The Making of Star Trek (Whitfield)

[YLu]

Out of date I'll accept. But let's be real, today's comic scripts are so short for two reasons;

1) So today's artists can get their side hustle on selling original art

The amount of lettering wouldn't affect the original art because these days lettering isn't typically added onto the original art pages themselves. Whether the script devotes zero words or 100 words per page, the original art is going to be devoid of any.

And while the prevalent style of today's comics does lean more towards terseness, I've shown how even as far back as the late 70s, writers were writing with an eye towards not crowding the panels with too many words. The threshold for what's "too wordy" has changed, but there was never not a threshold.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

TLDR (too long, didn't read) is a major meme today, especially with business emails. Attention spans aren't what they once were. It probably applies to comic readers too.

Funny story: I keep getting pulled back into this thread for fear of missing talk about The Making of Star Trek. I'm such a rube!

 

[Maurice]

The Making of Star Trek? That's not written in "Marvel Style"!

Well, except the ALL CAPS GENE RODDENBERRY VOICE OF GOD SECTIONS...

 

[JonnyQuest037]

TLDR (too long, didn't read) is a major meme today, especially with business emails. Attention spans aren't what they once were. It probably applies to comic readers too.

Yeah, probably. There have been a few big shifts in mainstream comic book writing in the last 20-30 years, as I see it:

1) Thought balloons and captions falling out of vogue. This can be almost entirely attributed to the one-two punch of The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen in 1986. Neither one used thought balloons or omniscient captions, and since Frank Miller and Alan Moore were two of THE big creators of the 80s, that became the way to do comics. (Sound effects are also much rarer than they used to be.)

2) Writing for the trade. Trade paperback collections have become much more common in the last 20 years, so you'll find fewer pages devoted to recaps of the ongoing story. This makes multi-issue storylines read more smoothly in a collected format, but it locks out a lot of casual readers who might be lost if they didn't start with the first issue of a particular storyline.

3) "Decompressed" storytelling. This is a trend we've seen growing in the last 20 years, where less and less happens per issue and they go into more and more detail about small events. This approach was largely popularized by Brian Michael Bendis.

Personally, I hate decompressed storytelling. Say what you will about the occasional goofiness of Silver and Bronze Age storytelling, but those comics fucking MOVED, every story had a beginning, middle, and end, and lots of stuff happened in every issue. These days you're much more likely to get page after page of heroes sitting around talking and bantering with each other rather than doing stuff. It's the comic book equivalent of an endless conference room scene on a mediocre episode of TNG.

Funny story: I keep getting pulled back into this thread for fear of missing talk about The Making of Star Trek. I'm such a rube!

Well... The fact is that there just isn't that much to say. The original question was about if we'd buy TMOST in a coffee table version, and that's a total hypothetical. For me, the answer would be "maybe, but not definitely." If I LOVED the graphic design and the photos selected in a new edition & I had the money to spend on a coffee table version, then sure. If I didn't like the look of the book or if money was tight for me, then no. I already own the paperback version.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

This can be almost entirely attributed to the one-two punch of The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen in 1986. Neither one used thought balloons or omniscient captions

Well, TDKR formatted its thought balloons as captions, as for example on this page:

https://img2.looper.com/img/gallery...-rain-on-my-chest-is-a-baptism-1501264611.jpg

... and the other examples here:

https://www.looper.com/77677/thats-whats-important-scene-batman-dark-knight-returns/

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Well, TDKR formatted its thought balloons as captions...

Yes, I know. But first person captions are very different from both thought balloons and omniscient captions, as I said.

 

[FormerLurker]

1) Thought balloons and captions falling out of vogue. This can be almost entirely attributed to the one-two punch of The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen in 1986. Neither one used thought balloons or omniscient captions, and since Frank Miller and Alan Moore were two of THE big creators of the 80s, that became the way to do comics. (Sound effects are also much rarer than they used to be.)

2) Writing for the trade. Trade paperback collections have become much more common in the last 20 years, so you'll find fewer pages devoted to recaps of the ongoing story. This makes multi-issue storylines read more smoothly in a collected format, but it locks out a lot of casual readers who might be lost if they didn't start with the first issue of a particular storyline.

3) "Decompressed" storytelling. This is a trend we've seen growing in the last 20 years, where less and less happens per issue and they go into more and more detail about small events. This approach was largely popularized by Brian Michael Bendis.

All of this is very true, though admittedly, 2) feeds on 3) like its life depends on it. Which it probably does. In another section, in another thread, you describe John Byrne's Pawns of War as a graphic novel. It's actually a trade, but one that was neither written for that format, nor has decompressed storytelling, and as such is a great example of how to do it right.

Speaking of John Byrne, several members of his forum chime in regularly about how they miss thought balloons and captions. So do I.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

All of this is very true, though admittedly, 2) feeds on 3) like its life depends on it. Which it probably does.

Well, I never said that those two things were unrelated.

In another section, in another thread, you describe John Byrne's Pawns of War as a graphic novel. It's actually a trade, but one that was neither written for that format, nor has decompressed storytelling, and as such is a great example of how to do it right.

Pawns of War tells a single interconnected story, so I'd say that it qualifies as a graphic novel, although admittedly the term applies to so many different styles of comics these days that it's become nearly meaningless.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Maybe you guys could start a thread on comic book writing in the appropriate forum, so those of us interested in The Making of Star Trek don't have to keep checking this thread and totally wasting our time.

 

[diankra]

Simply, no.
A) It would have to be expanded to cover season three properly.
B) It wasn't written that way. If it had been, the text would be different, working up to the images.

So a coffee table version would have to be A New Writer, based on Whitfield, to work properly.

 

[Maurice]

It doesn't have to include season 3. In fact, mostly the thing is about how the show was conceived and made, and the "making" part didn't change that much even in season 2.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I'd be resistant to updating its content. TMOST stands as a snapshot, a time capsule, that should be preserved as is. The book as such is part of Star Trek history now.

Look at what happened with the second edition of The Star Trek Compendium. It wasn't as good as the first, and its existence pushed the superior version off store shelves and gone. This was back when we shopped in stores that we drove to in a car. But still.

 

[plynch]

Ah . . . "stores."

 

[publiusr]

I miss them too— we just lost a sci fi bookstore in Chicago.

At least 3 of us bought our copies from book fairs...