Can't help but think about the recently departed David Lynch.
Lynch was a painter and that's all he ever really aspired to be. Yet, he had an idea one day, which was "moving paintings," which set him on his path. By the time he ended up at film school, he'd been immersed in the fine art world for so long, that unlike other filmmakers who were immersed solely in film, his approach was unique because of that different background. He still loved film and studied up on it, but a part of the reason why his work was successful (as in artistically successful, not commercially) was that he found a way to make his ideas work, and his ideas remained unique because he wasn't merely iterating on other work.
Though I've never been a big Lynch guy, I think you hit the nail on the head here. There's a bit in Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art in which he talks about how an artist can use techniques and learnings from other mediums but even that must be deployed with a deep, intimate knowledge of how and why that other medium works.
"While perhaps not a capital crime (e.g., making visually uninteresting pages), comics pages lacking in information density and richness are a serious offense...."
I read this as I was listening to my coworker talk to a student about ignorance and I couldn't help but notice the coincidence. I think storytellers of all mediums sometimes get so caught up in telling their stories, they brush aside details going on in the world they are creating (an example I notice frequently is characters doing CPR is TV and movies and how it is usually wrong). I did appreciate all the details you included in the Comic Book History of Professional Wrestling. In teaching I see it in students who are so excited to show what they have learned, they don't take time to spell check their writing, and what they turn in is not readable. Could comic book writers, who sometimes are under the gun of a deadline, be so concerned with telling their story forget the little things?
First and foremost: Thanks for your kinds words on The Comic Book Story of Professional Wrestling! I remain enormously proud of it and the impact it continues to have.
I think comics writers being under the gun schedule-wise, expected to write comics monthly, four or more of them if they hope to make a living at it, is absolutely a humongous part of the problem. For me though, the biggest issue it leads to isn't getting real-world details wrong or poor grammar but, rather, work that isn't informed by anything but comics, movies and television shows. It's an approach that can't help but lead to cliche, in service of work that's overly familiar with nothing substantial to say.
Cliche has its place though. It's great that you've got the bug to really push the envelope in your own work, we always need *some* creators to be doing this. I don't think I buy that another swath of the industry simply hacking out formula is some kind of offense, though. In many ways, the forumla/clice helps offset the risk involved in envelope pushing. (You know what? I'm just realizing I have know idea why we say "envelope pushing" to mean new ideas. What are these envelopes that we're referencing in that phrase?) If everyone was constantly reinventing the wheel, or even just keeping us on our toes, honestly, that would be too much. I get that capitalism keep us a very long way away from that "too much" zone, but just making the statement that it all has its place. Not every creator is up for it or has the capacity for it or the interest for it.
@Brad - as for CPR in movies/tv, my fave response someone once gave to that: "It could cause severe injury to the actor playing the victim. Actors are expensive, especially A list actors. If they break them it costs a lot of money." There are usually practical reasons to not show these things realistically. Framing and seeing actors' faces are additional considerations that have film/tv showcase the action in the way that they do. You never have to love it, but unless you hate it when action heroes are able to take merciless beatings without going into a coma, "realism" isn't an easy thing to justify as necessary.
In my estimation, it's not that work consisting solely of cliche and tropes, Frankenstein monstered together from other fiction, fails to push the envelope or reach some kind of avant garde standard but, rather, that it fails to do that which is the purpose of all art: Individual expression. At that point – devoid of depth, ambiguity and the rumination they prompt – what you're left with is no better than algorithm-based art or, dare I say it, AI slop.
There's definitely a line there - where something *can* be simply pastiche with no individual voice to it, even when crafted by a human. But in many if not most cases, the creator's pov and voice can't help but be added. The building blocks may all be cliche and tropes, but the way you or I would write that story is still different, and adds to the cultural pot. Generally speaking, the way humans even subconsciously weave information together in odd personal ways raises it above machine-style synthesis, which is overly literal and exact. Humans *can* be that simple and derivative with nothing else added, but those are extreme examples. If I'm reading your point here right, you're exanding that to most works that are more-or-less derivative in structure.
I feel like we're talking past each other, which is frustrating because I so very much appreciate your earnest, thoughtful engagement with my posts!
By way of example: Frank Miller combining crime stories with superheroics for Daredevil. It worked, not just because he'd read a bunch of crime novels, but because he understood the underlying mechanisms that made them work, such that he could adapt those that also function properly in comics and come up with alternate routes to achieve the effects of those that don't. Interesting, thoughtful work using cliche and tropes as building blocks but that is informed by a deeper understanding.
Today, decades after the fact, someone who does crime-based superhero comics, using Miller's Daredevil as their guide, is making a copy of a copy. With the initial hit and shock of something new long since worn away, all you're left with is "this plus this." And the way you get around that? Research. Actual, nonfiction research about the real world, such that verisimilitude and authenticity are cultivated.
In an attempt to not talk past you, let me try to state this more clearly, because I think you may just be giving my argument too much credit for nuance rather than us talking past each other - I'm truly arguing that even if a work is, on paper, nothing but cliches, as in you couldn't (effectively) write an essay about it arguing otherwise, in most cases I'm not sure that work IS, in fact, unworthwhile and *just* a copy of a copy.
Lived experience is also a version of "research about the real world." None of us have the exact same lived experience, and will bring our pov to the table whether we mean to or not. It's definitely *possible* for an author to be so disconnected from the material that it comes out as a pure this-plus-this (I've read them, it's so glaring and gobsmacking when it happens.) It most often happens when the author is super young - their lack of lived experience showing as a deficeit in the work. But it is, in my experience, at that extreme, pretty rare to encounter.
Certainly, the this-plus-this PLUS a dash of individual voice isn't pushing the medium anywhere quickly, it would be at such a small scale that we might only notice any evolution in retrospect - slight variations on established themes, but these are still variations. We don't want this to be only thing being crafted, but the idea that it holds no value, or has nothing to offer outside of *pure* mimicry, is devaluing how a lot of gradual evolution in art occurs.
If you want to make a LEAP (suddenly) in evolution of the medium, yes, you need to do everything you're writing about here. But it isn't an either/or zero sum proposition. And many artists/authors have accomplished this from instinct and "god-given" talent alone vs. studying their medium or the history of it. There is never one path to anything. And no matter where we personally are with no longer being interested in the overall tropes and cliches of a medium, this never = there truly is no value or purpose to those things in the overall scheme of history.
I really pay attention to dialogue in films and tv while watching. It’s crazy because some I’ve caught is not good and then others is like poetry. Another things beside pulling from different mediums is pulling from real life. When I’m writing something I often write a note to myself about a character like “August and Alex mixed together (two of my friends).” It makes it a hell of a lot easier to make characters feel authentic when you pull elements from people you know. I wish I could sound as smart as you when you talk about this stuff 😂. Keep up the good work!
If you get that much benefit from factual observations about the real world, imagine how much you'd get out of reading a nonfiction book that consists of nothing BUT factual observations about the real world! Research, baby!
My question is, are there any plans to write a Street Fighter vs. G.I. Joe vs. Transformers Skybound comic? If possible, I would like you to write about Street Fighter vs. G.I. Joe vs. Transformers.
Can't help but think about the recently departed David Lynch.
Lynch was a painter and that's all he ever really aspired to be. Yet, he had an idea one day, which was "moving paintings," which set him on his path. By the time he ended up at film school, he'd been immersed in the fine art world for so long, that unlike other filmmakers who were immersed solely in film, his approach was unique because of that different background. He still loved film and studied up on it, but a part of the reason why his work was successful (as in artistically successful, not commercially) was that he found a way to make his ideas work, and his ideas remained unique because he wasn't merely iterating on other work.
Though I've never been a big Lynch guy, I think you hit the nail on the head here. There's a bit in Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art in which he talks about how an artist can use techniques and learnings from other mediums but even that must be deployed with a deep, intimate knowledge of how and why that other medium works.
"While perhaps not a capital crime (e.g., making visually uninteresting pages), comics pages lacking in information density and richness are a serious offense...."
I read this as I was listening to my coworker talk to a student about ignorance and I couldn't help but notice the coincidence. I think storytellers of all mediums sometimes get so caught up in telling their stories, they brush aside details going on in the world they are creating (an example I notice frequently is characters doing CPR is TV and movies and how it is usually wrong). I did appreciate all the details you included in the Comic Book History of Professional Wrestling. In teaching I see it in students who are so excited to show what they have learned, they don't take time to spell check their writing, and what they turn in is not readable. Could comic book writers, who sometimes are under the gun of a deadline, be so concerned with telling their story forget the little things?
First and foremost: Thanks for your kinds words on The Comic Book Story of Professional Wrestling! I remain enormously proud of it and the impact it continues to have.
I think comics writers being under the gun schedule-wise, expected to write comics monthly, four or more of them if they hope to make a living at it, is absolutely a humongous part of the problem. For me though, the biggest issue it leads to isn't getting real-world details wrong or poor grammar but, rather, work that isn't informed by anything but comics, movies and television shows. It's an approach that can't help but lead to cliche, in service of work that's overly familiar with nothing substantial to say.
Cliche has its place though. It's great that you've got the bug to really push the envelope in your own work, we always need *some* creators to be doing this. I don't think I buy that another swath of the industry simply hacking out formula is some kind of offense, though. In many ways, the forumla/clice helps offset the risk involved in envelope pushing. (You know what? I'm just realizing I have know idea why we say "envelope pushing" to mean new ideas. What are these envelopes that we're referencing in that phrase?) If everyone was constantly reinventing the wheel, or even just keeping us on our toes, honestly, that would be too much. I get that capitalism keep us a very long way away from that "too much" zone, but just making the statement that it all has its place. Not every creator is up for it or has the capacity for it or the interest for it.
@Brad - as for CPR in movies/tv, my fave response someone once gave to that: "It could cause severe injury to the actor playing the victim. Actors are expensive, especially A list actors. If they break them it costs a lot of money." There are usually practical reasons to not show these things realistically. Framing and seeing actors' faces are additional considerations that have film/tv showcase the action in the way that they do. You never have to love it, but unless you hate it when action heroes are able to take merciless beatings without going into a coma, "realism" isn't an easy thing to justify as necessary.
In my estimation, it's not that work consisting solely of cliche and tropes, Frankenstein monstered together from other fiction, fails to push the envelope or reach some kind of avant garde standard but, rather, that it fails to do that which is the purpose of all art: Individual expression. At that point – devoid of depth, ambiguity and the rumination they prompt – what you're left with is no better than algorithm-based art or, dare I say it, AI slop.
There's definitely a line there - where something *can* be simply pastiche with no individual voice to it, even when crafted by a human. But in many if not most cases, the creator's pov and voice can't help but be added. The building blocks may all be cliche and tropes, but the way you or I would write that story is still different, and adds to the cultural pot. Generally speaking, the way humans even subconsciously weave information together in odd personal ways raises it above machine-style synthesis, which is overly literal and exact. Humans *can* be that simple and derivative with nothing else added, but those are extreme examples. If I'm reading your point here right, you're exanding that to most works that are more-or-less derivative in structure.
I feel like we're talking past each other, which is frustrating because I so very much appreciate your earnest, thoughtful engagement with my posts!
By way of example: Frank Miller combining crime stories with superheroics for Daredevil. It worked, not just because he'd read a bunch of crime novels, but because he understood the underlying mechanisms that made them work, such that he could adapt those that also function properly in comics and come up with alternate routes to achieve the effects of those that don't. Interesting, thoughtful work using cliche and tropes as building blocks but that is informed by a deeper understanding.
Today, decades after the fact, someone who does crime-based superhero comics, using Miller's Daredevil as their guide, is making a copy of a copy. With the initial hit and shock of something new long since worn away, all you're left with is "this plus this." And the way you get around that? Research. Actual, nonfiction research about the real world, such that verisimilitude and authenticity are cultivated.
In an attempt to not talk past you, let me try to state this more clearly, because I think you may just be giving my argument too much credit for nuance rather than us talking past each other - I'm truly arguing that even if a work is, on paper, nothing but cliches, as in you couldn't (effectively) write an essay about it arguing otherwise, in most cases I'm not sure that work IS, in fact, unworthwhile and *just* a copy of a copy.
Lived experience is also a version of "research about the real world." None of us have the exact same lived experience, and will bring our pov to the table whether we mean to or not. It's definitely *possible* for an author to be so disconnected from the material that it comes out as a pure this-plus-this (I've read them, it's so glaring and gobsmacking when it happens.) It most often happens when the author is super young - their lack of lived experience showing as a deficeit in the work. But it is, in my experience, at that extreme, pretty rare to encounter.
Certainly, the this-plus-this PLUS a dash of individual voice isn't pushing the medium anywhere quickly, it would be at such a small scale that we might only notice any evolution in retrospect - slight variations on established themes, but these are still variations. We don't want this to be only thing being crafted, but the idea that it holds no value, or has nothing to offer outside of *pure* mimicry, is devaluing how a lot of gradual evolution in art occurs.
If you want to make a LEAP (suddenly) in evolution of the medium, yes, you need to do everything you're writing about here. But it isn't an either/or zero sum proposition. And many artists/authors have accomplished this from instinct and "god-given" talent alone vs. studying their medium or the history of it. There is never one path to anything. And no matter where we personally are with no longer being interested in the overall tropes and cliches of a medium, this never = there truly is no value or purpose to those things in the overall scheme of history.
please of Skybound Street Fighter vs. G.I.Joe vs. Transformers Comic of writing mister Aubrey
I really pay attention to dialogue in films and tv while watching. It’s crazy because some I’ve caught is not good and then others is like poetry. Another things beside pulling from different mediums is pulling from real life. When I’m writing something I often write a note to myself about a character like “August and Alex mixed together (two of my friends).” It makes it a hell of a lot easier to make characters feel authentic when you pull elements from people you know. I wish I could sound as smart as you when you talk about this stuff 😂. Keep up the good work!
If you get that much benefit from factual observations about the real world, imagine how much you'd get out of reading a nonfiction book that consists of nothing BUT factual observations about the real world! Research, baby!
please of Skybound of mister Aubrey writing Street Fighter vs. G.I.Joe vs. Transformers Comic
My question is, are there any plans to write a Street Fighter vs. G.I. Joe vs. Transformers Skybound comic? If possible, I would like you to write about Street Fighter vs. G.I. Joe vs. Transformers.