The Butch Mapa Project

Sequential Smackdown

Something I read on a message board got me thinking...

I've been into pro wrestling for a few years now, and one thing that is central to the establishment of a particular performer is what is called a "push." A push is what happens when the creatie bigwigs decide they want to improve a particular character's standing within the hierarchy of the plot and in the eyes of the audience. This is accomplished by letting the character figure in prominent storylines, giving the character wins over others, and generally just marketing the wrestler more aggressively.

Note that I've been using the term "character" because I believe that the same thing can be done in comics.

What about pushing a character in the sense of establishing that character as a major force in that particular universe? Of course, all pushes come at the expense of another character (i.e. the "jobber.")

One of the best "jobs" ever was the thing Marvel did with Spidey and Firelord. Urban-level character whups the holy snot out of a cosmic baddie. Now, everybody references that when they want to make the point that Spidey's a badass.

Another pair of jobs happened with Doomsday and Bane. With what they did to Superman and Batman respectively, they were immediately established as tough characters, and immediately joined the ranks of great Superman/Batman rogues. ure, both haven't been very visible recently, but they're definitely part of the character maps of Supes and Bats-- and everyone knows how tough it is to churn out a character that'll stick to comics dogma (and appear in movies and cartoons and action figures etc).

An example of a "sustained" push would be what the Extreme guys did with Crypt (was that his
name?). He tore through the Extreme subsection of the Image universe, killing a few characters, I believe. Not sure how they resolved that though, since I didn't read any of the comics.Pushes like that would only work in the framework of a Universe, though. Imagine if Hero A started getting pushed, beating up some major baddies in a few books (say, New Avengers, House of M, and Daredevil)... meanwhile, you've got Villain B running amok in a few other books (say, the X-titles)-- maybe even killing a b-lister or something. Then you can have a culminating "feud" between them (you can have it in one book, even-- no need to go nuts), involving lotsa collateral damage. That'd be a good, long-term storyline, I think.

Of course, something like a push can only be REALLY effective if done within the confines of a "universe." The effectiveness of a push is magnified if that particular character is causing havoc in more than one title, simply because not everyone can do it. There's always at least one hero in each comic, going up against at least one villain. That's the norm (otherwise, there wouldn't be any conflict, right?) But by having someone affect multiple titles, you can show the readers just how big a deal it is.

posted by butch @ 7/30/2005 0 comments

Comics are sluts!

The comic form is a slut, she'll take it from anyone.

Been trying to wrap my head around this one for the past few weeks. Whenever I think of the comics form, I think of an odd combination of three media: music, film, and literature.

The relationship between comics and film is probably the most obvious, and one that any comics artist is probably well-aware of. Both are a series of images presented sequentially on a picture plane. The primary relationship of the two, I think, is one of composition-- how things are arranged across the picture plane to present the information to the viewer/reader. Both media borrow on rules and guidelines that have been developed over the history of cinemacraft-- continuity, camera angles, balance, etc. I won't go into it so much, because there're other (better written) resources available on-line about this topic.

Meanwhile, the relationship between music and comics is much more vague. In fact, I only know of two authors who admit to borrowing concepts from music and applying it to their sequential work: Warren Ellis and Grant Morrison. Both these gentlemen are quite mad, which could explain why they even try to marry these two media. Personally, I've always thought that the sequential nature of both music and comics is what allows for the influence of one into another. Any time you've got a sequence of ANYTHING, you're going to unavoidably form relationships between them. Patterns.

With comics, an artist's job is too manage these patterns through the use of contrast, panel manipulation, panel content, and even composition. A well-paced comic will establish a stable bass line, and then change rhythms as the plot progresses in accordance to the needs of the story. Alan Davis is actually pretty good at this-- he switches things up, making the actual events in the book more powerful as a result.

Finally, there's the literature influence, which is the most difficult to define, because its so... elemental in nature. Comics are books, that's why they're called comic books (duh). People don't ask you if you've "watched" the latest issue of Stray Bullets; they ask if you've read it.

There are two things that music and movies don't have that books do. One is the concept of pages, which is way of delineating space (as opposed to time). Another is the fact that reading implies giving the consumer an active role in the transfer of information.

With film and music, everything is spoonfed to the audience. But the comic form requires more of its reader. The reader is expected to fill in gaps in between panels (concept of closure), and the simple act of turning a page is an action that can be used to involve a reader more closely into the story. How many times have you turned a comic page and been surprised by a big, cool-looking splash page? That was by design, y'know!

Also, artists are trained to make things easier to read by controlling the movement of the human eye, which is similarly trained to move from left to right (vice-versa in some cultures) and up to down. We read art the same way we read letters-- they're both icons, anyway.

Note that the three influences aren't mutually exclusive. Comic creators borrow from all three quite freely. In fact, every comic page probably has an element of music, film, and literature on them. If you see a panel, that's cinema. Two panels, that's already rhythm. Words and pictures, that's literature.

In the end, its all about telling the story as best you can.

posted by butch @ 7/24/2005 1 comments