Bring back Old School

[muscleman11222]

WHat happen to placing the issue # at the bottom of the panel when a flashback is mentioned. I mean it is a small detail but it was something I enjoyed. What other old-school features are needed back in comics?

[The Night Phantom]

muscleman11222 said:

WHat happen to placing the issue # at the bottom of the panel when a flashback is mentioned.

Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada happened. Just this Monday a late-edition New Joe Fridays at Newsarama discussed this very subject at length:

NRAMA: Going back to last week again, it seems that there was a bit of a furor over your comment about footnotes. Do you want to elaborate on this anymore? And what do you say to critics that claim that the footnotes can be used to get customers interested perhaps in some older stories?

JQ: [laughs] Yeah, I've noticed that a few folks here and across the net got themselves all in a tizzy about this, so let me clear a few things up.

I never said we don't do footnotes, I said we discourage writers from using them. So, it's not like they're banned from our comics. As a matter of fact if you look closely, you can find a few with them. So, to me this just sounds like people that want to complain.

Now, what I don't understand is the following.

1.) If almost everything you need to know is in the recap page, why are people upset about footnotes? You're getting the information that a footnote would contain, they're just not in a footnote caption.

2.) As you stated above, if the recap page doesn't cover it, and we really feel we need a footnote, we add the asterisk and the reader can find the footnote information in the letter's page. Again, why are folks so upset that there isn't a footnote caption, there is, it's just in the back of the book as opposed to within the story. Are they saying that they need it right on the page in order to get the info? Hmmm.

3.) If a particular back issue or trade is important in order to understand a particular current story arc, again, we would flag the mention of that past event as it occurs during the course of a story with an asterisk within the caption or balloon it appears in. We would then include all the pertinent information in the letters page.

Also, keep in mind that we don't write our stories that way anymore. We try to make them as inclusive and none confusing as possible, I think that's where the letter's page comes in handy. I never understood why comic books and comic continuity had to be a puzzle only solvable by the most hardcore Fanman?

4.) And finally, this has been in effect for nearly six yearsz! Six years without footnotes and nobody has complained nor noticed really until I said something last week [laughs].

So, yeah, I think we're covering all the bases with respect to getting the fans all the info they need, it's just not in those little yellow caption boxes.

Okay, you want to discuss the lack of smoking within our comics?

NRAMA: That horse is pretty dead. What would you say to those that argue that the ads in comics take you out of the flow of a story just as a footnote caption would?

JQ: I would say that I agree with them, ads do take you out of the flow of a story, there's no question about that. It does the same for me when I watch a TV show as well, but they are part of the cost of doing business and unavoidable. That's why I love watching shows on DVD, the equivalent of the trade paperback, or on my TiVo, unfortunately, there isn't a TiVo for comics (yet). But that said, since we do have this unavoidable interruption, does that mean that it's okay to compound that with even more interruptions? If that's the case, then no one should really ever argue during those months when we have excessive ads.

NRAMA: You seem to always come back to TV and movies quite often when you speak of comics and their construction. Do you ever worry that you're making comics more like something that they inherently aren't? Some consider the old footnote captions and thought balloons (which have all but disappeared) part of a creators arsenal and something unique to comics.

JQ: No, what I want to do is make comics more accessible to the mainstream, as accessible to the mainstream as TV and movies, isn't that what we all want? Yes, there are many tools within the art of making comics and many of those came out of the limitations we once had as a medium. As limitations change or get resolved, we move on to other solutions. That's why we have the recap page. You may not notice it, but in the past, when we were a monthly newsstand business, recapping a story for a reader within the context of the 22 page comic was a must. It's a real art form to do it seamlessly, some writers are brilliant at it, but when it's done badly, it gets clunky and makes the characters sound stiff and unnatural. Today with the changing industry, entertainment world, readership. and where people find our stories, we now do our recapping on the recap page which then gets removed within the trade of that story. Yes, it means the “art” of skillfully recapping the prior issue is no longer necessary, but that's okay, for today's readership it's a skill set that isn't necessary in quite the same manner that it use to be.

It has also freed the hands of our writers and artist to get right into the meat of their story and it means more fluid trades and hard covers. This isn't a judgment, I'm not saying one way is better than the other, all I'm saying is that one way was better for a particular time and place.

With respect to thought balloons, that just seems to be more of a stylistic approach with today's creators. The truth of the matter is that the thought balloons are still there, they just have a different shape. They're now rectangular caption boxes but they basically accomplish the same thing.

So, in short, when you hear about things like this at Marvel, the new methods by which we do certain things, it's all towards reaching out to an even broader audience than we have now. There are lessons to be learned from all time periods, different mediums and other segments of the entertainment business. To say that we do everything perfect as an industry is silly. If we did, we would have millions more people reading comic books every day. The most important goal every single one of us who are in this business need to strive for is inclusion, because it's something that we struggle with every day beginning with people's perception of our industry and everyone within it. Yes, that's slowly changing, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be vigilant.

To address Joe Q’s numbered points:

1) The recap page doesn’t always do the same job. Rarely do the recaps mention specific titles and issue numbers. Furthermore, it may be confusing, even unwise to mention the background details ahead of the story (for example, a summary of Doctor Doom’s career and significant issues might give away that he’s the mystery villain).

2) This tack sounds more like an endnote than a footnote. Be that as it may, this solution is problematic at a Marvel that eschews letters pages. To be fair: it seems Marvel has been better at including letter columns lately. It would be nice to devote the letters pages largely to letters. In comics where I’ve seen this tack used, sometimes the endnotes are difficult to follow; they’ll refer to the page on which the reference was made, but there will be no page numbers—d’oh!!

3) Good use of footnotes or endnotes reduces confusion.

4) Sorry, Joe—we’ve noticed.

[dlw66]

Not to mention that the "recap" page takes away a story page that I used to get as part of my cover price. Now, I pay the same price and get one less page of story and art. Footnotes would give the consumer more, but obviously cut into the corporation's profits as it would raise expenses.

[redstatecap]

Really a lot of this is a result of Joe Quesada and co.'s efforts to make the comic book format look and feel like the movie format. Well, comics are not and never will be movies. Footnotes are perfectly acceptable for comics and don't disrupt the "flow" as they would a movie.

RSC

[The Night Phantom]

dlw66 said:

Not to mention that the "recap" page takes away a story page that I used to get as part of my cover price. Now, I pay the same price and get one less page of story and art.

Good point. Alternately, Marvel could at least keep the story-page count the same and devote the recap space to a second (or first) letters page. If the letters column spanned two pages, I might not mind so much having endnotes take up some of the space, for that matter. But I prefer your solution: reinstate footnotes and add a page of story and art.

redstatecap said:

Really a lot of this is a result of Joe Quesada and co.'s efforts to make the comic book format look and feel like the movie format. Well, comics are not and never will be movies. Footnotes are perfectly acceptable for comics and don't disrupt the "flow" as they would a movie.

And really, sometimes captions do appear in the middle of a movie without disruption: announcements of place and/or time, translation subtitles, identifications of characters or (in documentaries) interviewees…. In the silent era, intertitles (text appearing between shots) were common—oh, horror of horrors!

As I’ve mentioned before, film/TV is not the only medium Quesada tries to make Marvel comics ape. It’s unfortunate that his attempts betray not just a lack of understanding of the comics medium but also a lack of understanding of the media he wishes to mimic too.

[dlw66]

I don't follow the stuff on Newsarama, so I appreciate it when you guys (particularly Night Phantom) fill me in on the drivel that is Joe Q's "soapbox" (that's a complete insult to Stan Lee -- I should have used another term). I am continually reminded each time I see what this man has to say about his current readership -- that if we don't like it, screw us, and go read your old stuff. He just comes across that way time and time again.

The letters pages used to be (there I go again, waxing nostalgiac) two pages and it was kind of neat. The Bullpen Bulletins page was nice. Shoot, they could drop the stupid video game and Marvel house ads and bring back the Hostess ads and I'd be ecstatic!!!!

[kingb]

I like the idea of the recap page, but the writing in some of them (notably, New Avengers and Annihilation) has been groan-worthy.

There's something about endlessly repeating phrases like "It was the worst day in Avengers history" or "...this day is marked as Annihilation Day" that does NOT acheive the intended dramatic consequences. In fact, it just sounds stupid.

[thew40]

I don't ever read the recap page, to be honest, unless it's a book I'm just then getting into.

I don't really care much either way about the footnotes. Sometimes, I'd find them to rather unnecessary and other times, much appreciated. To be honest, I'd rather see a list of references ala "Avengers Forever" in the back of the issue with the letters page than to have footnotes. "Wolverine Origins" has started to do this.

~W~

[Tana Nile]

I think I actually miss the narrative boxes and thought balloons most. Although some writers had a tendency to go overboard with these - Roy Thomas was often guilty of this (although he wrote some of the best Avengers stories).

[The Night Phantom]

dlw66 said:

I don't follow the stuff on Newsarama, so I appreciate it when you guys (particularly Night Phantom) fill me in on the drivel that is Joe Q's "soapbox"

Glad to be of help, if not glad to be reading it in the first place.

Shoot, they could drop the stupid video game and Marvel house ads and bring back the Hostess ads and I'd be ecstatic!!!!

I got into comics in a big way roughly a decade after you, and with that perspective I do prefer having videogame ads—so long as they’re for such systems as the Atari 2600, the ColecoVision, the Commodore 64…

Ever since I brought up the Hostess ads the other day, I’ve been dying for a Twinkie…

[thew40]

tananile said:

I think I actually miss the narrative boxes and thought balloons most.

I abhore thought balloons and 90% of all narrative boxes. The medium as a whole is better off without them.


Let me re-phrase that.

I think some narrative boxes work, but only if they add depth to the scene and/or panel. But I am so sick and tired of narrative boxes explaining the powers of the character and/or the actions that are taking place in the panel.

Also, I whole-heartedly enjoy the dropping of thought balloons in favor of thought, er, "boxes."

~W~

[The Night Phantom]

thew40 said:

Also, I whole-heartedly enjoy the dropping of thought balloons in favor of thought, er, "boxes."

Why?

[dlw66]

I guess I'm not sure why the thought balloons ever went away in the first place. I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't go around all day speaking out loud -- much of what occurs to me goes through my head, not out my mouth. Like you'd want to be plotting the next move against Superbaddie A and say out loud what your options are... Duh!

[thew40]

nightphantom said:

thew40 said:

Also, I whole-heartedly enjoy the dropping of thought balloons in favor of thought, er, "boxes."

Why?

I think it looks better, to be honest. Less clutter. More interesting, I guess. I don't have a lot of reasons besides that.

~W~

[Doctor Bong]

While I was reading Joe Q's last interview at Newsarama it occured to me that, in his one-track-minded desire to emulate more popular media, Marvel's current EIC is making a creative mistake: to my mind, the more tools a creative artist can count on his/her arsenal to express him or herself, the better off him/her & the medium itself are...
To conciously limit the ability of his writers to tell stories because of his own prejudices stikes me as incredibly shortsighted... As Roger Ebert's fond of telling us, what a movie is about is never as important as how is it about... and the same holds true for other media, as well...
Thought balloons are a tool: they can be used effectively or they can be iil-used, ergo, to all-together ban by editorial fiat is wrong, and dumb.

[The Night Phantom]

thew40 said:

nightphantom said:

thew40 said:

Also, I whole-heartedly enjoy the dropping of thought balloons in favor of thought, er, "boxes."

Why?

I think it looks better, to be honest. Less clutter. More interesting, I guess. I don't have a lot of reasons besides that.

Ah, thank you.

It sounds like your preference is strictly on the basis of visual esthetics. I don’t know what the basis of Quesada’s preference is. However, in the common language of American comics, the functions of these two devices are not interchangeable.

Thought balloons are, as their name so helpfully implies, for conveying characters’ thoughts. Most of the time, they are accompanied by pointers (which often don’t look pointy) to indicate the character doing the thinking or at least the general direction of that character (the pointers might point off panel or to an opaque container or divider). Sometimes there is no pointer, as when one character hears another character’s thoughts (e.g., telepathy), the thinking character is physically present but cannot be seen because of low-visibility conditions (total darkness, enveloping substances…), or we are seeing through the thinking character’s eyes. But usually there is a pointer.

The rectangular caption boxes Quesada spoke of are, similarly, for captions. They virtually never have pointers. Captions have a wide variety of functions. They can provide omniscient narration. They can identify the setting. They can serve as labels (e.g., identifying each character in a panel). They can hold those helpful footnotes. Sometimes they house dialogue. And yes, they can reveal a character’s thoughts.

The first four functions I described are nondiegetic—those captions help us understand the story, but they don’t occur within the world of the story. Except in some deliberate fourth-wall-breaking scenarios (think John Byrne’s work on the Sensational She-Hulk series), the characters don’t read the captions, hear the captions, stumble over them, etc.

This would seem to contrast with the last two functions I mentioned, dialogue and thoughts. Don’t they occur within the diegesis? Obviously such things can, and one usually understands them to when they are housed in speech and thought balloons respectively.

But traditionally caption boxes add a layer between the diegesis and the reader. Indeed, dialogue within a caption box usually occurs within quotation marks, unlike dialogue within a speech balloon. And caption-box dialogue is usually reserved for dialogue that wouldn’t be placed in a speech balloon anyway, because the caption-box dialogue occurs at a time and/or place different from that depicted in the panel.

By contrast, caption-box thoughts are often not placed in quotation marks, but they frequently convey the same “distance” from the pictured scene that caption-box dialogue does. Indeed, captions are often used for narration by a character within the diegesis (such as Jack Russell’s ubiquitous first-person narration in Werewolf by Night). Often such narrative thoughts can be presumed not to occur at the same time and/or place as the scene depicted in the same panel. Sometimes the thoughts may even cross the fourth-wall line, in the sense that, although the thoughts appear to belong to one of the characters, it’s questionable whether at any time that character actually thought up that particular string of sentences—i.e., the character might say or think these things if he were to relate this story, but is there a time at which he actually does so? (For instance, a story narrated by a character who has died.)

Although it’s sometimes legitimate to place the same thoughts in either thought balloons or caption boxes, the two methods really don’t connote the same things. Because of their lack of pointers, caption boxes can sometimes leave the reader confused as to whose thoughts are being expressed. And the narrative distance suggested by caption boxes is inappropriate when immediacy is called for. Because of the boxes’ narrative weight, caption boxes can also make a story seem unfocused if used for all written-out thoughts of all characters.

In summary, I feel that caption boxes are a useful tool for expressing characters’ thoughts, but they are not a substitute for thought balloons. Each method has its merits, and each should be used appropriately.

[dlw66]

Miller successfully used caption boxes as thought balloons in "The Dark Knight Returns". I don't feel that thought balloons would have worked as well.

[Bored Yesterday]

As long as you have the character who is doing the thinking in the panel, it can work fine. And sometimes, there is something to be said with creating an air of mystery about who exactly is doing the talking (or thinking). But I have seen many confusing page layouts where you can't tell who is talking or thinking or whatever in the caption. Anytime you create a little explosion, it dilutes the storytelling power of the work as a whole. The artist's job is to figure out how to combine elements uniquely to suit the piece being assembled at the time.

Of course, it all depends on particulars.

[The Night Phantom]

dlw66 said:

Miller successfully used caption boxes as thought balloons in "The Dark Knight Returns". I don't feel that thought balloons would have worked as well.

I don’t have time right now to reread the whole thing, but I believe that Miller did not use caption boxes as thought balloons in The Dark Knight Returns. Rather, he used caption boxes for narration composed of a character’s thoughts, which, as I described above, is a different function and is normal for caption boxes. Thought balloons do not normally contain narration and would have been, in my opinion, a wholly inappropriate substitution for serving the function that Miller evidently intended. It’s possible there are individual panels in which thought balloons could have legitimately carried the same words; but in the overall work, no, and likely switching to thought balloons whenever such a panel presented itself would likely have fractured the narrative flow (all other things remaining the same).

[daned]

What I don't like about the elimination of captions is the implication that it's lazy story telling, somewhat akin to a narrator in a film telling you what's going on in the picture. While at times that might be the case, comics are not solely a visual medium - it's the best combination of visuals and words.

Evidence 1)Ghost Rider: The Road to Damnation (Ennis)

"There's a tale they tell in the darkest depths of the pit.
"Of a rider melting steel and burning rubber, going hell for leather on those vast, black plains out between Acheron and the Styx. Torturing the engine, dragging every screaming ounce of horsepower from the banging, pumping pistons.
"Riding for his very soul"

Coupled with a brilliant splash page it perfectly sets the tone for the book - much better than just the picture.

Evidence 2) Avengers # 344 (Harras) page 15

"It is called by the erudite and scholarly, SOL.
But to most who live under its domination, it is simply known as the sun...giver of light and warmth. Giver of life."
etc etc.

Turn to that page and think of that same page without the writing. It still may seem spectacular, but will that one paged prelude to Galactic Storm have the same resonance or thrill?

[dlw66]

Phantom, I don't have the book in front of me either, but I do believe you are correct. My apologies for not a) checking the book directly before my post, and b) for not re-reading your post before I made mine.

Exalt point for you...

[The Night Phantom]

dlw66 said:

My apologies [...] for not re-reading your post before I made mine.

Well, honestly, who has time to read all that stuff?—let alone re-read it? I was astonished I wrote it all! I was expecting something a lot shorter, but it kinda got away from me!! As it is, there should be headings, subheadings, “Figure 1”, etc.…

[thew40]

You know, to expand on my previous response (after I've had more time to think about it) . . .

Personally, I can't stand word balloons and captions that take away from the story. I don't know how many times I've read an issue where the character is recapping the past few issues in a way that is so very unrealistic. I know I don't sit around thinking recapping the past few days, weeks, or months.

Captions can add clutter and unnecessary storytelling to the comic. Plus, when the captions describe the events taking place in the actual panel, it becomes redundant.

If you look at League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Sandman, Watchmen, Bone, and History of Violence, there are virtually no captions and thought balloons. (Well, Sandman has some, but I'll get to that in a minute) Yet, all of these comics are considered among the highest quality comics.

Can comics benefit from not having captions and thought balloons? Yes. Can great stories be told without them? Yes.

Now, that doesn't mean that they should never be used ever. If a story can benefit from thought balloons, captions, and (my personal favorite) narrative captions, then yes, go for it. But they should have actual meaning, adding depth to the scenes we're seeing, not rehashing what is already known or telling us what we're seeing. In fact, a caption that tells the reader what is happening takes something away from the art.

Something else I need to point out is that Joe Quesda is an artist, so he's probably the art-side of comics a little more. Not necessarily a bad thing, since comics are a combination of art and writing. He is probably more satisfied with a comic when the artist is able to show the depth of a scene without having the spell it all out.

A good example would be "Ultimate Spider-Man" -- especially the early issues. You can understand how Peter is feeling without being told. If we had a narrative box saying "Peter felt sad about his Uncle Ben dying* . . . very sad," it would take away from the scene. A reader doesn't need to be told that Peter is sad. We can see it right on his face!

Granted, some comics are better with captions, such as "Secret Wars." Kurt Busiek was very good at using captions and word balloons without breaking the narrative too much.

The movement these days is against captions and thought balloons. If you look at books like "Flight" as well as works by up-and-comers such as Robert Kirkman, they don't use captions and thought balloons that much.

So that's all I have to say about that.

Oh! One more thing! Regarding footnotes . . . I'd rather have a list of references in the back of the issue. And those d**n recap pages really need to be written better.

~W~



[*see last issue -- Jokin' Joe]

[daned]

Preach it choir man!!

(Sorry, I really need sleep)

[thew40]

You know, it's funny, but this weeks new books just yieled a good example of good use of narrative captions.

"The Dark Tower" # 1 and "Uncanny X-Men" # 483 were strong books, partially because of the use of narrative boxes.

~W~

[The Night Phantom]

thew40 said:

You know, to expand on my previous response (after I've had more time to think about it) . . .

Thank you for taking the time and trouble. Since I don’t have any gold stars on me, you get a karma point.

Although it appears you and I have different general preferences on the balloon/caption issue, I think that au fond we are much alike in being flexible enough in accepting a variety of styles so long as we feel they have been used well in context. Of course, you and I may end up disagreeing about the level of effectiveness in this instance or that, but we can at least have some interesting discussions if that should happen!

For the record, the writer I think of first when I think of effective thought balloons is Mark Gruenwald (R.I.P.), in series such as Captain America and the New Universe’s D.P. 7 (my all-time favorite ongoing-series-that’s-now-defunct). Though he was certainly capable of using the device for expository purposes, in my opinion Gruenwald shone at using it as a vehicle for characterization—from lengthy soul-searching mental soliloquies from the likes of Steve Rogers, to simple quick-draw reactions that add spice to a panel, Gruenwald’s thought balloons often had a way of making a story come alive.