Comics--Past and Future 4

 Continuing this discussion, the last part of which is here. 

Let me be clear: I am not suggesting a complete return to the comic books of the 1950s and '60s. Even the kids of today would not accept that. But I am suggesting that a good look at what made those publications far more successful--both commercially and aesthetically--than today's comics is worth doing.

The first thing, I think, is denseness of story-telling. I know that I can pick up any mainstream superhero comic book published in the last decade and finish it in under 10 minutes, in many cases, probably in five minutes. But if I go back to a comic book published even 30 years ago, when the direct market was in its infancy, I could expect a 20-minute read at least. And I could expect,  even in an ongoing serial storyline, a substantive chunk of the plot to be included. I could close the book feeling that I had had a complete experience...not just a snippet.

There's a reason that Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons chose to use a nine-panel grid on nearly every page of Watchmen, to use just one example. They knew they had a massive story to tell, and they had to give themselves the pacing to tell it. There was no room for full-page "money shots"--every square inch of the page had to be given to the plot.

Now, I'm not saying every comic-book story needs to be that detailed, that dense. But it should give the reader at least a feeling of having seen the equivalent of television episode or a short story in prose...and not just the part that falls between the commercial breaks or what would fit on a page or two of prose.

And there's nothing wrong with telling a story that doesn't need to be continued from issue to issue for a year or more. In one sense, writing "short" is harder, I know. But if you insist that the reader must stick with you virtually forever to get a complete story, you're in the wrong business--go write for a TV soap opera.

More on this soon.