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And everyone who didn't see his Ted Talk saw the end of Lost which demonstrated the flaws with his gimmick anyway.
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Apr 15, 2024 06:08
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I don't think most webcomics are mystery boxes in the sense that they are deliberately raising answerless questions to get audiences hooked. I think what happens more often is that it's fun to come up with characters and settings and some cool moments for them in a vacuum and you figure you'll just come up with a plot later.
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Apr 15, 2024 06:11
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Runa posted:When people refer to "mystery box" writing it's usually a direct reference to a Ted Talk by JJ Abrams where he admitted that his technique for writing a successful show is to lure people in with promises of getting to see inside a metaphorical "mystery box" to get their attention and then keeping them engaged with promises of showing them what's in the box regardless of whether or not you actually thought about what you were going to put in there. It was his metaphor for writing in such a way as to string the audience along without necessarily having an actual story to tell. Huh! I didn't realize he explicitly said as much; I'd seen the term used about shows that have an overarching mystery that, on being resolved, ends the story; the wikipedia definition is... let's say more generous than that origin would deserve, haha.
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Apr 15, 2024 06:23
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the important thing about jj abrams ted talk about the mystery box is that he revealed the mystery box is a literal, physical object. an actual mystery box he bought at a magic store a decade before and never opened it because he liked the idea of not knowing what was inside it more than he would like the reveal. that's been the driving motivator for his entire career.
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Apr 15, 2024 06:26
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I don't disagree that some questions are better left unanswered (otherwise you get Star Wars Expanded Universe Syndrome where there's a very definite canon backstory for Han Solo's belt), but there are limits to this.
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Apr 15, 2024 06:29
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A lot of writers end up writing a story without much of an idea where it's going to go at the beginning, although if they're lucky they figure out a direction. That's not quite the same as the true JJAbrams mystery box where he hypes up the mystery and seeds a bunch of meaningless clues to really amp up engagement while hoping to god that he can get hired by a different gig before he has to come up with an idea of what to put in the box. Ideally you'd hope whatever writer you follow at some point either gets an idea of what they're going to do or keeps the story manageable. But a lot of webcomickers I think don't even know that they're going to write a story when they're starting out. Sometimes they end up on a path wildly careening from one big dramatic thing to another, constantly complicating the hypothetical narrative on their way to nowhere. Sluggy Freelance is the evergreen example, the original It's Walky had a similar path. I think College Roomies From Hell was another one? It's been a while. Simple gag comics that turn into cancerous lorecreeping monstrosities without ever really intending to. I think Latchkey Kingdom is a really nice example of keeping a narrative manageably-sized. Schlock Mercenary was decent at limiting itself until it got its sights set on what would eventually become the final big huge arc. It's nice to have story and narrative without spiraling wildly out of control. And then there's the rare webcomic with a clear plan of where it's going from the start, which there's plenty that start and burn out because it's hard work for little reward and plenty where the people themselves will change as they're writing so they'll abandon their ambition that way, but it's something special when somebody sees their big plan through to the end. I'm pretty sure Vattu had a plan from the start. Girl Genius is a weird one where it clearly had a plan for a long time and there's even documentation proving some of the long-term plans, and the creators are comic veterans who have done big stories before, but boy oh boy is the comic in no hurry at all to get to whatever conclusion was in the cards from the start.
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Apr 15, 2024 06:30
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Where does Dr. McNinja fall on this scale?
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Apr 15, 2024 06:38
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On the other hand JJ Abrams co-developed Fringe, although he wasn't really part of it after the initial development, and that show managed to pull off Mystery Box well.
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Apr 15, 2024 06:54
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Dr. McNinja is a miracle. Hastings just kept writing an extremely webcomic webcomic, but through luck and skill and dedication, it kept working and even getting better. And then the miracle was actually nailing the landing. I should get back to posting it in PYF
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Apr 15, 2024 06:54
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girl dick energy posted:Where does Dr. McNinja fall on this scale? I guess it was more manageable scale since it was isolated issues and then isolated arcs, kinda became a bit too big towards the end as things started to spiral and there were so many zany characters it was hard to keep track, but then it ended so it was fine. Maybe left a bit too many stray threads.
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Apr 15, 2024 07:10
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SlothfulCobra posted:Sluggy Freelance is the evergreen example, the original It's Walky had a similar path. I think College Roomies From Hell was another one? It's been a while. Simple gag comics that turn into cancerous lorecreeping monstrosities without ever really intending to. I checked up on College Roomies From Hell the other day: still going, Maritza posts a strip or two every couple of weeks (months?), apparently it is in its Final Arc... which I think is still freshman year, 1999? Anyway, while looking into that I learned that she'd started, written, and finished a comic called Power Nap, with art by someone called Bachan, throughout the 2010s, so I guess she just keeps doing CRFH out of interia and the probably handful of people who still pay her for it. I was just thinking how, early 2000s, that was one of THE big strips, right? I'm not hallucinating that? But of all the other webcomic dinosaurs still plodding along from before 2000 you hear almost nothing about that one.
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Apr 15, 2024 07:13
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Runa posted:When people refer to "mystery box" writing it's usually a direct reference to a Ted Talk by JJ Abrams where he admitted that his technique for writing a successful show is to lure people in with promises of getting to see inside a metaphorical "mystery box" to get their attention and then keeping them engaged with promises of showing them what's in the box regardless of whether or not you actually thought about what you were going to put in there. It was his metaphor for writing in such a way as to string the audience along without necessarily having an actual story to tell. You revealing this opened the mystery box to his movies for me and finding out that is what is inside is disappointing, which I guess is fitting. I imagine for the most part he will still get away with it because most people, myself included until now, just wouldn't know about this. I'm really tired though so hopefully I will just forget about this, and the mystery can go back in the box because yeah, it's more fun that way. I mean it's all just stuff that someone made up out of their head, not some "true" reveal in a story, but you hope if there's a reveal, there was some thought put into it and not just something slapped together at the last minute. Sometimes it's better not to know how the sausage is made.
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Apr 15, 2024 07:46
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I thought you made sausage by listening to people speculating about the mystery, picking the best explanation, and making it have been true all along? You get a coherent plot, viewers get to feel smart.
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Apr 15, 2024 07:53
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The Lone Badger posted:I thought you made sausage by listening to people speculating about the mystery, picking the best explanation, and making it have been true all along? You get a coherent plot, viewers get to feel smart. This requires you to be actually clever, rather than merely thinking you're clever, and also not unnecessarily adversarial towards your audience. So what I'm saying Eiichiro Oda probably does this with One Piece. If not the big picture stuff then sometimes for occasional callbacks to stuff he's forgotten but fans definitely didn't.
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Apr 15, 2024 12:46
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mycot posted:I don't disagree that some questions are better left unanswered (otherwise you get Star Wars Expanded Universe Syndrome where there's a very definite canon backstory for Han Solo's belt), but there are limits to this. You don't even need the EU for that. Solo went out of its way to explain everything, including Han calling Chewbacca "Chewie" because he thinks Chewbacca's name is too long.
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Apr 15, 2024 14:14
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Pulp Fiction had the best physical mystery box plot that was not the mystery box technique. Also, power nap was pretty good (especially at the beginning) except that it sort of devolved into incoherence... but that was oddly fitting, considering the themes.
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Apr 15, 2024 14:33
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GlyphGryph posted:Pulp Fiction had the best physical mystery box plot that was not the mystery box technique. Power Nap was good ideas and vibes but the actual plot was pretty meh. It did have an incredible punchline, though.
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Apr 15, 2024 14:45
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Power Nap was a fun quick read as I remember it. Not sure I’d have wanted to deal with it when being updated but as a complete product I dug it.
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Apr 15, 2024 14:53
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I feel like JJ's problem wasnt that he didnt write mysteries with a sollution in mind its that he dropped kayfabe and let everyone know thats how he opperates. You can write incredibly entertaining and gripping mysteries with zero idea what the solution is and with no intention of offering a satisfying conclusion because ultimately answering the mystery isnt the point of the story. David lynch is my go to guy because he'll simply refuse to elaborate in interviews and lays down so many puzzle pieces that he can come back 25 years later put a couple of them together and it feels like some grand plan has been completed. Somewhat relatedly im gunna go ahead and Recomend Kit Roebuck's Opplopolis right now. I hadnt heard of it, despite being a fan of 9 planets without intelligent life back in the day, until someone posted a link to his book kickstarter in another thread last year. Backed it on a whim without knowing much about the story at all and months kater (after a long missed email from kit asking me my adress details) i recieved an enormous hardback copy its a beautiful book and the comic was enthralling. Consistently imaginative and inventive, just enormously charming and funny all the way through. https://www.bohemiandrive.com/opplopolis
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Apr 15, 2024 15:13
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also known as the Fromsoft approach
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Apr 15, 2024 15:25
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Isn't FromSoft very clear on the fact that they do make up what the "solutions" are to the mysteries of their settings, and then just don't tell them to you?
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Apr 15, 2024 15:29
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Rand Brittain posted:Isn't FromSoft very clear on the fact that they do make up what the "solutions" are to the mysteries of their settings, and then just don't tell them to you?
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Apr 15, 2024 15:48
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I think another part is, like, not all mysteries have to be explained. sometimes a Twilight Zone episode ends with Rod Sterling going "Anyway, that was hosed up," and everyone moves on with their lives. However if you promise to tell people what your mystery is, and then keep not doing it, and then it turns out you were just stringing people along and making poo poo up, that's not great.
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Apr 15, 2024 15:59
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The trick to not have a solution for your mystery is to make the parts of the story that aren't solutions interesting. This is where JJ Abrams tends to fall down.
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Apr 15, 2024 16:37
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YggiDee posted:I think another part is, like, not all mysteries have to be explained. sometimes a Twilight Zone episode ends with Rod Sterling going "Anyway, that was hosed up," and everyone moves on with their lives. Yeah that rules and is super satisfying. Not everything has to be spelled out, and left thinking about a story after it is over is a mark of some good mysteries. The original Twilight Zone as a whole was great. YggiDee posted:However if you promise to tell people what your mystery is, and then keep not doing it, and then it turns out you were just stringing people along and making poo poo up, that's not great. But, yeah, agreed. Teasing a big reveal then going "here's some garbage we slapped together, or here's a reveal touched on so briefly it's supposed to make it more mysterious but it falls flat, or maybe we just won't explain anything as a ~spooky~ cop out because we never knew in the first place, don't spend any more time thinking about it because the writers sure didn't, story over, bye" is just a disappointment and cheapens the entire lead up.
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Apr 15, 2024 16:44
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Tenebrais posted:The trick to not have a solution for your mystery is to make the parts of the story that aren't solutions interesting. This is where JJ Abrams tends to fall down. I wish I could project this in lights on JJ's house, this is it exactly. It's not that he uses mystery boxes, it's that mystery boxes are the entire point of the story and everything hinges off of teases about whether he's going to open them Pulp Fiction is a useful counterexample because that wasn't even really a mystery box, it was just a Macguffin. It was motivation, something valuable, doesn't matter to the viewer, let's focus on the story here
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Apr 15, 2024 16:56
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Yeah JJ's problem isn't just that he broke kayfabe, it's that his plots were really powered by the promise of the box. I remember being frustrated by like season 3 of Lost because I could see the show kept introducing mysteries, letting them simmer for a bit, then shoving them into the background unresolved by introducing another mystery. I know that worked for some people until near the end, but I was pissed off and quit the show by season 3. In Pulp Fiction, it doesn't ultimately matter what's in the briefcase. David Lynch doesn't want to answer your questions in Twin Peaks, and show usually uses that sensation of not-knowing-something as part of the setting more than as a plot beat. Ditocoaf fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Apr 15, 2024 |
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Apr 15, 2024 17:07
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Fringe is a fun counterexample as mentioned, because while it got a lot of the early press as “JJ Abrams does the X-Files”, I don’t think he was overly involved with it after conception. In fact, part of the reason the show worked so well was because the showrunners realized they needed to take one of the overarching mystery box reveals (the parallel world framework) and pulled it forward a season and a half or so to give the show proper momentum and really let the storytelling roll.
Tortolia fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Apr 15, 2024 |
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Apr 15, 2024 17:16
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A related concept, that always comes to mind for me when talking about these sorts of things, is Stephen King's "sizzle/steak" metaphor for horror stories he wrote in Danse Macabre:quote:I can remember an official in the fledgling New York Mets organization worrying about the improbable crowds that gang of happy-go-lucky schmucks was drawing. “Sooner or later we’re going to have to sell these people some steak along with the sizzle,” was how this fellow expressed it. The same is true with horror. The reader will not feed forever on innuendo and vapors; sooner or later even the great H. P. Lovecraft had to produce whatever was lurking in the crypt or in the steeple. This isn't exactly the same metaphor as the mystery box, as like posted above Lynch has no problem never revealing it (until maybe much later), but imo that's a path that you'd better be as good as David Lynch to get away with. Most audiences, no matter how much they love the sizzle, still expect some steak to be there somewhere.
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Apr 15, 2024 17:21
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I always thought the first JJ Trek movie managed to be fun without the mystery box thing. BUT it also was one of the big initial perpetrators of the awful “GO GO GO GO GO” sprint everywhere pace of his subsequent big movies and that also carried over to the Discovery show. Turns out that sprinty pace is a lot less annoying when it’s one two hour long movie instead of twelve hour long tv episodes. Anyway webcomics suck
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Apr 15, 2024 18:46
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Twin peaks had an actual physical Mystery Box in season three that a guy was paid to sit and stare at in case anything happened in the box. And then when something did happen, he didn’t see it, and died. The lesson to be learned here is that David lynch hates JJ Abrams, and his favorite webcomic would be strong female protagonist
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Apr 15, 2024 18:49
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"IT'S ABOUT POWER, COOP. WHAT'S THE LINE BETWEEN RESPONSIBILITY AND TYRANNY."
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Apr 15, 2024 19:18
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Imagining Lynch as Gordon Cole loudly hollering “CLEVIN?”
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Apr 15, 2024 19:22
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Bismack Billabongo posted:Imagining Lynch as Gordon Cole loudly hollering “CLEVIN?” this post is criminal
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Apr 15, 2024 19:39
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I got good news! That gamer comic you like is going to come back into style!
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Apr 15, 2024 20:37
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David Lynch’s favorite webcomic would probably be DEMON lol
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Apr 15, 2024 20:58
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I mean if we look at the comics Lynch wrote himself, we can deduce his favorite webcomic would probably be Haus of Decline or something like that. Maybe Achewood.
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Apr 15, 2024 21:06
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Hey thread, I've had the memory of this webcomic sitting in the back of my head for ages and wondered if it rang a bell with anyone else. It was a simple black and white strip comic, sorta gag-a-day or slice-of-life, featuring a female hare and a male tortoise (I think? unsure there, but another different animal) as the two main characters. It was a pretty generic dynamic, the hare being sarcastic and the tortoise more earnest, and the gags orientated around that dynamic. After a point their relationship became a bit Helga-and-Arnold, with the hare acting mean but hiding an unrequited crush. I'm sure they had Hispanic names which made up the title. If I remember right, the comic started off its life as a strip in a college newspaper (maybe in the 1990s or early 2000s) and then moved online, and after uploading his backlog the artist continued to update very sporadically over the years. I read it online a while ago, probably at least 5 years at this point. And even then there was still the random occasional update. This has been killing me for ages but trying to google anything like the above has been pretty useless!
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Apr 16, 2024 21:23
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aquaero posted:Hey thread, I've had the memory of this webcomic sitting in the back of my head for ages and wondered if it rang a bell with anyone else. It was a simple black and white strip comic, sorta gag-a-day or slice-of-life, featuring a female hare and a male tortoise (I think? unsure there, but another different animal) as the two main characters. It was a pretty generic dynamic, the hare being sarcastic and the tortoise more earnest, and the gags orientated around that dynamic. After a point their relationship became a bit Helga-and-Arnold, with the hare acting mean but hiding an unrequited crush. I'm sure they had Hispanic names which made up the title. If I remember right, the comic started off its life as a strip in a college newspaper (maybe in the 1990s or early 2000s) and then moved online, and after uploading his backlog the artist continued to update very sporadically over the years. I think you're thinking of Cigarro & Cerveja. The turtle was the 3rd wheel character, the two leads were the female hare and a male goose, but everything else lines up.
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Apr 16, 2024 21:56
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the holy poopacy posted:I think you're thinking of Cigarro & Cerveja. The turtle was the 3rd wheel character, the two leads were the female hare and a male goose, but everything else lines up. Yesss, that's it! Thank you, I've been trying to find it for so long. I've got to give it a re-read.
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Apr 16, 2024 22:09
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