I *could* cite the degeneration of Saturday-morning cartoons as an example
of this, but instead I'll mention something with wider appeal: the Peanuts
TV specials.
The early Peanuts specials, like the Christmas one (the first) and the
Halloween one, had all the characteristics of *good* children's literature,
i.e. they were understandable and enjoyable to all ages. "If adults feel
it insults their intelligence, the kids probably feel the same way, but are
too polite to say so."
Have you seen any of the recent Peanuts specials? Barf. Not only has the
quality of the animation slipped badly, but the plots are imbecilic and the
characters are cut from the thinnest cardboard. How the mighty have fallen...
--
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry