Agents of Shield - Season 4
- Thread starter MarsWeeps
- Start date
I don't think SHIELD ever took applicants. They probably approached and recruited the people they wanted directly.
That said, it would make sense that they'd try getting back some agents that Coulson either missed or chose not to approach for whatever reason. Which reminds me, have they ever said why he didn't recruit Sharon Carter after the fall? I mean other than "because they wanted her to appear in the movies."
That said, it would make sense that they'd try getting back some agents that Coulson either missed or chose not to approach for whatever reason. Which reminds me, have they ever said why he didn't recruit Sharon Carter after the fall? I mean other than "because they wanted her to appear in the movies."
What makes you think he didn't try? She got burned so badly by the fall of the old SHIELD, maybe she just didn't want anything to do with it anymore. Also, considering she immediately joined the CIA, maybe being official in every sense was important to her. Sharon is one agent I could absolutely see saying no when Coulson comes calling.
Could be, but that doesn't sound familiar. But I'm sure there have been end-times books that I haven't read. That concept got old quickly.
That sounds reasonable. I used that idea for one of my characters, too (except she was more of a superhero type character).
No more thought balloons in favor of first-person narration? That's kind of awkward. First-person narration raises a few questions (like who they narrating to-- a diary, a conversation with pals over beer, a documentary interview in their old age?) and really isn't appropriate for some characters.
It's amazing how much damage those two great books caused.
Whereas the real strength of the sequential art form is its synthesis of both. It's a shame if they've abandoned their literary side.
This explains why I find most modern comics so incoherent.
That's a funny idea, but it's not true. Werewolf By Night used first-person narration, and I think there were others. Tales of the Zombie used second-person narration, as did Skull The Slayer, and probably others. Plus the books that used it occasionally for effect (Gerber's last issue of Man-Thing springs to mind).
They could have Thor go on the air and say, "We do seek out new SHIELD agents."
This explains why I find most modern comics so incoherent.
Yeah, the drawback of that approach is that the ability of the book to effectively tell it's story is dependent on the talents of the artist. It's one thing to be able to pencil, ink or colour a visually pleasing panel, but to also tell a coherent story is quite another. This is why the most successful are the ones that draw from cinematic disciplines since that's a field that has learned how to compose a frame and plot out a narrative in a series of still images.
I don't mean to suggest that comics and movies are basically the same (far from it) just that there's a fair amount of overlap in the respective art forms. At least where it comes to storytelling.
When I did a brief stint as an amateur comic book colourist/letterer, I made a point to study how movies use lighting and colour to draw the eye and tried to simulate that as much as possible. It came in handy when the artist presented me with a series of small action heavy panels and I needed to make sure the readers would be able to follow what was happening.
Multiple quasi-military bases, including the Triskelion, once upon a time. Space assets. Helicarriers and a not-so-small air arm...no. They did recruiting on a largish scale. Maybe USDoD funnelled a lot of people into SHIELD who might have otherwise mustered out, but they had to do recruiting.
And now they'll have to do so again.
This is exactly it. In comics, the artist has to be as much of a storyteller as the writer. And while there is that similarity to cinema, sequential art is really unique and has its own potential-- I think everyone who wants to be a professional comic artist needs to study guys like Will Eisner, who really get the medium.
I always thought the first-person narration was a weird choice for Wolverine. The guy never talked to anyone about anything. Who is he narrating to? The second person would have been perfect for that character.
Scott McCloud, of Understanding Comics fame, wrote a brief but interesting bit about the decline of thought bubbles in favor of captions: http://scottmccloud.com/2010/03/22/the-demise-of-the-lowly-thought-balloon/
McCloud said:
And that article is a reply to an earlier article by Joe McCullough, but the link to it is broken. I did a little searching and managed to track the original piece down: http://comicscomicsmag.com/?p=1365
How have ratings been this season? Are more viewers returning to check out the Ghost Rider angle this season that might've left in prior seasons? Also, if so, do we feel the 3 week break will do a bit of harm?
I think they're down overall, but up for the 10:00 time slot.
Which is kind of a silly way to look at it when you remember that prose fiction delves deeply into the "private thoughts" of characters-- at least good prose fiction does. And, again, sequential art is a synthesis of words and pictures and should be using the tools of each to its best advantage. Thought balloons are far more appropriate for the medium because they have greater immediacy. I think the real issue is that thought balloons are unique to comics and strongly associated with comics, and, as subsequent generations of superhero fans and creators have become increasingly embarrassed with the genre, there have been ill-advised attempts to make comics look less like comics. This has resulted in all kinds of negative side effects, from the awkwardness with costumes to the naive attempts at maturity-- and, apparently, to treating word balloons like a relic. I hope they at least got a gold watch.
Which is kind of a silly way to look at it when you remember that prose fiction delves deeply into the "private thoughts" of characters-- at least good prose fiction does. And, again, sequential art is a synthesis of words and pictures and should be using the tools of each to its best advantage. Thought balloons are far more appropriate for the medium because they have greater immediacy. I think the real issue is that thought balloons are unique to comics and strongly associated with comics, and, as subsequent generations of superhero fans and creators have become increasingly embarrassed with the genre, there have been ill-advised attempts to make comics look less like comics. This has resulted in all kinds of negative side effects, from the awkwardness with costumes to the naive attempts at maturity-- and, apparently, to treating word balloons like a relic. I hope they at least got a gold watch.
Well, the point isn't really that private thoughts are hokey, it's that slapping a giant flashing sign on them makes them feel less private and therefore less real. And the same holds true in prose, which is why most authors will work hard to show you a characters thoughts in a more natural way rather than just writing a sentence and adding 'he thought' at the end.
I would also add that most narration styles are much more visually appealling, whereas thought bubbles (needing always to be directly attached to the character) literally get in the way of the best part of a comic book (the art). And that it feels, at least to me, like a somewhat annoying inconsistency in presentation.
When it comes to fiction, we're used to seeing things with our own eyes or hearing about them from a narrator. Eliminating the narrator for some things which I shouldn't be able to see, but not for others, and then directly showing me the thougts of some characters like I have the power to just look inside their mind, but leaving others blank, is dischordant and really hangs a lamp on the contrived nature of the whole thing.
I dunno... I don't think the perceived hokiness of thought balloons is a result of the device itself so much as a result of the florid and stilted writing style that comic books have often used over the decades. But that's as great a problem with the spoken dialogue as with the internal monologues. In fact, I've always been annoyed by comics that had their characters speaking their internal monologues out loud when they were alone, or spouting four paragraphs of spoken dialogue in the middle of a single leap or kick. There have been many cases where I wished a comic-book writer had put the lines in a thought balloon instead of a speech balloon.
They don't get in the way any more than speech balloons do. Are you suggesting spoken dialogue should be relegated to captions too? And don't text boxes get in the way of the art as well? (Also, not everyone would agree that the art is the best part. I'm generally more interested in the writing myself.)
I don't see how that's any different from reading prose fiction. In drama, sure, on stage or screen, you're generally limited to externals. But when it comes to prose fiction, we're used to seeing things through a character's eyes and experiencing their thoughts and internal monologue throughout the text. I like comics to express characters' thoughts because it feels more like prose writing that way. Heck, sometimes I regret that TV and movies rarely use voiceovers of characters' inner thoughts anymore. Those have fallen out of favor in the same way thought balloons have.
I won't disagree with that particular complaint, but I don't see it as much of a defense of thought bubbles.
They both get in the way, but adding them up together is a significantly bigger problem than just having speech balloons (unless writers just use speech balloons as if they were thought bubbles, as you say, which is a different type of stupid). The text boxes are usually placed outside the art, often along the edges or between panels, and don't have anywhere near as much empty space in them, so I vastly prefer that style.
I'll agree to disagree about what the best part is.
It's the disconnect that bothers me. If there's a narrator, there's a narrator. You can change that narrator sometimes, but to just randomly jump from one characters thoughts to another for no apparent reason (other than that you want the audience to have that information) just feels wrong.
The reason seems quite apparent to me. In prose, you can convey a character's internal monologue with an italic passage, no differently than how you'd render their spoken dialogue inside quotes -- although modern prose convention discourages getting into more than one person's head per scene. On stage or screen, actors can convey a lot about their inner thoughts through expression and vocal intonation. But a comics panel is just one static moment. A good artist can convey a character's emotions or thoughts at that single moment fairly well, but it depends on the artist, and it may not be enough to convey a more complex thought process.
I just don't see the sense in completely removing a tool from the kit. Thought balloons evolved in the first place because they were useful.
I'd also add that, generally speaking, even a third person omniscient narrator tends to only go into the head of the protaganist, not everyone.
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