Bonus
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Continuity Doesn’t Mean Characters Can’t Be Transformed
In a previous comment on continuity, we cited a commenter who said that major characters have sometimes changed to the point of being unrecognizable. On this subject, Scott VanderPloeg said, “Batman can be a dark and gritty character, but can also be fun and light” (“What Happened? www.comicbookdaily.com, January 11, 2012). This phenomenon may be due to progressive intrusion of social trends into the storylines. However, what’s more destabilizing is a sudden personality reversal, which is most often due to a new writing team.
Many have said that continuity doesn’t stem from the story itself but from the writing team. Graeme McMillan highlighted that “Better continuity developing through the line” (“Is Continuity Really a Draw for Superhero Universes?” www.newsarama.com, July 26, 2012). And in an interview, Ed Brubaker confided that he was nostalgic for the time when a writer and illustrator could collaborate on dozens of issues and be free to develop more textured worlds (“CR Sunday Interview: Ed Brubaker,” www.comicsreporter.com, June 24, 2012).
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Continuity as a Theoretical Narrative Concept
In our Axioms, we’ve already talked about the desire to create temporal continuity in order to have a narrative structure that supports the credibility of our stories. The “New 52” reboot of DC comic series gave rise to some interesting thoughts in the blogosphere.
Graeme McMillan had this to say: “I really like the idea of continuity—that ongoing, collective narrative that can inform storytelling […] that ongoing, collective historical narrative that can inform storytelling” (“How Important is Continuity to You? www.newsarama.com, June 21, 2012).
On the same topic, Anthony Falcone clarified that “He [Kurt Busiek] also pointed out that even though Marvel has not had an official relaunch they basically are on their fourth era of comic books. Indeed for anyone only familiar with 1960s Marvel Universe many of the characters would be unrecognizable compared to their decade-of-love counterparts.” He tends to believe that a consistent story cycle would last about 20 years. Beyond that, the stories lose a great deal of plausibility.
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Not Losing Sight of the Illustrators
Anthony Falcone bemoaned the fact that the rise of the writers seemed to be occurring at the expense of the illustrators (“Artists and Writers,” www.comicbookdaily.com, June 5, 2012). We agree. Comic-book writers don’t get far without good illustrators to translate the moods they want to create into the stories. Daniel Champion shines a light on a very simple truth about comic-book writing: “Use words AND picture to make a different statement, don’t use both to cover the same ground” (“Writing for Comics,” www.comicbookdaily.com, July 18, 2102). Matt Fraction also says that “Comics are about that interplay, comics need that interplay to truly become more than the sum of its part” (Jeffery Klaehn, “Matt Fraction Interview,” jefferyklaehn.blogspot.ca, October 19, 2011).
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Englehart Again and Always
In analyzing Volumes 4 and 5 of the Essential Avengers, one critic wrote, “in the big category, you get to watch the creators—particularly [Steve] Englehart—work out how modern comics were to be written, both the way that events took place in subplots that built to the next major crisis with one or two stories in between them…” (“CR Review: Essential Avengers, Vols. 4-5,” www.comicsreporter.com, June 4, 2012). We’ve mentioned our admiration for Englehart’s work in the past. We feel his stories are always progressing and not mired in profound psychological reflection or existential doubt.
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Story Credibility
In one of our past comments, we wondered what makes a story entertaining. The characters are definitely a key component. Mandy Newell looks at what makes a character a good one. Quoting Lawrence Block, she identifies that a great character is three things: plausible, sympathetic and original (“Character,” www.comicmix.com, March 12, 2012). Newell then looks more closely at the idea of characters being sympathetic. But we want to spend some time on the idea of plausibility—and we much prefer the term “credibility.”
On this idea, we cite Jozef Siroka’s analysis of the film Warrior, where he says that “Like Spike Lee, O’Connor never uses the social themes as a facile way to punctuation emotion or to make populist claims. Instead his message is structured around credible, nuanced and likeable characters facing the day-to-day problems most of us can relate to [translation]” (« Warrior: noble retour à l’état primitif », www.lapresse.com , January 31, 2012).
But some might reply that battling monsters, robots and bloodthirsty killers is nothing like most people’s day-to-day problems. And that’s exactly why we prefer the term “credible” to “plausible.” Credibility requires the reader to accept the conventions of the universe being explored. The Lord of the Rings is not plausible, but the consistency of Tolkien’s world makes it credible, and the reader can connect with the characters through their emotions.
