Phrase of the Moment:
¤ Phrase: "Your little hopes and dreams."
¤ Usage: "Poor fellow, his little hopes and dreams have all be smashed."
¤ Origin: Quipped by a whore, or pre-op transgender man, or a sociopath, or some other lowlife who was engaged in a vicious verbal battle with another lowlife guest on the Jerry Springer show
¤ Notes: While the Jerry Springer show is generally pretty lacking in opportunities for intellectual improvement, you do tend to hear some funny jokes, of the personal insult type.  This was one of the best.  One loser was arguing with another loser, and when one said something about how she'd loved her husband, whom the other lowlife had stolen away, lowlife #1 replied, "Bitch, I don't care about your little hopes and dreams!"

You'll find it applicable to almost every situation in life.  It's the "little" that really makes it work, since that just so perfectly and cruelly diminishes whatever claim to importance the other person might previously have had. -- February 20, 2004

aster Monday, the 12th. Got your taxes done yet, America?

Yeah, I hate me for mentioning it too.

Anyway, the weekend was relatively uneventful. I had no idea it was Easter until the day before, when Malaya mentioned that she was going to go spend some time with her mom. I asked why, and she said for the holiday. And I was like, "What holiday?"  I guess I sort of knew it was coming up, I mean I've been seeing pastel M&Ms and chocolate eggs and bunnies in the stores for a month, but since I've never celebrated the day with anything more than eating too much candy (and not even that for a couple of decades) and looking for plastic eggs, it doesn't quite occupy a position in the upper tier of holidays, in my mental book.

Not that that upper tier is all that important to me anyway, with idle thoughts along the lines of, "Damn, Christmas again this year too?" my usual holiday response.  I probably need a really shitty five day a week job for a while, just so any excuse for a day off would be a miracle, to properly appreciate them. Or perhaps a family to celebrate them with.

Then again, I don't recall caring much about holidays since I was a little kid, and I certainly noted any opportunity to not go to school, much as I disliked it from about 3rd grade on. Perhaps I'm just not a holiday type of person. Whatever that means.

There weren't any news items over the weekend that I found interesting enough to blog about, so moving right along, here's a quick review/discussion. At least I hope so. For once.

Today's subject? Graphic novels and comic books.

I would like to like comics, and their compiled big brothers, graphic novels. The problem with comics is that they seem like Anime. Sorta geeky, sorta underground, and while enticing, too time-consuming to "get into," due to how pricey they are for their limited duration and replayability. I love anime, in theory, but then I go to Fry's and there's a shelf 8 feet high and 15 long covered in Anime titles. Hundreds and hundreds of DVD boxes, all featuring interesting semi-translated names and colorful characters. It's too much. Which ones are any good? Which are derivative shit? Which ones have a good plot and good subtitles. Which have good artwork? And then all of them have about 20 sequels, which makes me wonder if I should just start in anywhere and see if it grabs me, or start at the beginning. But since there are 20 DVDs in the series, what if I like #1 and want more? I can't afford to pay $400 for the whole series individually, or buy the box set for $150. Plus half the time there are several different versions of the same story, flashback series, alternate time lines, etc. And even if they're good, most of them are just collections of TV series so are PG rated, and chopped into episodic 20 minute chunks, rather than being full length movies with much more narrative heft. And anyway, I make the time to watch about 2 movies a week. Where the hell am I going to find time for 4 hours of DVD Japanese cartoons a day? Do I want to spend ever bit of my recreational time on one thing?

I often imagine that one day when I'm rich I'll just go in and buy literally one of each.  Like 200 DVDs, and then hope for the best. But I know I wouldn't since if they were $1 each now I still wouldn't buy them all. When would I have time to watch them all? How would I know which were worth watching and which sucked?  I know there has to be some pony there, but there's an awful lot of shit to shovel to find it, and with the Anime signal/noise ratio approaching 95/5, based on my past experience, it doesn't seem worth it. Especially with the prohibitive cost aspect of things.

Comic books are sort of like that.  There are a million titles, and they go on and on for decades, are released in relatively short monthly installments which cost a lot more than I'm willing to pay, and worse than Anime, they change over time as writers and artists come and go.  If I knew one or two that I really liked, I'd probably stick with them and anticipate new installments. But then I'd be trying to buy the whole back catalogue of 50 issues to catch up on all of the story lines, and I don't have the money or the time for that.

Also like Anime, while the colors are bright and shiny and the action is intense and stylish... most of it still sucks. And when I do sample some of it, I end up liking the idea far more than the actuality, and always wishing it were better, or that I knew of one that was the best. I treasure Ninja Scroll, and have seen it a at least dozen times, but is hope of finding something else that good worth wading through dozens of mediocre Anime DVDs? Not really. Especially not when I've asked very Anime-knowledgeable friends about it, tried their recommendations, and found them, at best, sporadically good.

So comics are like anime for me; I like the idea more than the actuality, and almost every time I try some out, I leave disappointed.

While at the library the other day I saw a graphic novel in the new books section and grabbed it, and while idly browsing I happened upon a Batman graphic novel, and grabbed it as well.  Both are excellent examples of what's wrong with the medium. Both have some cool stuff, but far too little of it, and both are way overpriced. I picked up Batman Dark Knight Dynasty

The cover listing for both is $24, but since the Batman one was published in 1997, that one gets a double ouch. I just don't get enough added value from the generally mediocre artwork in comics to justify paying 3-5x the price of a paperback for a 50 or 60 page story.

Not that comic artwork is bad; it's very good... at least when you consider that they're drawing 80 or 100 panels for every 30 page comic.  Top artists, guys who do book covers and such, spend days or weeks on a single image, making it just perfect. That's obviously impossible with a comic book that appeared more than once a year and cost less than $500 a copy, so you can't expect that quality of art. However, I find most of it busy and too full of black lines and slashes, and often confusing with fight scenes seeming frantic and jumbled. I'd almost prefer clear black and white art to full color art that tries to be great, but comes up way short and tries to make up the difference with stylish touches.

There is a different mind set to the comic book fan also. Different from what someone who is attuned to enjoy movies and novels, like I am. Comics are sort of a combination of the mediums, with images, but not that many and none of them moving or as clear or gorgeous as a motion picture, and a story out of words, but one that's far shorter and more simplistic than a good novel.

This sounds sort of like I'm saying a comic is like a bad movie crossed with a bad novel, and I'm not really saying that, but it's basically true. They aren't long enough (in a single issue, anyway) to tell much of a story or delve into much character detail 

As for the two titles I picked up?  Both pretty mediocre. Nothing that creative or well-written, no memorable artwork, and the stories were like shallow short stories of the fan boy type. And I got them both for free, from the library. I'd be really pissed if I'd paid the high cover price for either of them.

First of all, I read Batman Dark Knight Dynasty. I could copy the review I wrote for it on Amazon, but I don't want to clog up my own blog with that. Basically there are 3 Batman stories, as the Dark Knight is sort of a family superhero, passed down over the generations, battling an immortal enemy. This graphic novel seems like a good idea, and starts off promisingly with an imprisoned Batman of the Middle Ages talking about a battle he survived with a demon while on a Crusade. But the story is just a pale Conan retread, minus the huge sword and blood, and it bored me.

The second is in the current era, and it was one silly thing after another, culminating in a space battle that claims Batman's life while his eternal, immortal enemy lives on.

The third is in the future in a Planet of the Apes-inspired Gotham, where gorillas are the guards and Robin is a chimp to the Batwoman star. And yes, the Robin chimp was by far the best single thing in the entire book, and the only funny part. They confront the immortal enemy again, trying to stop him from pulling a meteorite into the earth since there's some glowing thing in the meteorite that's given him his power and immortality. How did he get to it in the first place? What's the meteorite thing and how does it make him god like? How does he know he wants to get back to it?  All good questions that none of the stories ever answers.

The second graphic novel is newer, and it's by semi-famous comic book guy/novelist, Neil Gaiman.  I've often heard that his Sandman series is brilliant, as good as comics get and maybe that's true, but it this book is an example of that... comics don't really get all that good. The Sandman, Endless Nights is the tale, and it's a collection of 7 stories, all drawn by different guys who are working with Neil's original stories. The problem is that none of the stories are very good, and none of the artists are better than okay.

Death and Venice is the first, and it's not bad, but the story is familiar and the art is pretty mediocre.  Hurried and very sparse in the palette, with whole islands made up of just 3 or 4 colors.  I.E. there are dark green trees, light green trees, beige sand/rocks, and brown fields.  Lazy. As for the story... eh.  Discount Clive Barker with some imagination.

Desire is the second story and it's the best, but it's drawn at poor man's Prince Valiant quality, which detracts from things. It also tries too hard to be sexual and clever, when it's too PG-13 to be either.

There's one other Twilight Zone-ish story that I liked, but the rest are all angsty and tortured goth teen style, with tons of weird imagery and collages of feathers and blood and other such NIN album liner type stuff that I skimmed right over. It might have thrilled me when I was 16 and pouty, but now it's just hard to read and pointless. YMMV.

Perhaps needless to say, both of these comics are getting mostly rave reviews from the readers on Amazon.com.  And maybe they're great for comics, but they're simply not good enough to be entertaining for non-comics fans like Malaya and myself. I wanted to like them both... they just weren't good enough.

Perhaps the moral to take for this is that fans of given genres will like mediocre product from their genres more than any general fan. I'll probably never do more than like a comic book, while fans love it, and while I have more like for Anime than comics, I'm far more selective and objective about them. For example: Record of Lodoss War. I bought the full DVD, and watched it once, and was bored through most of it. And it's so up my alley. Mythological, quest tale, variety of characters with interesting powers, posing and strutting bad guys, gargantuan dragons, etc. I love every element of it, but the actual series itself is just so mediocre.  And yet, it's got a 4.5/5 on Amazon, based on 120 reviews.

I've written about it before, and it's actually included in my reviews section, so check that out for more details. But basically everything in this series is a complete cliche from D&D and Dragon Lance Chronicles, the plot drags along, the main character hero boy is totally annoying, and it's painfully melodramatic. It's also drawn at about 2 FPS, so while a lot of the large images are very nice, you'll be staring at them for 5 or 10 seconds while the camera slowly pans along and the narrator yammers on and on with his car commercial quality dialogue.

Despite these setbacks, I still want to be a fan of Anime and comics and graphic novels (which are just a bunch of comics in a book; enough to actually read for more than 3 minutes at a time) and I'll probably keep trying until I find some I really like. Anyway, it's all blog material, as most everything in life has become.

Hey there,

I'm a long-time reader, first time writer (LTRFTW). I read your review of Angels &, and although I agree that it is an entertaining, engrossing novel, it's not as original as you might believe.

The plot of The DaVinci Code is identical to that of Angles & Deomons! In order to really see what I'm talking about, it's necessary to read both novels yourself, but I'll try to explain without giving away any of TdVC's plot. Please forgive the acronyms. As you said in your reviews, A&D features multiple ritualistic murders, the threatened obliteration of an entire country, the potential death of a major world religion, secret societies that go back 500 years and new scientific discoveries that will change the world. This is all well and good, but give TdVC a read-through, and you'll find that it features...multiple ritualistic murder, the potential death of a major world religion, secret societies that go back 500 years and new scientific discoveries that
will change the world. The only different thing is the lack of a threat to a country.

Another reason: TdVC has the EXACT SAME character archetypes as A&D. I read TdVC first, and I was able to predict the villain by page 75. Other archetypes include the confused female protagonist, the wise father of the aforementioned female, the tough, by-the-book policeman, and the knowledgeable companion. The list goes on and on. All of these characters interact in the same ways in both novels.

Don't get me wrong, I still love both novels...but they are pretty formulaic.

I can believe it, and I saw similar comments to this in the various negative A&D reviews on Amazon.  People saying it was basically Brown's test run for DaVinci, or that he obviously reused the same formula for his big later success.  I'm still interested in reading DaVinci, even though I feel like I'll pretty well know what's going to happen before it does. That might be a problem, since I though the surprising and clever and intricate plot of A&D was what made it work (since the writing and characters are pretty average) and if I don't have the plot pulling me along through DaVinci, and I'm not Christian or a religious scholar so I'm not really fascinated by the "redefining Christianity based on secret early writings" elements what does that leave me?

I guess I'll find out when I get my hands on a copy of the book, which should be by next weekend, with any luck.

As for formulaic writing by the same author... it's not as if Mr. Brown here is some sort of exception. Plenty of authors have made a career off of writing the same novel over and over again, just changing the character names and locations. Hell, some genres are basically that; see the romance novel, several thousand of which can be found in your local bookstore.  There are also requirements for most genres; mysteries all pretty much kick off with a crime, run through the rogue's gallery of suspects, introduce the brilliant but idiosyncratic detective, follow his investigation as he/she works around the bumbling police, and end with his/her brilliant explanation and unveiling of the killer, who is always the last person you would have suspected. Which means that all of the regular readers figured it out by page 200.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing; familiar formats in books (not to mention TV shows, movies, blog entries, etc) have evolved over time and are still used since they're good ways to present the material. Some authors break them successfully, others break them and produce a confusing book that feels out of order and scattered. And it's entirely possible to write a story within the usual format of the genre, and still fill it with surprising details, interesting characters, etc.

As for authors who reuse the same formula... well, that's nothing new either. Besides the obvious cases like romance writers or detective story writers, how about my recent favorite blog topic, Harry Potter? I'm about 1/3 of the way through book 4 (which feels slow and bloated and overlong already, and I've got 500 pages to go) and so far all 4 books have followed the exact same path. They start off with Harry home with the muggles and bored, throw in a few weird things as he prepares to leave for school, introduce some dangerous threat to him and/or the school, and then follow his school year with occasional flashes back to the dangerous threat while he and his friends are the only ones doing anything about it, and end with a big show down that he triumphs in before going off home for another boring summer.

So the Harry Potter books are very predictable in format and style, but this is useful to Rowling since she knows how the material will be presented, and she can just work on adding or altering details in it. More wacky hijinks with the various teachers, more cruelty and bullying from Malfoy, another dangerous animal Hagrid can't see the harm in, etc. The only thing that really changes is the big mystery/danger each time, and that's always a minor element of the book, at least in terms of how many pages are devoted to it before the conclusion. Her familiar format certainly isn't hurting sales, and on the contrary, it's a big selling point of the books. In this world full of chaos and boredom, it's fun to escape into Harry's far more interesting world, and see him return to the wonderfully fun school he attends. I'd certainly have loved reading about his adventures at Hogwarts back when I was bored and fidgety in elementary and middle school. Not so much in high school, since I was too alienated and into weird stuff and needed horror fiction and death metal to get through the day. (Though my problems never drove me to smoke or drink or drugs, so how serious could they really have been?) As an adult I can embrace my childishness enough to enjoy the HP novels without thinking that I'm not cool for enjoying them.

Lots of other authors are quite formulaic as well; Dean Koontz certainly, as I discuss on the very outdated and insufficient excuse for a Horror Novelist page.

There's always a man with a troubled past, always a women he meets who is in danger and needs him to save her, and through their slowly-budding love, he'll be able to overcome his troubled past.  The enemies are always part of a huge conspiracy of some sort, seemingly too powerful to defeat, and there's almost always a sweeping, world-altering ending.  Along for the ride is usually a super smart and loveable child/animal, who has some sort of psychic powers or was made by government scientists with bionic abilities, etc.

This formula was followed rigidly in every novel of his I read, and it eventually burned me out on him, since it made everything too predictable.  I didn't notice the sameness of them all for several books, other than the "out of the blue" miraculously happy endings, but the formula for all of the stock characters became clear shortly after that, and I read a few more of his novels in pain, as I tried to ignore the obvious recycling of characters, before finally giving up on him.

Another easy example is Anne McCaffrey in her Dragonriders of Pern novels, which I enjoy and read as a teen, and then again more recently, even though I have no real respect for the quality of them. Some of her books are more adult-oriented and varied, but several that have teens at the main character do just the same thing. Kid who feels like an outsider, oppressed by his/her stodgy parents or society until they run away to live on their own, and only then can their true talent blossom as they discover something new and amazing and achieve eventual acceptance and happiness.

Just off the top of my head, this is the plot of Dragonsong/Dragonsinger, Dragondrums, The White Dragon, The Masterharper of Pern, The Dolphins of Pern, and it's a featured element in several of her other stories. Why? Because it works well, and readers love the archetype of the young person sticking to their internal convictions and going off on their own to do something important, and proving to the doubters that they were right.

It sounds like Dan Brown's Angels and Demons and The DaVinci Code do a lot more than share a similar structure and some of the returning characters, but I'll have to wait until I read them to judge if my enjoyment is ruined by the "similar" nature of the books, or if they're just similar in structure, but still individual enough to let me read them without feeling like a big whore.

<-- Previous  --  Next -->
Archives Index Page