Agents of Shield - Season 4

[Reverend]

Sometimes imposing artificial limitations on a creative endeavour breeds innovation. Part of the whole point of Watchmen was to deconstruct the genre of superhero comics and that included intentionally breaking a lot of the old rules. Granted some of those rules were there for very good reasons, but that's what you find out when you experiment.

Also keep in mind that as the medium has evolved, certain practices come loaded with tonal connotations. One of those is the idea that thought bubbles are a bit on the cartoony/comic trip side. More appropriate to Garfield or younger skewed books than "Serious Dark and McGritty" style books. Corny, hokey, cliched, retro. Pick your preferred adjective.

 

[Christopher]

Also keep in mind that as the medium has evolved, certain practices come loaded with tonal connotations. One of those is the idea that thought bubbles are a bit on the cartoony/comic trip side. More appropriate to Garfield or younger skewed books than "Serious Dark and McGritty" style books. Corny, hokey, cliched, retro. Pick your preferred adjective.

You say "tonal connotations," I say being a slave to fashion.

 

[Reverend]

You say "tonal connotations," I say being a slave to fashion.

Split hairs all you like, it doesn't change the reality of it. All mediums of art have their fashions, their phases and that's how it should be, otherwise they stagnate.

It just so happens that right now, a thing you seem inordinately fond of isn't in vogue. Poor you. It'll come back sooner or later, for one reason or another.

 

[Christopher]

I'm not "inordinately" fond of them, I just don't see any reason to dislike them. And I'm offended by the implication that it's somehow wrong to have an opinion that isn't in lockstep with the majority.

 

[Photoman15]

This threads new name? Agents of Bubbles 0 Season 4?

 

[Reverend]

I'm not "inordinately" fond of them, I just don't see any reason to dislike them. And I'm offended by the implication that it's somehow wrong to have an opinion that isn't in lockstep with the majority.

So just so we're clear: you don't understand how other people can have a preference and yet you're offended at the perceived suggestion that your own preferences are being derided?

Anyone else spot the contradiction here?

 

[YLu]

There have always been various kinds of specialty or customized word and thought balloons. Speaking, thinking, and yelling are the most common. Whispering has been denoted by a dashed border. Then there's the telepathic one just mentioned. Loud and quiet voices can also be denoted by font size (for example, a grief-stricken character may get a small font as opposed to dashed edges, which is usually reserved for stealthiness). And, of course, some characters get their own custom balloons to indicate a certain uniqueness or oddness to their voice-- the most obvious example that I can think of is Vision's yellow, square balloons that indicate his robotic voice (I don't know if they still do that, either, or even if the Vision still exists). Another example is the spooky voice balloon border used by Horror-themed characters like Ghost Rider or Dracula. All of these are tools available to the medium that communicate important information to the reader-- it's limiting to the creators to not use them.

Though there was that period in the 90s/2000s when comics, intoxicated on how the new technology of digital lettering made it so much easier to change up lettering and balloon shapes, went completely overboard. In some books, every other character seemed to have their own specialized, flashy balloon, and it turned the whole thing into a gaudy mess. As Kurt Busiek put it when looking back at his Avengers run, it looked like someone threw chiclets all over the pages.

 

[Christopher]

So just so we're clear: you don't understand how other people can have a preference and yet you're offended at the perceived suggestion that your own preferences are being derided?

Anyone else spot the contradiction here?

There is no contradiction. I'm just saying that the minority opinion has a right to coexist with the majority opinion. You seem to be saying that it does not have the right to coexist, and I object to that.

 

[Reverend]

There is no contradiction. I'm just saying that the minority opinion has a right to coexist with the majority opinion. You seem to be saying that it does not have the right to coexist, and I object to that.

Where exactly do you propose *anyone* here said any such thing?

 

[YLu]

But in this instance, I'm not comparing them to word balloons. I'm comparing "thought" text boxes to narration text boxes sharing the same panels and pages. I'm saying that those two types of text boxes also exist on different diegetic levels from each other. So if it's okay to do that, then why can't voice balloons and thought balloons also coexist while operating on different diegetic levels?

Oh, my mistake then. Well, to answer your question, I'd say third person captions and first person captions sharing the same scene is actually really rare, possibly for the very reason of the different levels. And those rare instances they do appear in the same scene, the writing won't jump back and forth between. Rather, the scene will begin with one, then switch over completely to the other.

These days, in comics with a first person narrator, even time/location text (e.g. "One hour later") is usually done in a font and format that makes it very distinct from the narration boxes:

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Someone page me when we're talking about Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. again.

 

[RJDiogenes]

^^ As soon as the next episode gets here.

Sometimes imposing artificial limitations on a creative endeavour breeds innovation. Part of the whole point of Watchmen was to deconstruct the genre of superhero comics and that included intentionally breaking a lot of the old rules. Granted some of those rules were there for very good reasons, but that's what you find out when you experiment.

Absolutely. Each and every project, whether it's poetry or prose, sequential art or cinema, has its own internal limitations and parameters. For a particular story, word balloons may be wrong. Any kind of text may be wrong-- a story can be entirely art, just as it can be entirely words. I'm just saying, in general, thought balloons are just as useful as any other device.

Also keep in mind that as the medium has evolved, certain practices come loaded with tonal connotations. One of those is the idea that thought bubbles are a bit on the cartoony/comic trip side. More appropriate to Garfield or younger skewed books than "Serious Dark and McGritty" style books. Corny, hokey, cliched, retro. Pick your preferred adjective.

This is exactly it. It's like the "spandex" jokes. There are those in the field, both professionals and fans, who are basically embarrassed by the medium. They don't want the big boys to call them nerds. So they go overboard with the "Serious Dark and McGritty" stuff and dismiss anything they feel is "corny." This is the part I disagree with.

This threads new name? Agents of Bubbles 0 Season 4?

How about Bubbles: Agent of SHIELD? Just because you're a Burlesque performer doesn't mean you can't save the world.

Though there was that period in the 90s/2000s when comics, intoxicated on how the new technology of digital lettering made it so much easier to change up lettering and balloon shapes, went completely overboard. In some books, every other character seemed to have their own specialized, flashy balloon, and it turned the whole thing into a gaudy mess. As Kurt Busiek put it when looking back at his Avengers run, it looked like someone threw chiclets all over the pages.

Yeah, sometimes less is more.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

This threads new name? Agents of Bubbles 0 Season 4?

That's a problem when the show goes on hiatus.

 

[Reverend]

This is exactly it. It's like the "spandex" jokes. There are those in the field, both professionals and fans, who are basically embarrassed by the medium. They don't want the big boys to call them nerds. So they go overboard with the "Serious Dark and McGritty" stuff and dismiss anything they feel is "corny." This is the part I disagree with.

There's certainly a certain degree of that, but it's not the sole justification. The simple fact is that a lot of that stuff *was* very silly and childish because it was supposed to be. It was a product both of it's time and of the market to which it catered. It was meant to be disposable fluff aimed and young children, at least at first. And that's perfectly fine.

Now imagine for a second if this situation applied to written prose. If the first printed books ever were meant for children and the more mature titles came later, would it be reasonable to say "why can't Spot the Dog be in 'The Colour Purple'? Are the authors ashamed of the medium's origins?" Of course not. It'd be like saying "the Mona Lisa's lack of crayon rainbows is disrespectful" or "Why can't Oscar the Grouch commentate on election news?!" (Actually, I'd totally watch that!)

Comic books aren't e genre, they're a medium and as the medium has grown, it's attained a larger audience to the point where these days, most of the readers are adults. As such there's more books aimed at that demographic than at younger readers. Now I'm sure if one were to have a look at the books actually aimed at younger readers (mostly cartoon & video game tie-in I imagine) as those old classic Gold & Silver Age comics were, many of the old trends are still there in full force, thought bubbles and all.

 

[Star Wolf]

And I'll agree with most other folks that angsty Daisy has been a bit meh the past few weeks. I was actually glad to see her acting like old hacker Daisy in this episode. A welcome respite.

However considering what Daisy has gone through over a short period she shouldn't be anything but angst at all should should be in a VA hospital treatment along with others suffering PTSD.

In a few short years she has been arrested by SHIELD. Found out she was sleeping with a Nazi wing Hydra. Was a combatant in the SHIELD versus Hydra war. Lost a best friend trying to save her in the event which gave her super powers. Found her father was a batshit insane killer. Found out her mother was an evil megalomaniac. Had her mother try to suck the very life out of her and watched her father kill her mother. Get infected by Hive's sway and even when the physical component allowing Hive to push her was removed the addiction, by Lash/Andrew who died trying to save her the need is still there as seen by James suffering the same fate. And then have another boyfriend push pass her on a suicide mission.

 

[Christopher]

Now imagine for a second if this situation applied to written prose. If the first printed books ever were meant for children and the more mature titles came later, would it be reasonable to say "why can't Spot the Dog be in 'The Colour Purple'? Are the authors ashamed of the medium's origins?" Of course not. It'd be like saying "the Mona Lisa's lack of crayon rainbows is disrespectful" or "Why can't Oscar the Grouch commentate on election news?!" (Actually, I'd totally watch that!)

Comic books aren't e genre, they're a medium and as the medium has grown, it's attained a larger audience to the point where these days, most of the readers are adults. As such there's more books aimed at that demographic than at younger readers. Now I'm sure if one were to have a look at the books actually aimed at younger readers (mostly cartoon & video game tie-in I imagine) as those old classic Gold & Silver Age comics were, many of the old trends are still there in full force, thought bubbles and all.

Okay, but why should thought balloons be somehow more "juvenile" than any other shape of word balloon? That's what seems an arbitrary attitude to me. It's just a shape. Okay, it's a vaguely cartoony shape in that it suggests clouds as a metaphor for dreams or thoughts, but so is a "radio signal" word balloon that has a zigzaggy electrical shape. I just don't get why people are okay with other specialized balloon shapes but find that single specific one to be silly. That just seems random to me.

Yes, media grow and evolve, but not every change is automatically an improvement. Some changing preferences are just fashion.

 

[Reverend]

Okay, but why should thought balloons be somehow more "juvenile" than any other shape of word balloon? That's what seems an arbitrary attitude to me. It's just a shape. Okay, it's a vaguely cartoony shape in that it suggests clouds as a metaphor for dreams or thoughts, but so is a "radio signal" word balloon that has a zigzaggy electrical shape. I just don't get why people are okay with other specialized balloon shapes but find that single specific one to be silly. That just seems random to me.

Yes, media grow and evolve, but not every change is automatically an improvement. Some changing preferences are just fashion.

You're asking for a logical explanation for a medium-wide preference based on cumulative tastes. It doesn't work that way. But if you must boil it down to something simplistic then the closest one can come to a rational reason is because it was done that way for so long in those certain types of books that the two became synonymous with the hokey way in which it was often utilised. That's just how it is. If you don't like it, tough. The medium does not have to adhere to your personal tastes anymore than it does mine or anyone else's.

I mean exactly what do you expect to get out of constantly bleating on about this? If it irks you so much, go write some comic books with thought bubbles in them. I promise nobody here will try to stop you.

 

[YLu]

The thing is, the early 90s were the height of grim and gritty and trying to be Serious, but there were still plenty of thought balloons in comics then. Open up some early Image comics and you won't have too much trouble finding them.

Conversely, some comics today that are very obviously and deliberately trying to be silly and goofy nevertheless eschew thought bubbles. HOWARD THE DUCK comes to mind. Does SQUIRREL GIRL use thought balloons?

Scott McCloud, Alan Moore, Mark Waid, Brian Vaughan. Does that sound like a bunch of people who are ashamed of the medium? Who are embarrassed by it? Of course not. If anything, they're known for their undiluted love for the medium. Yet all of those men avoid thought balloons in their modern work, for the most part.

It's a very easy and pat answer to say that the modern aversion to their use is primarily due to embarrassment... which is precisely why I view it with such skepticism. I don't think the evidence bears that out.

 

[Christopher]

You're asking for a logical explanation for a medium-wide preference based on cumulative tastes. It doesn't work that way. But if you must boil it down to something simplistic then the closest one can come to a rational reason is because it was done that way for so long in those certain types of books that the two became synonymous with the hokey way in which it was often utilised. That's just how it is. If you don't like it, tough. The medium does not have to adhere to your personal tastes anymore than it does mine or anyone else's.

It's not about liking. I'm an intellectually oriented person. I just want to understand the reasons for things. If there's anything I don't like, it's not understanding something. I don't like being confused, so I ask questions. I'm trying to learn, not to proselytize or pick fights.

And yes, as you suggest, I am considering the possibility that I might get the chance to write comics someday. It's a medium I haven't broken into yet but would like the opportunity to try. So naturally I want to learn what I can about how it's done and what the stylistic possibilities are, and that's why I'm getting so analytical about it.

It's a very easy and pat answer to say that the modern aversion to their use is primarily due to embarrassment... which is precisely why I view it with such skepticism. I don't think the evidence bears that out.

I agree. It doesn't seem to correlate. It's not about how mature or juvenile a comic is; it never has been. As I said a while back, I think it's largely about trying to be more cinematic (in cases where internal monologue is avoided) or more novelistic (in cases where narrative captions are favored). And that's what bugs me, since it feels like it's about comics being embarrassed that they aren't movies or books, trying to downplay something that's specifically theirs.

The way I've always seen it is by analogy with prose: speech balloons are the equivalent of dialogue in quotation marks, thought balloons are the equivalent of internal monologue in italics, and rectangular caption boxes are the equivalent of the narrator's voice in Roman text. I consider internal monologue to be conceptually closer to spoken dialogue than to narration, because it's actually going on inside the character's head at the moment rather than being part of the telling of the story after the fact. Although I can see why it's different in comics, because the visual presentation is more immediate, more in the moment than after the fact. In a way, the images themselves are what take the place of the narration in a prose work, which is why the caption-box narration we do get is so often based in a character's internal monologue. Looking at it that way, I can kind of see the reasoning. Although there have been plenty of comics whose narration has been more novelistic and third-person -- or even that weird second-person thing I gather they did in Iron Fist, where the narrator was essentially speaking to Danny Rand throughout.

 

[YLu]

I agree. It doesn't seem to correlate. It's not about how mature or juvenile a comic is; it never has been. As I said a while back, I think it's largely about trying to be more cinematic (in cases where internal monologue is avoided) or more novelistic (in cases where narrative captions are favored). And that's what bugs me, since it feels like it's about comics being embarrassed that they aren't movies or books, trying to downplay something that's specifically theirs.

I think that's a pat and easy answer, too. As I said:

Scott McCloud, Alan Moore, Mark Waid, Brian Vaughan. Does that sound like a bunch of people who are ashamed of the medium? Who are embarrassed by it? Of course not. If anything, they're known for their undiluted love for the medium. Yet all of those men avoid thought balloons in their modern work, for the most part.

These are the types of people who'd consider it downright blasphemous to talk about making comics more like another medium.