Reading comics layouts

Posted in Comics on January 25, 2012 by Cara Marie

When I was house-sitting last weekend I found a copy of ‘Drawing Words, Writing Pictures’, a textbook on creating comics by Jessica Abel and Matt Madden. So I sat down and started reading.

And I’d like to get myself a copy, I think, but there was one thing that had me scratching my head. Now, at the start of the book, the authors claim that the material is applicable whatever kind of comics you are making, wherever.

But. They present the following panel layout as being bad:

Two panels stacked on top of each other, with one other on the right, spanning them both.

I keep feeling I must be misremembering this – it’s such an inoffensive layout.

Which was quite confusing for me. In the example, they used, they even turn it into a joke about the apparent ambiguity of the layout. Only I didn’t get the joke until they explained it, because that’s a perfectly obvious layout.

And they can’t have read much manga, because it’s used all the time there.

Tezuka uses it:

Scan from Tezuka's Apollo's Song, where the dialogue clearly indicates you read down first, not across.

Scan from Osamu Tezuka’s Apollo's Song (flipped).

 Soryo uses it:

Again, you can tell from the dialogue you're meant to read down first.

Fuyumi Soryo’s Eternal Sabbath (unflipped).

 Yazawa uses it:

Ditto with Nana.

Ai Yazawa’s Nana (unflipped).

Every single book of manga I picked off my shelf used it at some point. And they all used it the same way.

It’s not an unusual layout, and it seems bizarre to claim there are no rules for reading-order for it.

Finding examples in English-language comics was quite a lot tougher, but I still found them:

An example from The Incredible Hercules

Reilly Brown’s The Incredible Hercules.

An example from Osborn: Evil Incarcerated

Emma Ríos’s Osborn – note that Ríos also has the speech bubble overlapping the gutter, to lead you in the right direction.

Again, the longer column is always read last. Country-specific conventions aside, it makes sense:

  • If you follow the gutter, you’ll run into a panel edge if you try and read across the page first – so you go down instead
  • You’re following a more natural path overall – top-down is pretty normal, back against your natural reading direction is not. (Which isn’t to say it’s never done– but there will be other clues.)

No wonder I prefer manga page layouts, if English-language comics supposedly don’t even have a rule for such a simple situation.

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The gift of friendship

Posted in Comics, Middle fiction, Superhero with tags , , , on January 23, 2012 by Cara Marie

After Leah has asked what it is, Loki says, 'A Yuletide fist!' and thups her in the arm.Apparently, I like friendships where both parties commit violence upon each other. I’m talking Loki and Leah from Journey into Mystery here, but there are others, like Cable and Deadpool, where it’s just a normal part of the relationship.

Loki tells Leah they’re going to be BFFs, sure, but he also insults her regularly. Not that she’s not happy to strike back. Or steal his milkshake.

Loki stumbles out of the cave with his new dog Thori, looking the worse for wear. Green flames, courtesy of Leah, trail out around him.I was briefly confused as to why Leah fire-blasting Loki (in issue 632) didn’t seem to me a bad thing for their friendship. Violence should be incompatible with friendship, right? Even when you are a god and can deal.

Except, no.

When we were teenagers, I gave my friend L a bag of plastic cutlery for his birthday (this wasn’t that weird a present for us). We then proceeded to throw knives and forks at each other, for quite a while. Even the forks can draw blood if you throw them hard enough, who knew?

(More recently, I had to suffer through him getting a Nerf gun. I may need to get my own so I can retaliate.)

We insult each other often, we argue all the time, but I also spend more time talking to him than probably anyone else except maybe my mother.

So it’s weirdly familiar, watching Leah and Loki interact. And it’s not something I had thought to miss from my fiction. But now I am getting it it is awesome. I hope to be reading their wacky BFF antics for a long time.

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Avengers Origins: Thor

Posted in Comics, Superhero with tags , , , , on January 9, 2012 by Cara Marie

Written by Kathryn Immonen, pencils by Al Barrionuevo

I know this series of one-shots is called ‘Avengers Origins’, but I was really hoping for Thor and Loki’s wacky teenage hi-jinks for this, not an Origin Story with a capital O. The sale material had led me to expect hi-jinks! So I was disappointed in that regard.

But then it had to add to the offense by just not being very good.

The structure is incoherent. At one point I was flicking back pages to make sure I hadn’t missed anything – quite a bit of the comic is about Thor (and Loki’s) relationship with Sif, and Sif being kidnapped is the fulcrum of Thor’s origin here. But we go from Thor intending to rescue Sif to ‘and then Thor ran around the nine realms killing things’ without actually seeing any details of the rescue, or the two interacting afterwards.

I felt sure I’d missed something, but no. Instead of going on to complete a story about Thor and Sif, the comic goes on to a speedy recap of Thor’s whole origin story (getting banished and so on). The pacing is all off, and instead of feeling like a whole, satisfying story, it feels like a mess.

The other thing that bothered me about this comic was Thor being sent to get treasures from the dwarves, because it takes a story I really like and then removes all the good bits. That is, the very motivation (Loki trying to cover his arse), the reason why Loki tries to stuff up the dwarves’ progress (in the comics, it’s to make Thor fail; in the mythology, it’s so he doesn’t have to pay up if the dwarves win the the bet), and the fantastic ending where Loki says he offered his head to the dwarves if they won, but he didn’t say anything about his neck, so the dwarves sew his lips shut instead and leave pissed off. Such a fitting punishment for the liesmith!

It takes those things away, all the character and the humour, and gives us something altogether less interesting. I know that the Marvel characters don’t always have much to do with the gods, but dammit, they shouldn’t be serving up such a bland retelling!

The only thing Immonen’s added to the story is a motivation for Loki’s shearing off Sif’s hair in the first place – it’s for a spell to make Sif fall in love with someone other than Thor (are we to assume Loki himself?) There’s no explanation for that act in the mythology (I personally subscribe to the ‘calling her an adulterer’ theory :D).

And I guess that illustrates the difference between mythology!Loki and comics!Loki. Mythology!Loki motivations are generally:

  1. Getting himself and/or the other gods out of trouble
  2. For the hell of it.

And comics!Loki’s motivations are generally:

  1. Villainy!
  2. Because he’s so jealous of Thor and everyone hates him.

Which has its appeals too, but in this instance it just means the story’s way less fun. (This is probably why I like Gillen’s kid!Loki so much: he seems to be drawing more on the mythological Loki.) And that on top of everything else wrong makes me wish I hadn’ t bothered with this issue.

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Failed scary movie night

Posted in Action/adventure, Movies, Science fiction with tags , on December 31, 2011 by Cara Marie

The theme of our latest movie night ended up being ‘107 minute long films’ – Cargo and Pathfinder.

Cargo is a German sci-fi movie, set after environmental devastation on earth means everyone is living in space stations – except for those lucky few who have the money to go to Rhea, a newly settled and terraformed planet. Our heroine is a doctor who’s taken a job on a cargo carrier – four years there, four years back – and who is trying to save the money to go live with her sister on Rhea.

The film starts off feeling more like a horror movie – and L thought the last act, where it turns out not to be, brought it down, but that was the part I liked best. The ‘things are not what they seem’ here is not a horror trope but a sci-fi one. Maybe not an especially original one, but it was still a pleasant surprise.

The shots of the ship in space were fabulous – the effects and the set were just generally really well done. The character interactions on the other hand seemed a bit off – maybe it’s a cultural thing but even little introvert me expects people to talk more! There are some scenes where certain people don’t say anything and it just makes no sense why not.

It’s a slow film, but held my attention far more than the comparatively action-packed Pathfinder.

Pathfinder is set during the attempted Viking settlement of the Americas. During an initial raid, a young boy who refuses to kill some of the village children is left behind to die; instead, he’s taken in and raised by the villagers.

Years later, the Vikings return, and I don’t really need to summarise this plot because I bet you know exactly what happens. Why did this movie need to exist? I don’t know. The only redeeming feature is that Karl Urban spends a lot of time shirtless. Okay, and there’s some nice scenery. The trees are very nice.

I’d thought this movie might be stupidly entertaining, but it didn’t really manage it. The action sequences weren’t even very good: difficult to follow, and the whole thing is so dark you can barely see what’s going on anyway. Pathfinder is no good even for mocking.

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Thor, Journey into Mystery, and Wolverine and the X-Men

Posted in Comics, Fantasy, Middle fiction, Superhero with tags , , , , , , , , , , on December 27, 2011 by Cara Marie

Thor: The World Eaters

Matt Fraction and Pasqual Ferry

This was rather underwhelming. If Asgard is now on earth, what is in Asgard’s place? I like the idea, and I can see what it was going for – but it didn’t have nearly the length to develop it. This is a seven-issue arc, and it really needs, oh, twice that. More time on the bit players and the exodus from the other realms. A greater sense of dread.

On the other hand, it does introduce kid!Loki, who is totally my fav.

Journey into Mystery c. #632

Kieron Gillen and various artists

I feel this is just getting into its stride. I’ve loved it from the start, but I feel like having to tie into Fear Itself – and having quite important character stuff appear offscreen, in The Mighty Thor – meant it didn’t sit together as well as it could.

But it seems to read smoother now, having found the right tone. And Gillen is happy to spend issues with characters other than Loki – Volstagg telling Thor’s death to his children I especially like (Gillen just writes awesome Volstagg in general).

This issue is a light one, though it is still replete with how much of an outsider Loki is. And his determined cheer in the face of that. He and Leah make a great team.

'Oh, such dainty words,' Leah says. 'I feel something move, deep within me.' She proceeds to knee Loki in the groin, saying 'Vomit or bile, I'd wager.'

From issue 625, pencils by Doug Braithwaite, colours by Ulises Arreola.

Okay, not always. I love how, when Loki first encounters Leah, he tries to charm her with flattery. After she tells him to shove it, he moves to insulting her delightedly.

'You are a wonderful woman, Leah,' Loki says, 'Weave your magic and, assuming survival, I'll commission statues in your honour. And I'll make sure the sculptor makes a flattering one, disguising that hideously distended chin.'

Issue 629, pencils by Whilce Portacio, inks by Allen Martinez, colours by Arif Prianto and Jessica Kholinne.

More recently he has decided they are to be BFFs. Which Leah is not so happy with. Being as she’s living in a ‘dirty great hole in the ground’. But also, how much do I love Loki’s priorities when he talks about outfitting it for her. All the important things, ‘rugs and bedding and food and books’. Anyway. I will be most excited to see this friendship resolve itself!

Artwise, it’s varied quite a bit … Whilce Portacio I don’t like, I don’t like the character’s faces or the scratchy inkwork that goes with it. It probably doesn’t help coming after Doug Braithwaite either, who I think is awesome.

The latest issue is Mitch Breitweiser, who I do like and would be happy to see stick around. Although he may just be for the one issue. His style reminds me of old children’s illustrations, which works really well for this Yuletide issue. Also just the characters look like themselves and the right age.

This is my favourite comic coming out at the moment, and I hope it sticks around a long time to come.

Wolverine and the X-Men

Jason Aaron and Chris Bachalo

I read the first two issues, but was not really pulled in. I find the art overly stylised and the layouts hard to follow. (I feel like I’m getting lazier when it comes to reading comics, by which I mean I expect the artists to do more of the work and actually think about how the eye is meant to move across the page, dammit.)

Reading a preview from issue four, I was sorry to read some of Idie’s dialogue, which just didn’t sound like the Idie I was reading in Generation Hope. Which makes me sad, because I liked Idie – I know a lot of people found her annoying – but it’s upsetting to see her moved into a new book, where she should have the chance to develop as a character (in a more positive environment) but instead she’s just changed into someone else. Someone easier. It’s like the writer read her dossier but didn’t look at her actual portrayal. So I don’t think I’ll bother keeping on with this.

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Avengers Origins: Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver

Posted in Comics, Superhero with tags , , , , , , on December 6, 2011 by Cara Marie

Written by Sean McKeever, art by Mirco Perfederici, colours by Javier Tartaglia and Gerry Henderson

I picked this up mostly because I really like Scarlet Witch. For some fairly shallow reasons, admittedly. It’s not that I’ve read so much with her in it, but anyone who didn’t listen when their mother told them not to wear red and pink together is alright by me.

I’m fond of Quicksilver for more solid reasons. So I felt sad reading this, because he’s so young. He’s still earnest and right-minded. And as I’ve recently read Silent War, it was especially bittersweet to see him like that. (Silent War is an amazing comic – the artwork and especially the colours are stunning, but man, would I like it not to be canon. Not that Quicksilver hasn’t turned his life around since then, but it is painful.)

This was a satisfying story – not stand-out, but hey, at least it was optimistic. I’m not sure how long a time period it’s meant to be set over – it starts shortly before Magneto finds them, and ends with them joining the Avengers. But their time in the Brotherhood of Mutants is very skimmed over – enough to see, yes, Wanda has formed a relationship with Eric – strong enough that she calls him that, not Magneto – that she is willing to believe in him. But Pietro is discontented, questioning. Suspicious of Magneto’s motives around his sister. (Well, suspicious of everyone’s motives around his sister, not unjustifiably.)

(I wonder, when Pietro tells Wanda to put some clothes on, shall I take that as a reference to the X-Men: First Class movie? Because it’s not that he’s denying her pride in her mutanthood, it’s that no brother wants to see his sister naked. Ultimates notwithstanding.)

Despite Wanda’s name being first in the title, this is more Pietro’s story, told from his point of view. Wanda we only see through other people’s eyes, Pietro’s, or other men’s. Pietro we see through his own eyes (even literally, looking in a mirror). So I don’t really know Wanda any better at the end of this; it’s Pietro whose changes are most evident.

Well, and the changes in the whole Marvel universe. In this story, we see Pietro’s line in the sand come when Magneto expects him to kill. And there’s the sense of, gosh, what innocent days those were!

Now even the good guys can’t agree that children shouldn’t have to murder.

I think Wanda and Pietro have the right idea at the end of this. Going out and being in the world and of the world, like the rest of humanity.

Too bad for the present day status quo.

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My favourite game, again

Posted in Action/adventure, Fantasy, Games with tags on December 4, 2011 by Cara Marie

The last few weeks have basically been work work work, but the site I’ve been working on went live yesterday – hooray! – so the stress is of and I have energy to do things other than blob in the evenings.

One thing I like to do to blob is play computer games. This probably isn’t good for me, because when you’ve been staring at a screen all day, your eyes don’t thank you for staring at a screen at night as well. But it’s what I do.

I started playing Skyrim, but my inability to walk in a straight line sent me quickly back to Dragon Age 2. For the third time – this is a new record for me and RPGs! So most of it’s very familiar, but there are still new things.

For one, I finally know why people were always talking about Anders’ Manifesto! I somehow never came across it in my earlier games – and I did look for it. Obviously, when you are unambiguously pro-mage, Anders doesn’t feel the need to leave it lying around.

Which isn’t to say that I’m not pro-mage in this run-through. I’m just trying to play a character who’s a bit more skeptical. It’s difficult. I would like to have a run where I side with the Templars, but I don’t know if I’ll manage it. I’ve read people saying they found it hard to understand how anyone could side with the mages at the end, after all that’s happened, but my brain can’t hook into that perspective. Wanting to tell them to screw themselves, sure. Helping the Templars slaughter them for a crime they didn’t commit – and which I can’t necessarily even condemn – no way.

But I feel I should try it at least once. I’ve even metagamed it so Bethany would be off with the Grey Wardens, because siding with the Templars when she’s in the Circle would be too much. (Although from her character’s perspective, seems like she’d be better off there, or would be, if Kirkwall weren’t so messed up.)

I was a bit worried heading into the Deep Roads with two mages and two archers was a bad idea – it was the only way I’d get the result I wanted – but turns out it was an awesome idea. Tank? I don’t need no tank. The more mages, the better.

Basically, roleplaying a pro-Templar character is hard and I just fail at it. But asides from that, I’m having fun! And that’s all I’ve had energy for, working on a giant site migration. Hopefully my pastimes will be more diverse again now.

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A moment from Generation Hope #11

Posted in Comics, Superhero, Young adult with tags , , on November 2, 2011 by Cara Marie

Laurie says to Hope, 'Yeah? And Idie's fourteen. Think what she's already done. Forget how he looks--Gabriel's sixteen. Sixteen!'

I kind of have to wonder how much Hope’s actually told the Lights about her life. Because I don’t think Laurie would be telling Hope how young their teammates were if she realised what Hope was doing when she was even younger.

I’m not entirely sure how old Hope’s meant to be at the moment – I want to say seventeen. But she’s not as old as she looks either. She spent two years in cryosleep! Went through puberty in cryosleep!

So she’s essentially fifteen. Laurie doesn’t realise, and it’s easy to forget, but Hope’s still a child herself.

(Idie has been aged up since her first appearance, where she was twelve. Maybe just as well. Laurie’s gone the other way and is eighteen when she was nineteen. Oh, comics.)

So Hope can’t be that sympathetic towards Idie, because Hope’s been fighting since she was four years old. Four years old and she knows the signal to set off her father’s booby-traps.

Laurie says, “We are children. We’re not soldiers.”

Hope says, “You’re eighteen, Laurie. You’re old enough to be a soldier. If you want to be.”

Hope’s never had the choice. And I find it quite telling that when Hope first met Idie, when Idie sets fire to the men who had them surrounded, she tells her, “My dad would’ve loved you.”

Hope has a lot more in common with Idie, who is one of the crux points of Schism, than she does with Laurie. (And I guess that makes Cyclops a lot more like his son than either of them would like to think.)

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Sorry, Runaways

Posted in Comics, Superhero, Young adult with tags , , , , on October 30, 2011 by Cara Marie

I feel extra sorry for Runaways now, because it turns out it is the only Marvel comic about teenage superheroes that I don’t adore. I have recently read through Young Avengers and really enjoyed it

There are a couple of crossovers with Runaways, thus my thinking about it – I prefer the solo arcs. On the other hand, the Civil War crossover did give me Tommy, who is meant to be the bad boy of the group, keeping Molly entertained, and it is pretty much the cutest thing ever.

Tommy seems like he should think of himself as too cool for the Avengers, but no.. He describes the other Young Avengers as being ‘these brilliant, lovely guys’, and it’s charming. He does, genuinely, like and respect them, and is willing to play within the rules for their sake.

Kate is my favourite though. She basically strong-arms her way into the group, despite having no fancy powers; she stares down Captain America and tells him he’s wrong. (Why couldn’t she be in the Avengers movie instead of the original Hawkeye? Why couldn’t she just be in everything?)

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Spider-Girl: Family Values

Posted in Comics, Superhero, Young adult with tags , on October 26, 2011 by Cara Marie

This made me cry. I am really impressed with what of Paul Tobin’s I’ve been reading lately. I hope he writes lots more teenage supergirl comics.

I sort of got snuck into Spider-Girl. First I read her in Ms Marvel. Then she’s in stuff with Rikki Barnes, whom I was hoping for more of when I got Avengers Academy: Death Game. No such luck, but I got more Anya. And turns out she’s really grown on me.

For most of what I’ve read her in, Anya has no powers. So she makes up for it by using her brain. (Also by being really fit and generally awesome.) Spider-Man might have his spidey-skills, but Anya’s quick thinking means she’s more than capable of holding her own when they team up. And they have a nice friendship too (for, you know, people in masks).

I like her relationship with Sue Storm, too. (I’m a little bit scared at how fond I’m becoming of Sue. Damn her mentoring of teenage girl superheroes! I’m so determined to always be too cool for the Fantastic Four, but she may be winning me over.)

So much of Spider-Girl isn’t about crime-fighting, and I love it for that. It’s about Anya dealing with her grief, and about her relationships with others. Her friend sharing with her the story of how her mother died. Getting a roommate. The small conflicts that makes, where people offer to help her paint, but that was something she and her dad were going to do together. It’s a world where ordinary people matter too, and are as deserving of story time.

(Okay, I would’ve liked more Rikki. I love Rikki, and I love the way they bff it up in Young Allies, I’ll take all the bffery please. Too bad she’s not around any more ;_;)

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