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From: tim@k.cs.cmu.edu.ARPA (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: net.comics
Subject: Re: Heavy winds and heavy talk
Message-ID: <580@k.cs.cmu.edu.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 2-Oct-85 19:58:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: k.580
Posted: Wed Oct  2 19:58:46 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 6-Oct-85 05:17:08 EDT
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Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, Networking
Lines: 24

I usually don't respond to anyone who finishes with "Think about it", but
what the hey, my standards have been slipping lately....

There are several reasons why I feel that such common comic book scenes as
deep emotional discussions in the middle of a whirlwind, or simultaneously
emoting heavily with a friend and being beaten on by super-villains, are
stupid.  First, it is reminiscent of those awful bands that can't play very
well, so they play loud to cover it up.  The writer is unsure of his
(ordinarily I'd say "her or his", but this is comic book writers we're
talking about) ability to interest the reader with the emotional content of
the scene, so all sorts of semi-related flash is thrown in "to keep things
interesting".  This insults the audience even more than most television
screenplays.  Second, this is one of the most frequent of comic-book
stylistic flaws; if someone had just done it once, I probably wouldn't have
called it "stupid", but the ten thousandth reptition of the mistake is just
too much to bear.

It has nothing to do with seeming strange and silly; it is a matter of
style.  There's nothing wrong with strangeness and silliness, but they are
too often used as excuses for stylistic mediocrity.
-=-
Tim Maroney, Carnegie-Mellon University, Networking
ARPA:	Tim.Maroney@CMU-CS-K	uucp:	seismo!cmu-cs-k!tim
CompuServe:	74176,1360	audio:	shout "Hey, Tim!"


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