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site posted:personally i fuckin hate those old editors note boxes Rare to see an opinion that you can say is 100% objectively wrong and terrible but here is one.
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Jun 29, 2018 04:53
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Okay tell me why they're good
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Jun 29, 2018 04:57
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site posted:personally i fuckin hate those old editors note boxes This is a bad opinion and you should feel bad about it
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Jun 29, 2018 05:02
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I'm enjoying watching this game of dogpile on site.
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Jun 29, 2018 05:06
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site posted:Okay tell me why they're good I mean pre-internet if you read, say, an issue of Captain America with Constrictor in it, and he piqued your interest, the best way of directing you to previous appearances of him would be the issue just telling you*. I remember as a kid picking up an X-Men comic and discovering that Wolverine had no claws-- if there hadn't been a little box letting me know where to look for more information about this revolting development I would have just been totally in the dark. I always read it as part of a fine balancing act between fluid storytelling, clarity, and playing in a complex shared universe. How do you clue new readers, or even just readers who don't keep up with every title, to what's going on outside of the specific issue in their hands without slowing the narrative to a crawl with non-stop exposition? Claremont is infamous for his pithy, epigrammatic descriptions of peoples' powers-- they're corny now but I'll never be able to forget the gist of what Cannonball and Psylocke do. Editor's notes were another option, and presumably a decent sales mechanism too, in that by their nature they pointed the audience towards more purchases. *I guess you could read Wizard or something, but like, why. You could also rely on word of mouth but that was iffy. I grew up with a kid who was convinced that Carnage was the vampire version of Spider-Man because a trading card said he was "blood-thirsty."
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Jun 29, 2018 05:09
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site posted:Okay tell me why they're good I dunno where to even start, it's like saying you hate those corny rear end intros Stan Lee used to do for the iron man and fantastic four cartoons.
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Jun 29, 2018 05:14
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Who was that -Ed guy anyway?
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Jun 29, 2018 05:16
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Archyduke posted:I mean pre-internet if you read, say, an issue of Captain America with Constrictor in it, and he piqued your interest, the best way of directing you to previous appearances of him would be the issue just telling you*. I remember as a kid picking up an X-Men comic and discovering that Wolverine had no claws-- if there hadn't been a little box letting me know where to look for more information about this revolting development I would have just been totally in the dark. I mean I'll grant they had their use back in the day, but nostalgia isnt a winning argument for me on why i should like them today esp since i have not been reading comics for decades
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Jun 29, 2018 05:19
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site posted:Okay tell me why they're good Even with the internet it's still much more convenient to find out from the actual story that the thing I'm reading is linked to something else. Sometimes it can be done naturally in dialog but other times it's just easier to put a tiny box in that says "See issue #N". It depends a lot on the style of the comic too.
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Jun 29, 2018 05:20
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I thought Vision was good where it had an issue full of flashbacks to his and Wanda's relationship, without any obtrusive boxes, and if you really had to get everything it was referencing, Tom let you know in the back. I think that was it. Just remembering. edit: I could definitely see taking away the crutch of an instant out-of-issue reference point to be a positive thing, but really, anyone who would use them as an easy crutch or shortcut should think harder about how to incorporate whatever they're trying to incorporate more naturally. Teenage Fansub fucked around with this message at 05:54 on Jun 29, 2018 |
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Jun 29, 2018 05:30
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site posted:Okay tell me why they're good Because the Internet has limitations, for one thing. Like, if I want to know about some story Doctor Octopus was in 20 years ago I can read through wiki articles and try to ferret out the details... or I can look at a little box that says "It happened in Amazing Spider-Man #162" and then just go look for that issue, you know? Unfortunately using the Internet to catch up on that kind of little story reference basically requires you - given the way the Comics Internet has decided to compartmentalize information - not just to look up a reference but to immerse yourself in the entirety of a fictional character's biography, and while that can be fun and all, you're not always in the mood. For another thing, it provides a sense of shared continuity and books co-existing with one another without actually requiring a bunch of effort on the part of the reader. If I see a little note saying "It happened in Amazing Spider-Man #162" then I know, just from looking at that box and nothing more, that this is a story that draws on past continuity that I might not be familiar with, and that helps me to feel like I'm reading an installment of a long, ongoing story even if - I'd argue especially if - I never get around to going back and looking at Amazing Spider-Man #162. Just by that little box's existence I know that this is a writer who'll reference past continuity, and presumably has affection for and knowledge of that continuity, and I know that there's an editor somewhere who cares enough to make sure I know that the writer isn't just pulling this story beat out of his rear end. Editor's boxes and footnotes are dumb if you're already a big comics nerd, but not everyone who reads comics is a giant nerd and I don't think it's a bad thing to throw those folks a proverbial bone. EDIT: I do like it when books supply the referential info in backmatter, like Teenage Fansub just mentioned; especially when it's books that are continuity porn like Busiek's Avengers Forever. If more books did that there'd be less need for footnotes, but not many do, more's the pity.
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Jun 29, 2018 05:38
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site posted:They cover up the art, (when in books) are generally used far too liberally, and the with advent of the internet are completely unnecessary comic book websites might be the worst websites on the entire planet
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Jun 29, 2018 06:49
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I like backmatter stuff tooDivineCoffeeBinge posted:For another thing, it provides a sense of shared continuity and books co-existing with one another without actually requiring a bunch of effort on the part of the reader. If I see a little note saying "It happened in Amazing Spider-Man #162" then I know, just from looking at that box and nothing more, that this is a story that draws on past continuity that I might not be familiar with, and that helps me to feel like I'm reading an installment of a long, ongoing story even if - I'd argue especially if - I never get around to going back and looking at Amazing Spider-Man #162. Just by that little box's existence I know that this is a writer who'll reference past continuity, and presumably has affection for and knowledge of that continuity, and I know that there's an editor somewhere who cares enough to make sure I know that the writer isn't just pulling this story beat out of his rear end. This had been the most convincing argument but I can't say I've ever actually felt this way myself. So personally I'd still rather they go away. And unfortunately, in Marvel's case in particular, with everything getting rebooted every 6-12 months it's probably becoming more and more irrelevant for those books
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Jun 29, 2018 07:28
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I liked some of the ones they'd do in Amazing Spider-Man. Peter would comment on a black out or strange weather, and you'd get a note to read X-Men or Thor, then right back to the story.
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Jun 29, 2018 07:43
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Open Marriage Night posted:I liked some of the ones they'd do in Amazing Spider-Man. Peter would comment on a black out or strange weather, and you'd get a note to read X-Men or Thor, then right back to the story. Oh yeah, I remember a super old Spider-Man where there's a random snowstorm for two panels and Spidey is all "huh, that was weird" and there's an editor's note telling you to read Journey Into Mystery.
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Jun 29, 2018 08:46
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Skwirl posted:Oh yeah, I remember a super old Spider-Man where there's a random snowstorm for two panels and Spidey is all "huh, that was weird" and there's an editor's note telling you to read Journey Into Mystery. That was because the casket of winters got opened.
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Jun 29, 2018 11:27
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* For more Marvel Information, Make a New Thread!
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Jun 29, 2018 14:17
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 01:13 |
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The idea behind the editor's notes is great. It's the execution that is lacking. I agree with site that they cover up the art. It's part of the reason why narration boxes went away, too. Put editors' notes in the margins, or signal in the text somehow that you should refer to the note elsewhere.
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Jun 29, 2018 14:17
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