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Post by nolan on Jun 25, 2006 1:44:02 GMT -5
What are your opinions on this?
Is it an excess or is it showing the limitations of the single issue in the current market?
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Post by jayvee on Jun 25, 2006 3:56:19 GMT -5
It depends on your page/cost ratio.
In a 2.99 32 page mainstream book, you better have a damn good reason for it because people are gonna be pissed that they just spent however much on a book with twelve double page spreads.
If you're running 150+ page digest size (or cost equivalent) where you've got room to maneuver, I think it's the best thing to happen to comics. It makes certain elements of your stories seem more epic. Grand, you know? Not only that, but people are used to panoramic shots from watching movies and most people would agree that showcasing an artist's talents is a wonderful thing.
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Post by FISSION MAILED on Jun 25, 2006 4:42:42 GMT -5
I think Ronin, to me Miller's best, is the perfect model of epic storytelling. Twenty two pages can restrain alot of atmosphere that could have been contributed through extra pages. Preacher would cut here to there with such an excess of verbal discourse, I always felt it would have been ideal for some prolonged silence in between the hysteria and antics. It would hve amplified the drama further. Look at japanese horror movies, specifically Audition, Dark Water and Ichii the Killer. Slowing down some is the best means in conveying an emotive, meaningful passage. Otherwise, tis nothing but sound and...
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Post by davidaccampo on Jun 25, 2006 11:36:08 GMT -5
Well, ya know i've debated this back and forth over on the 'Rama boards the past few years...
It's a tool of fiction, plain and simple. IN comics terms, it can mean two things:
- Bigger panels, thus meaning you're slowing the action down -- if you have only four panels per page, for example, that's only four "shots" and if each shot is a frozen moment in time, and that includes only the dialogue or narrative that fits in that moment.
- Smaller panels, but slowing the story to really get into the nuance of the moment, the characters -- this is is an atmosphere builder.
I know those sound very similar, but this is what I'm thinking:
Authority, probably the first to use the term "widscreen" uses the first method to create a series of glorious "shots", big eye-candy moments. It keeps the action moving FAST, but doesn't allow for as much plot or character nuance.
On the other hand, a book like Optic Nerve or Palookaville can decompress a narrative by staying in a conversation or a moment -- lingering on the characters and their surroundings for adding impact. To a super-hero comics reader, this may seem like wasted space -- they want to get to the plot and the action.
So, in my mind, it's just a tool -- but the writer needs to understand exactly what he or she is doing when compressing and decompressing, as well as what best serves the story AND the intended audience.
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Post by nolan on Jun 25, 2006 13:18:27 GMT -5
It depends on your page/cost ratio. In a 2.99 32 page mainstream book, you better have a damn good reason for it because people are gonna be pissed that they just spent however much on a book with twelve double page spreads. If you're running 150+ page digest size (or cost equivalent) where you've got room to maneuver, I think it's the best thing to happen to comics. It makes certain elements of your stories seem more epic. Grand, you know? Not only that, but people are used to panoramic shots from watching movies and most people would agree that showcasing an artist's talents is a wonderful thing. Have you considered that maybe that kind of storytelling is showing just how weak the AMerican 3 bucks for a little 20 page pamphlet format is? I mean it worked fine for years, but, honestly, for years, no one expected much in terms fo serious comic storytelling. The real "literary" storytelling was in the "underground" comics or outside comics altogether.
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Post by jayvee on Jun 25, 2006 13:53:24 GMT -5
That's one of my gripes, especially with such a large selection of manga titles available.
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Post by DLFerguson on Jun 25, 2006 14:25:53 GMT -5
Okay, here's where I display my ignorance...
I've heard the term "decompressed storytelling" used for a couple of years now but nobody has ever really given me a satisfactory explanation of exactly what that means. Can anybody here help me out?
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Post by nolan on Jun 25, 2006 15:09:31 GMT -5
jayvee--the faster marvel and dc catch up with trades and digests the better. DC really screwed up with their 52 trade policy (not releasing any until the series is over, I mean I suggested releasing the first one like halfway through to get interest back up--I mean go in to your store, there's a big stack of 52 issues). Okay, here's where I display my ignorance... I've heard the term "decompressed storytelling" used for a couple of years now but nobody has ever really given me a satisfactory explanation of exactly what that means. Can anybody here help me out? You know the joke about 10 rabbis and 11 opinions? Seriously, I think every comic fan and creator has their own definition of what 'decompressed' storytelling is. The people who don't like it basically say that its padding stories by making them excessively long so they can fit in trades. Having lots of splash pages and panels that have like three words of dialogue. And basically say that New Avengers #14 (I think it was 14, it was the one with like 6 splash pages in a row) is the perfect example of decompressed storytelling. My thoughts: Its the kind of storytelling that relies on the visuals (shocking idea huh) to tell the story. Like letting them do things rather then filling pages with badly written pseudo-literary third person captions or captions that tell the reader exactly what is happening in the panel. And rather then worrying about one issue for the story, its focusing on a 3, 4, 5 or 6 issue arc (those are the most common ones but you could really add any length you wanted) and seeing the individual issues not as episodes in a larger story but as chapters to one larger story. And rather then a storytelling based on the economy of fitting it all in to one little pamphlet or story (which is the reason why comic anthologies have such a bad name in America, at least until PT changes that) , its taking time out from teh story to focus on subtleties and little moments. Honestly, I'd put decompression on the 10 things that have helped comic writing the most in the last 25 years.
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Post by davidaccampo on Jun 25, 2006 18:44:41 GMT -5
You know the joke about 10 rabbis and 11 opinions? Ha! Nolan's right on this one. See any storyteller uses compression and decompression. Most of the time they don't even know it. In the most basic STORYTELLING definition, it's the compression or decompression of time. Really, at its most decompressed, you might even call it 'real time.' I usually use this example: "I went to the store and picked up some milk." NOw, that is compressed. I don't tell you what car I drove, what streets I took, how I paid the cashier, etc. Because those details aren't IMPORTANT. I need to get to the fact that I picked up some milk so that I can get to the important part of the scene, where I spill the milk and slip in it or something...and at that point, I might decompress and drill into the moment: "My foot slides out from under me and my body hangs in the air for a moment. I'm staring at the light and noticing the flies caught in the glass of the fixture. I'm thinking about how I need to clean them out as my head hits the linoleum with a hollow thunk and everything goes black." So now, I'm taking a second of time and writing a whole paragraph about it, including all the details. In comics terms, it gets trickier because you're dealing with images and how many will fit in each page. The reason comics fans often call it padding is because they're USED to compression (compression is needed to move plots forward much quicker). For example, you can have a single panel with a caption that reads "Joe looks all over the house for his missing wife!" Now you're compressing that whole search. Comics writers have almost overzealously switched to cinematic storytelling. This allows them to better develop atmosphere and character. There's a saying in literary fiction about "staying in the moment." You stay in the moment for longer and see what happens to your characters. So this is a bit similar. Now, if a comics creator wants to COMPRESS, they might use expositional dialogue or faster cuts from scene to scene. But the caption like the one I used above has mostly gone the way of the Dodo. Really, it's all in how you tell a story. Compression and decompression, and the various ways to achieve it are just tools. Every writer should know them -- how they use them depends on what best serves the story.
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Post by nolan on Jun 25, 2006 22:23:55 GMT -5
Well to get 11 opinions, you can either get 10 rabbis or me I'm like the most indecisive person ever. I agree with what you said about compression and decompression. And I do think that there are some things (generally minor or repetitive things) that might be more eaisly done away with with a quick caption or line of dialogue then a whole scene. At the same time, I think the idea of an omniscient narrator in comics gets harder and harder to pull off.
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Post by jayvee on Jun 25, 2006 23:39:27 GMT -5
I've said the same things at the same place, Nolan.
I love decompression because it broadens a storyteller's ability to pace his narrative, but the business side of me says it's not a good thing for issue-by-issue releases. There's just too much your consumers expect from their money and it really pisses casual fans without a lot of money to spend off when they plunk down three bucks of their hard-earned money (that's almost an hour's worth of work for minimum wagers once Uncle Sam takes his cut) and I can't say I blame them. Where the medium allows, though, decompression (or, as I like to call it, "proper writing" where you're not Lee/Kirby Fantastic 4 cramming too much down a reader's throat at once) should be mandatory. I can't stand to read 60s comics because of it.
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Post by nolan on Jun 26, 2006 0:45:23 GMT -5
Jayvee, the problem isnt the storytelling tool, its the format.
If we'd switch to longer things (like digests), not only could comics compete with manga for shelf space and sales, you'd get more stuff for a lower price.
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Post by jayvee on Jun 26, 2006 8:21:50 GMT -5
They'll never switch, though, so what's the point of arguing that they will?
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Post by nolan on Jun 26, 2006 10:06:14 GMT -5
jayvee,
The American comic industry is so tied to its stupid continuity, monopolistic distribution model, outdated business practices and fanboy-pandering that its going down. Its like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic at this point unless something substantial changes.
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Post by DLFerguson on Jun 26, 2006 14:03:31 GMT -5
I've said the same things at the same place, Nolan. I love decompression because it broadens a storyteller's ability to pace his narrative, but the business side of me says it's not a good thing for issue-by-issue releases. There's just too much your consumers expect from their money and it really pisses casual fans without a lot of money to spend off when they plunk down three bucks of their hard-earned money (that's almost an hour's worth of work for minimum wagers once Uncle Sam takes his cut) and I can't say I blame them. Where the medium allows, though, decompression (or, as I like to call it, "proper writing" where you're not Lee/Kirby Fantastic 4 cramming too much down a reader's throat at once) should be mandatory. I can't stand to read 60s comics because of it. One of the reasons I only buy trades now instead of single issues is that I'm one of those who doesn't like to spend three bucks for a comic book I can read in the time it takes to get from my favorite comic book store to my car. Having grown up on Lee/Kirby I don't see them as cramming too much down a reader's throat. But then again, the comic book industry was a completely different animal back then. But I can haul out my old Lee /Kirby FANTASTIC FOURs and THORs and read them with just as much enjoyment today as I did when I was a kid. I can't say that about a lot or recent comics produced in the last ten years. Whatever their faults they knew how to keep a story moving.
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