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Underground > Comic Books >

What do you lot like about comics?

All Acting Regiment

20:18 / 11.07.03

What is it that makes you, me, my cat and various other people like the comics so much? Does anyone have any big ideas on the subject? Here goes mine:

1)Drawn people hitting eachother are better than real people hitting me.

2)Comics give the impression of being young and subversive. The hormones in me dictate that I too must be young and subversive.

Okay so they're not very good so go on let's hear yours.

22:17 / 11.07.03

its something instinctive and wordless that you can't describe until you read another comic that makes you go 'wow - that's why i read comics'

23:09 / 11.07.03

the definite "wow" factor.
the infinite variety.
the art. the fact i look at a comic and think "fuck me someone drew this"
the fact they aren't as boring as novels
the fact it is dying off and a nishe market yet millions go see spiderman, and nearly all the blockbusters nowadays are based on comics .....
the trades look pretty on my shelves
the fact it fulfills my obsesive collecting disorder :P
the fact that "previews" lets you see in to the future hehehe
the fact that 99% of comic shops are dark little hovels which you feel a part of but also embarrased of (like your family)

ok thats abou it =)

Mister Six, whom all the girls

14:39 / 12.07.03

The fact that they create a very unique experience that resonates and can 'color' the way that you look at the world around you.

The way that the images and text work together in a way that is similar to but not cartoon or movie, but something very different.

The way that there are an infinite number of ways to use the medium that are being dreamed up every day.

The fact that I can read an Eddie Campbell book and a Geoff Johns book and get drastically different feels, or look at an Alan Davis panel and a Tony Millionaire panel... wondering why I do that to myself... and they are all still comic books.

I also enjoy their 'time capsule'-like power. When I read the 30's and 60's comics they seem to encapsulate an era perfectly, something I wish comics today did more... and 90's comics did less.

The fact that comics reach people all over the planet in a manner that no other medium can, creating a mythology and a landcsape of words and pictures that is unique and engaging (and apparently not easy to enjoy) and it continues to do so.

15:54 / 12.07.03

they make you instantaneously more attractive towards the opposite sex.

All Acting Regiment

20:07 / 12.07.03

Quote:they make you instantaneously more attractive towards the opposite sex.

Especcialy if the opposite sex in question likes eating/nesting in paper. And is a gerbil. Or, pace, pace, MENTAL.

22:57 / 12.07.03

It's drawn art that is also a story!
The pictures move and they freeze when you want them to!!!
It's a novel that you can stop reading in the middle and still be enjoying it (not only in your head)!!!!!!!!!!

03:10 / 13.07.03

I like the ways comics can portray quiet and stillness.

05:01 / 13.07.03

comics can be a kind of window into a paralleluniverse. imagine a place where people have superpowers. i have a theory that deals with this actually. it's basically stating that comic book creators(and anyone else dealing in fiction) have a window in their brain to another universe. thats how theyre able to create all this crazy shite.their brains are attuned to recieve this transmission from another place. another reality. thats creativity. theyre not making it up as they go along. theyre simply recievers for another reality. and they just tell us that realities stories. anyone have any opinions or anything to add to this to this theory? if so tell me.

05:37 / 13.07.03

Reading is primarily a left brain function, interpreting pictures a right brain one so reading comics must get more of your noggin buzzing at once. The text/image integration and that you control the speed makes this much more fun than watching subtitled anime.

Im probably mostly attracted because the inexpensive production costs/time makes it such an auteur friendly medium for visual narrative.
(Almost) direct communication from cartoonist drawing hand to your eyes. Zap! Bang! Pow!

Poke it with a stick

13:45 / 13.07.03

Grant Morisson said a while back, when he was talking at the GFT last year, that the CIA had discovered the best way of communicating information easily and quickly was to combine images with text - i.e. comics.
Either that, or brainwash the people...
Yeah, anyway - comics are the crack-cocaine of information distribution media.

16:24 / 13.07.03

There's something about the way when you're concentrating on one semiotic tool (text) another one sneaks up and ambushes your subconscious (art) (or vice versa).

06:07 / 14.07.03

if you think about it, comics are the oldest form of information exchange that wasn't speech. that's a thought.....anyone know if comics(pictographs, drawings, graphical storytelling) predate language?

07:02 / 14.07.03

They would certainly have to predate writing, since pictures are what words are made out of, you have petroglyphs then heiroglyphs, then cuneiform, then actual letters

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:17 / 14.07.03

I like the fact that despite all the annoying stuff, and all the annoying people citing annoying stuff as positive aspects, they keep me coming back for more.