posted
Comics seemed a lot longer when I was a kid……
The story is going great so far. Kind of funny that the cliff hanger turned out to be nothing. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a cliff hanger defused so quickly in such a our evil plan didn’t work way. Makes me wonder if the cliff hanger at the end of 3 will be defused that way in 4.
I think this has been posted before, but how many issues are there going to be?
Posts: 2845 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote: Comics seemed a lot longer when I was a kid……
That's because each issue tended to be a self-contained story; none of this decompressed "the whole story will be available in the trade paperback" crap existed, except for what were at the time considered remarkably epic story arcs.
So more actually HAPPENED in each issue.
So far, we've had three issues of origin story, and haven't even gotten to the final suit.
posted
I was at the Emerald City ComiCon last February, and during the Marvel panel, a fan had these exact same complaints. And you know what Brian Michael Bendis said? Something along the lines of this:
"You see, single issues are the like the theatrical release; it's what really makes all the money, and it's what you want the audience to be hyped up about. Graphic novels, however, are the final product, or the DVD release. And when you're writing something, you're writing it with intentions of making the final product as good as it can be."
You know what I say?
The comic book industry is going down the drain.
Naturally, the writing is a lot better now than it was back in the Golden and Silver Ages of comics, but it comes at the expense of decompression, which pretty much makes an eight-issue story arc have as much story as a single issue used to have back in the 60s and 70s.
I prefer today's comics over the days of Stan Lee's reign, but long story arcs are dreadful. Less is more, and a good example of that is the current storyline in Ultimate Fantastic Four, which Mark Millar is writing. Easilly the best storyline that ever graced the pages of the title, and it just so happens to be only 3 issues long.
Straczynski also used this 3-issue storyline method in the early days of his run on Amazing Spider-Man, and it proved to be quite enjoyable, especially since his issues always take more time to read than a typical Ultimate Spider-Man installment. But even he eventually gave in to 6-issue story arcs when he wrote "Sin's Past," and afterwards, I stopped reading the series.
I tend to dislike long story arcs, but the exception to this is Mark Millar's "The Ultimates." The first series was composed of a six-issue story arc, and then a 7-issue story arc, but in the end, it was all one big spectacle. It's gotten even better with his current series, "Ultimates 2" which has continuous storylines running throughout its entire 12-issue course, but also contains several other enjoyable sublots, and to top it all off, Millar wisely focuses in on only one particular plot for every 2 or three issues (i.e. Issues 2-3 were primarily about Bruce Banner, and then next two centered on Thor, even though the conflict concerning him began building up in the first two issues.)
But no, I'm not fond of long, slow storylines, like when Bendis wrote the Venom arc in Ultimate Spider-Man, only to have the Venom costume itself show up for what, two issues?
And yet for some reason, it's these long plots that always end up launching these Bendis titles to the top of the sales charts. Simply put, comics these days are being written exclusively for people who are already loyally dedicated to comics.
Posts: 121 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I enjoy Bendis' work, but I don't read him for his plots; I read him for his dialogue. And so decompression works in that case, because it means he can fit a lot of dialogue in between fight scenes. The Bendisification of all comicdom is not inherently a good thing, however.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
It's definitely true that Bendis is the master of all realistic dialouge when it comes to comics, but that unfortunately is known to come as the expense of him being unable to make certain issues eventful and unmemorable (like the later issues of the first arc of New Avengers that was recently wrapped up.) And it's safe to say that Bendis is certainly not the best at writing out good fight scenes, which is only bad because he usually tends to build up the hero v.s. villain encounter throughout his USM story arcs, only to have the battle sequence itself pass by either 1.) quickly and unmemorably or 2.) drawn out so that an entire issue consists of nothing but fighting, and no story development.
I didn't exactly say this to Bendis himself last February, but I might just go ahead and submit some of my complaints to him next April when the convention takes place again. I didn't exactly get a chance to get any of my Bendis issues signed last time, due the the majority of my time there being consumed by waiting in the David Finch line for over three hours.
Posts: 121 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm just telling one continuous story and finding reasonable break points. I feel no obligation to deform the story in order to try to have each "cliffhanger" top the one before.
And anybody who knows I'm the writer of the comic and doesn't understand that I'm going to spend the ENTIRE series exploring how he gets to be Iron Man and each stage in the development of the suit is going to be annoyed the whole way through. It won't get any "better," because I'm doing exactly what I intended to do. It's what I do in my books, too. So you won't like those either <grin>.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I just bought #3 and I do enjoy the direction the books are taking. I haven't bought comics since the mid 90's and so I really can't compare how your, Mr. Card, story is in comparison to other current story lines. I do know that for me personally I'm enjoying seeing how he is progressing to what will envetually be Iron Man. That is the thing I also like about your books, as a reader, we get to see how the characters develope into who they are. Fun stuff for all.
Posts: 1294 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm just left wondering about the remit on this. Were you really hired to tell the Ultimate Iron Man origin story over a miniseries, Mr. Card?
Don't get me wrong: origin stories can be interesting. But comics, unlike novels, are often about more than just the one journey -- although you wouldn't know it from the mainstream media, which is apparently obsessed with retelling the origin story over and over and over again. (How many times, for example, are we going to have to see the dead bodies of the Wayne family?)
I've been enjoying the story so far as a standalone concept, but all in all I'd rather see Iron Man in action than Iron Man in utero. (That's my personal taste, though, and isn't a reflection on how you're telling your choice of story.)
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
