Until 5 days ago, this thread had been dead for about a month. Yes, the topic did veer off onto something else when the comic book stuff came up, but that tends to happen when threads have been around for quite a while. How about if we respond to people's posts as we choose to, and if you want to get the thread back on topic you actually post something about the topic rather than complaining because we're not talking about what you wish we would talk about? Just a suggestion.
The State of Star Trek Literature
- Thread starter Sxottlan
- Start date
Until 5 days ago, this thread had been dead for about a month. Yes, the topic did veer off onto something else when the comic book stuff came up, but that tends to happen when threads have been around for quite a while. How about if we respond to people's posts as we choose to, and if you want to get the thread back on topic you actually post something about the topic rather than complaining because we're not talking about what you wish we would talk about? Just a suggestion.
We could quote some good writing from Star Trek comics, keep it more or less on topic. Here's more Peter David, from his final issue on DC's TOS comic, "Once a Hero" (spoilers):
Hard to look at redshirts the same way after reading that.
Hard to look at redshirts the same way after reading that.
I believe that "Once a Hero" is one of the finest Star Trek stories there is. That goes for TV, Movie, Novel or Comic.
The backcover copy really didn't grab my interest. I think if the guest alien species had been a pre-established group, like the Betazoids, I would have been interested in it as a first contact story to fill in some history.
Although I acknowledge from the backcover copy that the actions of the guest aliens would have been out of character for the Betazoids.
Why? There are many Trek Comics being published as books - it's all literature, it's all legitimate discussion.
For every person asking for a pre-existing guest race, someone else will ask for something new and original.
I'll play with one of my favorites from Sandman:
And:
While the above is a sample of Gaiman's excellent work, I'll also chime in on the topic of Alan Moore.
Moore's work is wonderfully literate, post-modern, and intertextual. He is the Thomas Pynchon of comics in his own way. Hell, he's just Alan Moore of comics, 'nuff said.
For those who think comics are just Bam! Poff! Pow!, pick up any volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentleman — if you can breeze through that in five minutes, you're not really reading it.
I think it's an exercise in futility to offer up counterexamples from actual comics, since Nerys Ghemor couldn't/wouldn't even answer me when I asked what comics led to such a negative opinion of the medium and yet has also shown no inclination to reconsider that opinion.
It's fairly amusing the way Nerys Ghemor has not commented since people have begun quoting from various comics, though.
For every person asking for a pre-existing guest race, someone else will ask for something new and original.
Well yeah. That's obvious. He asked me why I didn't buy it and that's my reason. Just because there are those who liked it as is doesn't mean I can't wish it had been something else.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
People have been quoting from high quality comics - and yes, they exist.
However, there are a lot of over the top, childish comics out there - and Nerys Ghemor referenced these as a comparison for 'New frontier'. Heroes made invincible by 'coolness' and the whims of the author, forced puns, over the top villains that nevertheless fall before the coolness of the heroes, etc.
No one ever claimed that there weren't over-the-top, childish comics. Anyone who's ever read an issue of, say, All-Star Batman and Robin ("I'm the goddamn Batman!") knows that.
But Nerys Ghemor literally tried to claim that those were the only kinds of comics, and that there are no comic books out there that are not "five minute fluff."
Nerys Ghemor has been proven quite wrong, and should acknowledge that.
Oh I totally and utterly agree, but when it comes to that particular poster making that particular comment, I personally think it is impressively hypocritical.
Nardpuncher
Rear Admiral
True.
And also shows a lack of perspective...thinking that someone has run away with their tail tucked over a comic book discussion.
Something I'd like to add--I'm not sure I'd say being able to read something relatively quickly is a negative trait. Comics are probably faster reads than a novelization of the same story because in a lot of ways they're more efficient. A page of a comic is likely to be worth several prose pages of description, giving details in a manner impossible for well-written prose to convey.
The bandwidth of a comic page is much higher in regards to visual information than a novel page, and is at least as high when it comes to character expression and subtle cues that would be difficult to pull off without obvious telegraphing in a novel. The dialogue process is also much more transparent in a comics. No "John saids" to get in the way. No "John opined, with a worried look on his face" that damage the flow of the conservation. So, yeah, I can get aboard with the idea a comic book takes less time to convey an equivalent idea than a novel. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's a good thing. Which is quicker to understand: a picture of a starship, or five hundred words of description? Which more fully places the image in the reader's mind? Which is more interesting to see?
(And yes, prose can do more than relate its appearance. It can tell you about its capabilities and crew and stuff like that, but 1)ordinarily if this info is important enough for one to give a crap, it should be drawn out via the story, not through bald exposition and 2)comics are capable of doing bald exposition just as well, if need be.)
Further, the mental images a reader gets from a novel, however good, are going to be based, nine parts of ten, on their own imagination--this is a neutral observation, and it's what some people really like about novels. But (good) comics are probably a better communication tool in the sense that less of the message is lost: the creators' ideas are capable of being more fully communicated as the creators imagined them.
(Good) comics are also better at controlling setting and flow, using much the same techniques that film has available to it. Imagine the parallel scenes in Watchmen, and try to write that as prose--I would bet good money that it would suck.
Now one thing prose does really excel at is describing the inner life. (Well, that, and it's cheaper and easier to write shit than to draw shit). I might say that comics don't do that quite as well. Comics have the benefit of being able to do multi-track first person narration with less confusion and literary gymnastics than a novel, but ultimately the medium might be said to fall short of prose's ability to fully flesh out individual characters.
One might notice I keep appending "good" to "comics." Well, duh. Bad comics are going to be at least as bad as bad novels or bad movies. Take the plot from Nemesis, and it is going to suck in any incarnation, whether that be film, comic, novel, epic poem, or interpretive dance (actually, I'd watch that).
And in Nerys' defense, if all she's ever read are Star Trek comics, then her viewpoint becomes a lot more understandable, because I know I've never read a good one (maybe Byrne's are good).
I will also accept the proposition that monthlies suck. That's a truism, and even when they don't suck outright they seldom provide a good value. The industry should have gone to an entirely-trade format about a decade ago, for the reason that monthlies are too expensive, as well as because the monthly format waters down concepts that are best left fallow unless someone has an actual good idea to use them in.
But those complaints miss the mark; the format is exactly that--and not a medium.
As a final note, dismissing a medium isn't the cardinal sin. I dismiss poetry for the most part because I don't like it. I just don't like most poetry; all media are not necessarily for all people. But best not to dismiss it with chauvinism--I'd never call a poem "fluff," because I understand there is art and work that are put into it, even if it isn't likely to be for me.
Then again, set it to some bitchin' guitar riffs, and I might even enjoy it.
Well it's got that prose stuff at the end of each chapter. That takes a while.
I actually agree with all the stuff you quoted as being awesome (yes, even the poem!
), but wonder a bit if it really represents the strength of comics. It represents the strength of Gaiman's words, but not his and Shawn McManus (iirc) and Marc Hempel's comics. It's like quoting a line from Pulp Fiction and saying that's why Quentin Tarantino is a good director...
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I actually agree with all the stuff you quoted as being awesome (yes, even the poem!
That's true. But Nerys Ghemor's specific (false) claim was that comic books were incapable of having good writing, and the way to debunk that particular claim is, naturally, to demonstrate the great writing that can be found in comics. Yes, comics are very much a visual medium, but that isn't incompatible with great writing. It's just a different style of writing.
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