SCREGMAN SAYS...

THIS IS MY GAME... SUCKING THE MARROW FROM THE BONES OF LIFE... ONE BONE AT A TIME...

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

2/12 = 1/6


So... 2 months over...

2006 is 2/12's over (or 1/6 if you care to reduce the fraction).

One of the more miserable things about life is working when you're not 100%. I hate working when I've got a cold (eg conjestion, coughing, scratchy throat, etc.). It's one of those borderline things where I'm really not sick enough to stay home, yet it's extra tiring being at work. That's me today. BLEH...

Still going strong in Capoeira. I could say I've been in it for 2 months, and that would be fairly accurate. But, being the geek that I am, I've been keeping an actual tally in my Moleskine. Since starting, I've gone to 27 classes. Being under the weather may put me out of practice for this week, though... DAMMIT!!!

Haven't had the chance to check out Lotus' Turbo Jam DVD yet, but I will...

Purchased the 5 1/4" x 8 1/4" Moleskine squared notebook over the weekend. Couldn't resist. It seemed to be calling my name. I'm going to attempt (again) to "draw" via using a grid to help me cheat. What the heck. My goal: just 30 minutes a day devoted to this. Just 30 minutes. Even if I just draw a few lines or shade one part. If I can devote 30 minutes a day, eventually a picture will emerge...

Purchased "Kingdom Come" and "Marvels" and "V for Vendetta". A while back, I had said I was re-reading my old comic books and getting rid of some of them. Mulysa, you said I could give them to you for your kids. Here's the glitch, though. Any comic books I get rid of will be because I think the writing is absolutely subpar, unrealistic, ridiculous, or just plain stupid. Am I an expert at writing? I don't know. It's all relative I guess, like art. But I do know what I like. One of the very basic fundamentals of good writing is the ability/skill to "show", not "tell". Since comic books and graphic novels are a combination of illustration and text, I would think it would be relatively easy to "show" the action, and alot of the comic books I grew up with do this just fine. It is the writers that blow it. It's as if they're afraid to leave a panel with no dialogue. It's as if they were required to put dialogue in almost every panel, no matter how useless. If an illustration clearly shows Thor, the God of Thunder, throwing his hammer thru a window, is it really necessary to have Thor say something like: "Watch... as I throw my hammer through this window..." UGH!! I am forced to wonder how some of these writers actually made it into the business. I despise when the reader is "dumb-downed" by the writer(s). I like to think that even kids will understand the action without useless dialogue mucking everything up...

Where was I.......? Ah yes. Mulysa, I would never give your kids comic books that are poorly written. That would be a crime...

A slight change to my Moleskine writing. I've gone back to only one Moleskine to record my daily activities AND rants/raves. It's just easier. So, at the bare minimum, I just write daily occurances... but if I go off on a tangent, that's okay too.

Financial Aid checks come out on Thursday this week. Hmmmmm... If I called in sick on Thursday, all of you could watch the riot on the evening news... All these students screaming for their Financial Aid checks... setting fire to buildings... throwing chairs through windows... dragging administrators out of their offices... screaming that they need to buy diapers for their kids or new furniture or food for the table. Hmmmm... If you weren't going to school, wouldn't you be responsible for buying such things as diapers or food or furniture anyway? God forbid you'd use your Financial Aid to purchase books or school supplies... That would be ridiculous...

And so it goes...

So long February 2006...

posted by ScregMan @ Tuesday, February 28, 2006  

5 Comments:

  • At 9:11 PM, February 28, 2006, Blogger mikshir said…

    screg, you MUST call me when you're done with "Kingdom Come".

     

  • At 9:21 AM, March 01, 2006, Blogger Kilatzin said…

    Screg,

    you'll be happy to know that most mainstream comics these days follow a "manga" like storytelling. no thought balloons. minimal captions. scenes play out like movies. the dude who really started all this is brian michael bendis. he currently writes "ultimate spider-man", which is a VERY GOOD update of the spider-man mythos.

    after you call mikshir, CALL ME after Kingdom Come. Hey, I listened to the audioplay of the book. then we can do a conference call with mikshir and hash it out.

     

  • At 4:20 PM, March 01, 2006, Blogger mikshir said…

    An audio play of Kingdom Come? Hey that's cool. I should see if I can find that.

    I was watching IFC's "dinner for five" (or something like that) the other night. Was hosted by Kevin Smith and included JJ Abrams, Mark Hamilton, Jason Lee, and none other than Stan Lee. At one point Stan Lee mentioned a period of time where Marvel was outselling DC and DC would investigate and start copying all of the stylistic stuff. Marvel had thought/speech bubbles on the cover, so DC put them in. When DC put them in, Marvel took them out... and so on. But during that whole little convo snippet, I kept thinking "take them out". I totally agree that as a kid, American comics were too and utterly verbose, making them hard to get through. So much more can be conveyed with a properly drawn facial expression or the action itself. If simple actions need to be explained, then it needs to be redone.

     

  • At 7:20 PM, March 02, 2006, Blogger Kilatzin said…

    there has been a backlash to the current wave of "decompression" storytelling. yes, that's right. there's already a term for it. the rap is that it takes a whole issue now, what would have taken 5 panels back then. fans have been saying that it doesn't make any sense to by comic books anymore, the decompression trend lends itself to graphic novel reading.

    i don't have a problem with either style. the old style of comics have a certain charm. there was a book that defended the storytelling style of 1950 Superman comics, saying that it was the perfect approach for kids. you know the stories with balloons like, "(choke) Superman is my best friend and now he's dying (sob)" in the span of eight pages a whole parable laid out that the kiddies could understand.

    personally, i think the challenge of any art form, or software or language for that matter, is to figure out that genre's rules and structure. once you internalize it, you can really mine the goodness behind each work. you can make a case, like lotus does, about how the whole concept of superheroes is hard to get through. but once you accept the rules and conceits, there's a whole treasure trove of wild ideas to enjoy.

    the kingdom come audio play really sucked. you're not missing much.

     

  • At 1:58 PM, March 03, 2006, Blogger ScregMan said…

    Superman, you make some good points, which got me to thinking...

    I don't mind a lot of text as long as it's done right. Action and words should mesh nicely and evenly together, not trample the reader with overkill.

    One of the older stories I'm currently re-reading is the one where Green Lantern and Green Arrow team up and travel across America along with one of Green Lantern's superiors. Lantern and Arrow have differing views about the landscape of the law, and who's really suffering out there. The title of the series escapes me, but I'm enjoying it. Even though it came out years ago, this series is a keeper.

     

Post a Comment

<< Home