So, with all the Marvel movies and such, my long dormant interest in comics has re-kindled. I talked about that this morning.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
-
Find me: Updated Links
Recent Comments
- ROBERT EVANS on Day 2754: Day Not Found
- ROBERT EVANS on Day 2753: Untitled For Some Reason
- Nate on Day 2752: Was A Sunny Day
- Robert Willey on Day 2752: Was A Sunny Day
- Robert Evans on Day 2745: Busy Day
Odd.
1) If you want a wider range of available storylines and genres, you really need to consider looking at various manga and other Eastern sources (Korea has a really great story called “The Gamer” running.) Otherwise, Saga looks like a good choice, without being majorly dystopic. Another story you might find interesting is Letter 44.
2) For the most part, comics tend to come either as PDF files, or CBR/CBZ files. CBx files are simply rar or zip compressed archives of JPG/GIF files. Therefore, on a small phone-sized screen, reading is going to be problematic. The issue is, of course, that the format attempts to replicate the original paper format, which is not that bright an idea. Your Nook should work fairly well – there are many e-book readers which will handle them, including zoom options – I’m fond of Cool Reader, but I’ve used many of the rest, including Aldiko and MoonReader.
I just wish people would quit trying to over-focus on replicating previous formats in new media (oddly enough, this is exactly Howard Roark’s problem in The Fountainhead but I’d rather not get into an Ayn Rand argument.)
Comics should have the option of either presenting pages, or as panels – and with animation options available, as well as vector formats such as SVG for resolution independent drawing, the whole field can take on new possibilities (many of which the webcomics world has been exploring for some time now…)
More importantly to me, though, is that I wish the new shows from companies like Hulu and Netflix would get away from the fixed-block production. Allow some stories to take 45 minutes to resolve, others to take an hour and a half. Need extra time for production on a big job, insert a short side story as a bottle piece or two.
Friend of mine had a really massive idea, using Star Trek stories (since Paramount seems to have come to some kind of arrangement), in which there would be three separate series, one centered around Humans, one around Klingons, and one around Romulans, with occasional interaction between the races being presented from opposing viewpoints in both series. The real trick would be that in the non-human versions, the racially defining characteristics would be minimized, and the characteristics of the non-focus races for that series would be more exaggerated and alienized, to encourage slipping into the mindset of the viewpoint race. So, for example in the episode where the Enterprise stalks the Romulans through the comet, you’d see on each series the lead up events, and then during, you’d see both sides of the encounter, followed by the separate aftermaths in the separate series.
It struck us as a wonderful idea, and one with great potential to illustrate the idea that there are always three sides to a story (ours, theirs, and the truth), but I doubt any studio would ever be willing to work on it – it would really need to be most likely three significant fan groups working together and coordinating.
Yeah, I live in a house filled with manga and anime.
I was looking to see what the US publishers are doing.
Saga V1 was okay. It seemed to be trying too hard for shock value.
Aye. When I first got into anime and manga, I found myself wondering why the US Market had limited itself so much. Save for younger children’s comics like Richie Rich, Casper, and up into Archie for teens, there was little else than capes in unitards. The older Tales from the Crypt stuff vanished in part due to the Comics Code, I think. The sunday comics in the newspapers had more variety, but apparently nobody thought there might be enough appeal to pull together full monthly stories for things like Mary Worth – which honestly surprises me, with how many bleepin’ formula romances get published and sold every month. Even now, as far as I can tell, the only real expansion has been into un-superpowered grit and grime and violence – nothing the equivalent of Love Hina, Naruto, or Fruits Basket.