I don't get this.

Post Reply New Topic

I have a confession to make.

I try to cultivate a taste in all art forms, whether I go for lowbrow or highbrow. Even film, which can be difficult for me for aspieish reasons, has something to contribute to my personal canon (foreign fantasy anyone?). Yet there is one art form that, embarrassingly, remains beyond the grasp of my most rudimentary comprehension. This form is given the colloquial term "comic books."

After being bewildered by manga, offended by Maus, bored half to death by Watchmen, annoyed by the classic superhero comics, unimpressed with Paul Has a Summer Job and Blankets, grossed out by Lost Girls, and just plain unamused with the antics of Tintin, I am left with the conclusion that there is something here that I'm really, really, really not getting. That makes me sad. It is always sad to think about things one may never understand, especially when one's most literary friends prefer Art Speigelman to Primo Levi (for some reason). I am only 16, and the hip intellectuals of my generation are leaving me behind with my big books without pictures. I feel old!

Why do I not understand graphic novels? What, exactly, is there to understand? Am I wasting my time here? (anguished) Oh, what? Whaaaaaaaat??

Admittedly, there is a large age difference (I am only 39), but i don't get them either. There were quite the thing when I was younger, though we didn't have anything like what there is out there now, but I didn't get it then, don't get it now, and likely won't as I get older.

Some people just aren't into comics.

p.s.: I've never read a graphic novel and don't plan to start

I loved comics when I was a kid. My dad wouldn't let me read books he thought were full of witch craft, fantasy with spell casting and such, but he loved comics and let me read them and get some of my own. I lost interest in them around 14. Went back to a comic store half a dozen years later and couldn't get back into them. Since my dad no longer had any say in what I read I picked up fantasy books.

Still, there are some graphic novels I'd like to read, namely Berserk which is a manga I loved the anime of. But I can't seem to find them in any stores and I hate to take a risk ordering them online.

Confession: I do not understand James Bond movies.
Is there supposed to be a plot, characters? I thought it was all special effects....what do I know?

Oh, I don't 'get' soap opera's either. Or Dr. Phil. Or pro-golf. Or most neurotypicals.

Watchmen isn't entirely representative of DC...in fact it's not really representative at all.

The thing with comic books now is that you need so much prior knowledge to understand anything that's going on, so maybe it's just not for you.

I love Tintin books! What can I say? I grew up with them.

As for graphic novels in general, I don't know that there is a lot to understand. I guess part of the appeal is that they look nice, and don't take long to read. I wouldn't worry if you prefer reading (non-graphic) novels. I should really read more of those myself.

I suppose graphic novels share something with certain films, in that certain visuals they provide sometimes wouldn't translate to print too well. With graphic novels there seems to be less need for a storyline.

I used to read Robert Crumb comics a bit. They are quite twisted! I read Eightball comics too. Very "counter-culture"!

Anyway, the last graphic novel I read was "Jimmy Corrigan, the smartest kid in the world" by Chris Ware. I'd actually recommend it! (To most people anyway.)

Don't worry about it. Comic books are kind of childish, although as an artist I can appreciate the skill.

Maybe its just a matter if finding a genre that interests you.

Try "Cerebus the Aardvark" by Dave Sim
or "The Incal" series by Alejandro Jodorowsky
Do you find "Asterix" funny?
How about "Heavy Metal"?...R-rated,you'll have to wait a few years.

I would think it is only because they are bad.

No plot to speak of, rubber stamp art, or reality.

I like the Graphic Novel format, just not what is being produced.

The lead characters seem to lack insight, intelligence, or a sense of humor.

Settings are not developed, and storylines go nowhere.

Some write to give the reader a mental picture, and most do not get it, they cannot stay focused for long enough and lack the ability to make their own mental pictures.

Comics main function is images, with little story, and that not complicated.

In that, they were the cultural predecessor of TV. Dialing for Dollars, or the Price is Right?

Your big books without pictures are read by few, readers have always been a smalll group.

The exploitation of books is recent, since the fifties, when standards were lowered to increase readership, ending in Stephen King, writing a comic book as a movie script, in print.

The function of writing as social commentary has been lost. Writing, the tool that allowed thought to be preserved from generation to generation, is now just a media outlet.

It is, but does not have to be. The Graphic Novel holds great promise, and Dicken's works were illustrated with copper plate engravings, for images can add to a story.

It is a medium halfway between books and film, and can reach a readership much broader than print alone. Now if it only had wriers, artists, it could and will become something.

I think the next step is digital delivery, some animation, spoken lines, for paperless delivery.

It is an art form in search of art.

My own book is being rendered as a Graphic Novel, working out each scene as a storyboard.

Read this book and make a film, just does not work. My illustrators say draw me a picture. The book becomes film script, then storyboards, for the production crew needs explicit direction. These are the best of modern storytellers.

Comics do sell in the billions, and a better connection between story and reader is needed.

This life problem has been met before, by Jane Austin, The Sisters Bronte, Mary Shelly, and they did see a void and fill it.

The hip consumers of your time are going for flash over subtance.

Only sixteen, and old. Older yet soon, as the hopeful of your time sink into the fog of day to day living, leaving you with the world of books.

Jane Austin faced a world of another play by Shakespeare, badly played, another Italian Opera, or the low and vulgar humor of traveling players in village taverns, places no decent woman would go, but the lines were repeated by the servants.

She saw the need for something between, broadly entertaining, yet containing higher social values. Something new, The Novel.

You are looking upon the same problem, in another age.

I can tell this is something that is going to annoy me more and more. Childish? Have you read Dark Knight Returns? Daredevil? Identity Crisis? Or the aforementioned Watchmen?

If you think Watchmen is childish I'd really hate to think what takes place in what you consider X-rated.

Childish is a quality of mind, not an amount of objectionable material contained in something. I found Watchmen exhausting, but it wasn't childish. Maus, however, was really childish ("I wonder what I could do to convince my idiot reader that Jews were the victims of the Holocaust? I know!! A poorly-thought-out, oversimplified animal allegory!'). It is not the dichotomy of childish vs. adult themed but rather childish vs. mature.

Childish media is superficial, simplistic, gimmicky, show-offy, and broad. Mature media is complex, thought through, sensitive, and unpretentious.

So what's gimmicky about graphic novels? Just the fact that they're pictures rather than words?
What's simplistic about, to continue in the same example, Watchmen?
Why must beautiful artwork be show-offy? Does that mean that, say, Picasso's work was show-offy?
Superficiality is something that is often apparent in comics, yes, but there are numerous comics which show less of it, such as - you know it's coming - Watchmen.

I have a thing about Hellboy comics which I never really talk about with anyone. Other than that I don't get it

It's not a matter of "getting" anything, it's just personal taste. Perhaps you just weren't into the subject matter of the comics you read?

James Bond Films are easy. Almost like Haiku

Starts with some daredevil way of escaping bad guys, and must be more over the top than the last movie.
Meets 1st girl, somehow connected to The Bad Guy
Much adventures and Clues, 1st girl has to Die
Meets 2nd girl, on the Bad Guy's side. Bond uses charm to make her go to his side
Capture by bad Guy, Bad Guy threatens 2nd girl
Bond Escapes, saves 2nd girl, must have explosions, gets caught with pants down by authorities while making out with 2nd girl.. Many puns throughout. For an alternate explanation, see Austin Powers...

Simple...

I had a friend who had hundreds of comic books. Read them all, until I was in college, then read 'Heavy Metal' for about 10 years. Kinda lost touch after that. I'm familiar with the names, but never got into the 'this is my life' bit about them.

I dont think someone who has no prior knowledge of superhero comics can appreciate Watchmen. Likewise with Dark Knight , You had to read them at the time as a comic fan to get thye most out of them.

I was never exposed to music and so have little intrest in it now. I mean I love a good blues song and all but the art of it is beyond me.

Its good someone mentioned comics having a whole history to them. I know all about Superman and Spiderman but theres just too much to X men.

One suggestion is maybe the type of comic. I have a lot of independent black and white comics from the 80s they don't do much like that anymore.

Also a good line you can pick up cheap is EC comics reprints.
Theyre what the Tales from the Crypt TV show was based on. Ineach book you get four short Twilight zone like stories. Theres Weird Science, Crime, Tales from the Crypt, Two Fisted tales. I like them theyre self contained and the art isnt too bizarre. They were all originally printed in the early 50s.

I dont read new comics anymore. My last hold out was Swamp Thing and Hulk.
Strange thing is I never liked humor comics ( except Flaming Carrot) and I never really liked action cartoons.

An exception is Calvin and Hobbes and Far Side. You might enjoy those too.