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Greg Kirkman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 May 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 15775
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| Posted: 19 January 2014 at 9:38pm | IP Logged | 1
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The answer is ONE. One panel, one page. Foreground, Batman climbs
in window. Background, Joker and Mayor seen thru partially open door.
+++++++++
One panel (or a splash page) was my answer. One (lazy) way to do
that would be to do feature all the action in a single-panel, multi-image
montage, but, that would lack dramatic punch. It would only really work
as a flashback/recap.
Anyway, my mind's eye had the opposite view--looking out at Batman
coming in the window as he sees the Joker and the Mayor in the
foreground.
My assumption, there, is that this is supposed to be a big shock
moment that kicks off the climax of a story. Looks like you were thinking
of something more in a "detective", mid-story vein, given the bit about
the half-opened door.
Depending on the context of this moment, and of the overall story, I
could even go for two panels--one with the phone call, and the other for
everything else, if this story didn't use captions. Without captions, I
think two would be the minimum. A thought balloon from Batman could
do the same job in only one panel, though.
If Gordon had already made an appearance in the story, then a caption
would suffice, but, if not, I'd use that extra panel to actually show the
call and give him some "screentime".
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Matt Reed
Byrne Robotics Security
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Joined: 16 April 2004
Posts: 35812
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| Posted: 19 January 2014 at 9:41pm | IP Logged | 2
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Marc M. Woolman wrote:
| I'm not missing the point, nor am I doubting the editorial mandate of 10 to 14 years ago, I'm saying it doesn't seem to be in effect anywhere near as much now, today. |
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We'll have to agree to disagree. I can't pick up a story now and not be confused. This with the advantage of having followed these characters for 40-odd years. I can't imagine anyone picking them up today and getting a great "stand alone experience" by trying any one of a given five big hitters from either Marvel or DC. My personal experience is that I can't "jump into" part three of a five part story and feel like I'm satisfied in any meaningful way. If you feel like it's changed, then good on you. It hasn't for me. At all. Which is why I ultimately dropped the Big Two lock, stock and barrel four years ago.
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Matt Reed
Byrne Robotics Security
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| Posted: 19 January 2014 at 9:48pm | IP Logged | 3
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Marc M. Woolman wrote:
| I'd also like to point out that the title of this thread is about Decompressed writing, which is not the same thing as writing for the trades. People seem to be confusing the two. |
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Semantics. Picking nits. Call it what you will, but decompressed writing = writing for the trade. Hardly anyone had a decompressed writing style before editorial decided that collecting issues that had one story into a TBP of 100+ pages had value. Decompression didn't lead, it followed...a mandate.
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Stephen Robinson
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| Posted: 19 January 2014 at 9:57pm | IP Logged | 4
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I agree, Matt.
Too many comic book issues read like a chapter in a novel, and even
that's giving them too much credit. I tell writers who show up with 20
pages of, well, nothing that some of the best chapters in fiction have
beginnings, middles, and ends (take a look at GATSBY as an example.
With a few tweaks, the chapters could work as short stories).
In a way, it's not about length. Classic Superman stories were often
eight pages but were full stories with beginnings, middles, and ends,
and thus were satisfying to read.
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Matt Reed
Byrne Robotics Security
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| Posted: 19 January 2014 at 10:02pm | IP Logged | 5
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Agreed. And that's the problem I have with most series from Marvel and DC. Sure, shoot me some exceptions to that but in the end that's not the norm. People want to paint it the norm, but it's not. At all. In the 70s and 80s I could pick up a given issue of a comic I hadn't been reading and "get it" immediately. I did that all the time. Now? I have to have a handbook and a list of back issues to read to understand how everything fits into a given character's history. It's sad. It's bad writing. It's not good for general sales at all, but it is what it is.
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Paul Go
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 1394
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| Posted: 19 January 2014 at 10:08pm | IP Logged | 6
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I saw two panels.
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Greg Kirkman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 May 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 15775
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| Posted: 19 January 2014 at 10:12pm | IP Logged | 7
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I've been out of the game long enough that I don't even know which
characters still have their own titles, how many times those titles have
been renumbered, or, if those renumbered titles have been re-
renumbered back to their original numbering.
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Marc M. Woolman
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Location: Canada
Posts: 2096
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| Posted: 19 January 2014 at 10:20pm | IP Logged | 8
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I'm curious, it seems most of the posters claiming decompression is still going strong haven't actually read or bought new comics to base this on, they're going by their recollections of 5-10 years ago.Is this the case?
Stories being so continuity heavy that a casual reader can't just pick up the issue and jump right in, is as rampant as ever, but that's hardly new nor is it because of decompression.
I couldn't pick up an X-men comic from the 80's or 90's and follow along because they always were in the middle of some long story and had 100's of past sub-plots rearing up.
Today, I'm dropping Geoff John's Justice League because for over 2 years now every issue has been a direct crossover with whatever major event DC has going on, Forever Evil being the current one. That however is not decompressed story-telling, or even continuity-heavy, so much as just constant cross-over madness. Something even JB's had to deal with from time to time during his tenures at DC and Marvel. Nothing new.
Today with trades, there's no reason to "write for them" because they collect issues for package into a trade regardless of the length of stories. If the story's too long they release the trades in volumes, if the stories are short 1 or 2 part-ers they collect a bunch of them and package it as the latest volume of the creative Team's (usually just the writer's) run on the title.
The multi-part stories are the most common form of comic book story being done today, but that's been the case for 20 or 30 years. I've collected comics since the 70's and whether it was The Avengers, or The Hulk or Wolverine, or Batman and Detective, standalone done-in-one stories, or simple 2-part-ers were exceptions back then. Bill Mantlo's Hulks from 290 up to 300, Roger Stern's Masters of Evil story-line, Batman and Detective continuing directly into each other every month usually with the same writer but different artists, it's been this way for a very long time. Usually a standalone story was a fill-in issue by a different creative team.
Now picking up a comic and finishing it in 30 seconds and feeling frustrated because you waited so long for it to come out and nothing happened, the plot barely advance at all, that started happening around the year 2000, and really started to decline around 2008. Today it is the minority of comics, not the majority.
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Stephen Robinson
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| Posted: 19 January 2014 at 10:54pm | IP Logged | 9
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It'll be 30 years soon since I bought my first comic -- an Archie comics
digest. I was already familar with Spider-Man, Superman, and Batman
from TV shows, movies, and cartoons (and loved them) but I wouldn't
spend my allowance on the comics because for me, 32 pages of story
for 75 cents didn't compare to 128 pages for a dollar. I continued
checking out Superman From the 30s to the 70s from the library and
wondering why the current books didn't have as much story.
Regarding Zero Year, I think that things are happening, but there's no
story.
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Gundars Berzins
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Joined: 14 March 2012
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| Posted: 19 January 2014 at 11:20pm | IP Logged | 10
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I envisioned three panels used. One for the call and the other two in dealing with the hotel.
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Bill Sandefur
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| Posted: 20 January 2014 at 10:04am | IP Logged | 11
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The answer is ONE. One panel, one page. Foreground, Batman climbs in window. Background, Joker and Mayor seen thru partially open door.Caption: An urgent call from the Police Commissioner brings the Batman to the penthouse suite of the Gotham Plaza Hotel. Batman (thinks): Gordon said the Joker had KIDNAPPED the Mayor, but... Joker: Well, yer honor, isn't our little PLAN going JUST as smoothly as I SAID it would? Technically, of course, doesn't even have to be a splash page. Could be the first panel of a page that then tells a lot more of the story. The William Goldman rule: always start as deep into the story, and as deep into the scene as you can. What were the solutions you folk came up with? ________________________________________________________ I came up with 5 panels myself. But for a modern comic writer that would be the entire plot of a 6 issue story arc.
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Bill Sandefur
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Location: United States
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| Posted: 20 January 2014 at 10:08am | IP Logged | 12
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J.B., you are not only my favorite artist, but you have always been one of my favorite writers as well. So, have you ever thought about doing an instructional book on the topic of comic book writing and storytelling? I, for one, would definitely buy it.
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Topic Closed)
