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Post by G on Feb 20, 2011 11:13:44 GMT -5
"G" how many times can they go over the sexual tension stuff and have it hold relevance. In reality, people in that situation would have done one of two things. They would have had sex, or they would no longer talk to each other so as to avoid a broken heart. the reason that crap holds no sway, is because you have been through enough relationship shit that its old hat and your brain has already come to a conclusion. Its the same for most anything done in superhero comics. That is why I moved beyond them for much of my reading. They just go over the same crap that in life I have already concoured or come to grips with, while the kids they are aiming at are the new us. Problem is Mike, I'm not seeing that stuff anymore. I can't remember the last time I looked at a comic and they were doing ordinary things like going to a picnic and playing baseball. And as far as the sexual tension stuff, I don't see too much of that either. It's all rather run of the mill baddy is out there, group takes on baddies, others join in kind of bs with no look towards making a story for tomorrow. The sexual tension and baseball games and stuff may be old hat, but its kind of the stuff that move the lives of the characters along. Without that kind of stuff, it's just one disjointed battle after another disjointed battle and no timeline to think of. Damn at least Spider-man had Gwen Stacey dying, Peter getting over it, Harry Osbourne becoming the New Green Goblin, the Clone Saga....etc, etc. There is a timeline there that brings 50 issues together and gives it a loose cohesion. You may be insulted by seeing romance, sexual tension and off-time moments, but I'm sick of just going from 1 battle to the next and not even knowing who the damn characters are except that can shoot rays from their hands.
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Post by defiant1 on Feb 20, 2011 19:06:31 GMT -5
"G" how many times can they go over the sexual tension stuff and have it hold relevance. In reality, people in that situation would have done one of two things. They would have had sex, or they would no longer talk to each other so as to avoid a broken heart. the reason that crap holds no sway, is because you have been through enough relationship shit that its old hat and your brain has already come to a conclusion. Its the same for most anything done in superhero comics. That is why I moved beyond them for much of my reading. They just go over the same crap that in life I have already concoured or come to grips with, while the kids they are aiming at are the new us. Problem is Mike, I'm not seeing that stuff anymore. I can't remember the last time I looked at a comic and they were doing ordinary things like going to a picnic and playing baseball. And as far as the sexual tension stuff, I don't see too much of that either. It's all rather run of the mill baddy is out there, group takes on baddies, others join in kind of bs with no look towards making a story for tomorrow. The sexual tension and baseball games and stuff may be old hat, but its kind of the stuff that move the lives of the characters along. Without that kind of stuff, it's just one disjointed battle after another disjointed battle and no timeline to think of. Damn at least Spider-man had Gwen Stacey dying, Peter getting over it, Harry Osbourne becoming the New Green Goblin, the Clone Saga....etc, etc. There is a timeline there that brings 50 issues together and gives it a loose cohesion. You may be insulted by seeing romance, sexual tension and off-time moments, but I'm sick of just going from 1 battle to the next and not even knowing who the damn characters are except that can shoot rays from their hands. The back story gives the character depth and puts the battle in perspective. The characters have things at stake. The back story is where they evolve and change in a positive way. Spider-man didn't become a hero because he was bitten by a spider. He became a hero because his uncle Ben died and he saw what it was like when he wasn't a proactive force for good. I went and saw "Unknown" starring Liam Neeson. I knew it was going to be in the style of "Taken" which I felt was entertaining (despite a touch of implausibility spun through it). "Unknown" lived up to my expectation, but in all honesty it was highly derivative of a dozen other movies I've seen. There was very little new about it and the car chase scenes were the same crap I was sick of in the 70's. I wasn't excited after walking out of the theater, but I'll still give it a 4 out of 5. If I'd never seen a movie with similar twists, it might have surprised me at least once. It didn't unfortunately. I'm pretty much sick of the mechanisms in writing. I'm sick of characters mumbling out loud what is going on so the reader can follow the story. I'm sick of characters talking until a scene shift is needed and one says "I'll see myself out." I don't think I've ever been in a conversations where someone says in a heated moment after a conversation "I'll see myself out". I've never been in a room of people where a person says "Can I have a moment" and on cue 4 people silently pour out of the room so two people can continue talking. My biggest pet peeve is the run-on dialogue involving 4 or 5 people. Stargate used to have people in a huddle trying to sort out some confusing situation. One person would start a sentence and get to a word like "if" and someone else would complete the thought until a word like "then" pops up and a third person continues the thought. By the time the scene is over you've sat through run-on dialogue with 4 or 5 people. In a movie today, a guy tells a girl from out of town "I need to leave for a couple of days and I'll be back" My first thought was "Isn't that convenient", because the plot didn't need him for a couple of days. They pushed in an excuse why he's mysteriously not around. EVERYTHING in writing is derivative. Titanic impressed me because it merged a documentary about the ship with a love story. I thought that was a clever blend. There are ways to innovate, but very few stories find that trick. Beyond that, whether you think something is good or not depends on what you've seen before or how well the plot is executed. I thought "Unknown" was executed and cast well. If not for that, I probably would have given it a 2 out of 5. df1
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Post by bigw1966 on Feb 21, 2011 11:20:32 GMT -5
defient gets where I am coming from "G". I have no problem with some romance in a comic, if there is romanace. But, I do not consider being hit over the head for the umpteenth time that Wolverine loves Jean but can't be with her because she is a lady and he is nothing more than an animal blah, blah, blah. Ugh its fucking monotonous. Its like reading a Chris Claremont script where he feels the need to put a caption next to every character with their name in it and a rehash of their origin, in EVERY SINGLE ISSUE!
But, the reason crap like the Wolverine thing I mentioned no longer work, is because you are older. You have been through that situation enough to say put up of shut up Wolvie. However, the 13 year olds that are supposed to be the target audience, have not experienced those things yet, so for them they would be dramatic or intriguing.
I do agree that the books have gotten derivitive with the constant battles or the excessivedialogue streams some characters spout.
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Post by G on Feb 21, 2011 15:07:21 GMT -5
defient gets where I am coming from "G". I have no problem with some romance in a comic, if there is romanace. But, I do not consider being hit over the head for the umpteenth time that Wolverine loves Jean but can't be with her because she is a lady and he is nothing more than an animal blah, blah, blah. Ugh its fucking monotonous. Its like reading a Chris Claremont script where he feels the need to put a caption next to every character with their name in it and a rehash of their origin, in EVERY SINGLE ISSUE! But, the reason crap like the Wolverine thing I mentioned no longer work, is because you are older. You have been through that situation enough to say put up of shut up Wolvie. However, the 13 year olds that are supposed to be the target audience, have not experienced those things yet, so for them they would be dramatic or intriguing. I do agree that the books have gotten derivitive with the constant battles or the excessivedialogue streams some characters spout. I hope you're separating examples from what I actually want because it seems we are getting stuck on the example and not what I'm getting at. In 1978, reading this stuff for the 1st time was new to me. In 2011, reading Wolverine getting boners over Jean Grey would be redundant. Let's get off the X-Men for a moment, because I don't want that moment to return. I want character development beyond just fighting for unknown reasons. The topic is whether comics are fun anymore. The answer for me is in most cases no. Its not fun to see 1 fight after another and not give a fuck about the characters. If a comic gets presented like say Image United did, it's not going to be any fun because there is no personalities to relate to. Just a mindless unknown reason fight for mindless unknown characters to join into. If you take the fight out and have nothing, than you really do have nothing. In a lot of cases today, I'm being left with nothing but a fight.
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Post by defiant1 on Feb 21, 2011 18:48:30 GMT -5
I don't think either me or G has ever suggested that comics need to rehash subplots from the past. I like the scenes of Steve Rogers as a policeman in the 70's. Eventually his disappearances caused him grief and I think Byrne gave him a job as a commercial artist. These elements gave him depth.
Spiderman has always had the health of Aunt May to be concerned about or his various girlfriends. They don't have to rehash the same plots we've seen. I'd have been perfectly happy if Gwen Stacy and him had continued along as they were while introducing new characters. I loved Black Cat stepping into the fray. For all I care, let Peter take up bowling and introduce a bowling buddy.
FF had Wyatt Wingfoot pop up, the inhumans, Black Panther. Characters were woven through their lives.
The way comics are written today, nothing in the subplots matter to the writers. A solid back-up character is just someone they can kill off to get a reaction from people.
df1
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Post by G on Feb 21, 2011 19:56:48 GMT -5
I read a comic yesterday (Vampirella #2) where basically what should have been 4 pages of a fight scene spread out over an ENTIRE issue. And it was all some nonsense captioning like...
"The look in his eye exposes his weakness"...."The prey falls easily once the weakness is attacked" (insert 10 more captions saying basically the same thing and 4 more pictures showing a couple of hits). And that would be 2 pages. Now times all this by 10 and you have the comic I actually gave the time to read front to back in hopes somewhere it would improve.
This nonsense went on for an entire issue. At the last page we finally get to the teaser for the next issue. Which I think amounted to taking someone else hostage like we were supposed to care.
The sad part is, issue #1 was pretty nicely plotted like a somewhat decent story. Everything had pieces leading up to the moments that begin in issue #2. As you would expect when 2 enemies face each other at the end of issue #1, the two fight it out in issue 2. What I didn't expect is for it to be nothing but this for the entire issue. I got about 6 pages into it and I was thinking "okay, okay....get it over with already". Further destroying the fight was it didn't look like a fight. A bunch of pictures of eyes, smiles, teeth, fists, poses, etc. Whenever a swing or assault was attempted, it didn't look like it was a continuation of the previous moment. Instead it looked like it just popped into the scene only to be met with more pictures of eyes, teeth, smiles, looks of worry, etc.
To be honest, by time I got to the end, it felt like a 9th grader made the book. I would have given issue #1 a respectable review. It wasn't great but it wasn't bad. The 2nd issue was just total crap. It didn't further the story along any further than what 4 pages would have done in a GOOD book. I didn't learn a single thing about the characters. I cared nothing more about the characters (even less after this stinker).
When I think of....are comics fun? This is one of those scenarios where blatantly it is NO! I can think of 95% of the comics from decades ago that would be deemed "cheesy" by today's standards that would kick this piece of graphical fluff in the ass.
Unfortunately, In my last year of reading comics, I've had quite a few instances where it felt like a 9th grader wrote the comic, some whiz kid colored it all flashy and really I read nothing of any value at all.
I leave feeling insulted that the craft of comics has been diminished to this level when it used to be that even the very worst of comics years ago offered some kind of character development and something of value. It used to be an editor back in the day would say "this sucks" and would make them scrap it or do it over again.
Today....it prints.
These days I pick up comics with a fight inside and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAPPENED by the end of the comic!
Comics can use a real thinning of those creating comics. There are too many unworthy creators being given projects beyond anything their talent can handle.
I think 80% of comics today could be canceled and those writers/artists/colorists/editors canned and we'd be a better off industry for it.
To be honest, it feels like comics from back in the day had about 20% of the people working than what we have today. I used to know all the names. Now I'm lucky today in most cases if I can remember what a name did on another comic other than the one I'm holding in my hands.
The problem in comics isn't what happened years ago. The problem in comics is what is taking place NOW!
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Post by bigw1966 on Feb 22, 2011 15:40:17 GMT -5
See I agree on both of thos comments you guys posted. The only book that I have felt stayed pretty enjoyable and consistant, was Captain America. Ultimate Spider-man was actually pretty good also.
Now funwise, stuff like Hellboy and BPRD or Locke and Key or 100 Bullets, they are fun. But for entirely different reasons, aside from the building of characters and such which you guys say are missing from mainstream comics. That is the primary reason that I follow these types of books more. Good writing. Action. Characters that have character. I think in most cases, those things are no longer existant in todays comics.
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