tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-434879494642797092.post3663251434074449889..comments2024-02-19T23:42:15.797-05:00Comments on Dr. K's 100-Page Super Spectacular: Final Crisis Post Mortem, Part 2Dr. Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08792907846193017204noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-434879494642797092.post-51987454685422475552009-02-06T19:07:00.000-05:002009-02-06T19:07:00.000-05:00Hrrf. Pic link?Hrrf. <A HREF="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/kirbyblog/jmm9h3rt.jpg" REL="nofollow">Pic link?</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-434879494642797092.post-58767424280295447312009-02-06T19:06:00.000-05:002009-02-06T19:06:00.000-05:00"Just one nitpic, are you sure that the monkey han..."Just one nitpic, are you sure that the monkey handed man is Simyan or another of Darkseid's ape men? Because honestly, I don't think anyone has figured out who that is supposed to be"<BR/><BR/>I'm pretty certain - though it's understandable given the hairy-handedness and 'hpph'ing that one might think it was Simyan (though the character is otherwise wordless, if so) - that it is in fact supposed to be Himon <BR/><BR/>http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/kirbyblog/jmm9h3rt.jpg<BR/><BR/>It echoes certain scenes from that comic - the original Mister Miracle #9, iirc - and he often works in concert with Metron (originally typo'd "Matron" there).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-434879494642797092.post-38075801641626539952009-02-06T03:12:00.000-05:002009-02-06T03:12:00.000-05:00Nice analysis, I know that I felt despair as I rea...Nice analysis, I know that I felt despair as I read the issues up to Darkseid's Thumb down. A real sense of hopelessness and despair.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-434879494642797092.post-67027326562334221822009-02-05T19:39:00.000-05:002009-02-05T19:39:00.000-05:00Harvey, reread my last couple of comments. No-one'...Harvey, reread my last couple of comments. No-one's saying that referencing faults makes up for said faults - it's a little bit more complicated than thatAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-434879494642797092.post-44722494174139243952009-02-05T12:57:00.000-05:002009-02-05T12:57:00.000-05:00Menshevik--I don't think we're that far apart on m...Menshevik--I don't think we're that far apart on most of your points. As I acknowledged at the end of my most recent post, I worked out this interpretation because I wanted to find a way to make the story work. I completely understand that many readers would not want to do that. I didn't make any judgment based on that; in fact, I admitted that superhero comics in general have trained readers to expect a traditional linear narrative.<BR/><BR/>And on sales being a measure of quality--I don't think that the sales on Secret Invasion could be used to measure reader engagement. Many factors go into the sales success or failure of a comic: publicity, marketing, collectibility, variant covers, perceived importance, etc. We can't know how many copies of Secret Invasion sold to those readers who were simply engaged with the story any more than we can know how many copies of Final Crisis sold to those who bought two copies in order to get both covers.Dr. Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08792907846193017204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-434879494642797092.post-3643409164565923162009-02-05T10:50:00.000-05:002009-02-05T10:50:00.000-05:00Menshevik - you should perhaps read a comic before...Menshevik - you should perhaps read a comic before you launch into a five paragraph denunciation of it? Of course, if you're not interested in it then that's fine. Life's too short to read things you have no interest in! Though apparently life's not too short to write lengthy attacks on things you have no interest in...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-434879494642797092.post-434414196941170692009-02-05T08:05:00.000-05:002009-02-05T08:05:00.000-05:00Since the discussion has moved on to part 2, I tak...Since the discussion has moved on to part 2, I take the liberty of responding here to your reply to my part 1-related comments:<BR/><BR/>Re. the Final Crisis and Secret Invasion comparisons, I’m not sure if in this particular case you can take the art for art's sake approach and glibly declare commercial success or the lack of it irrelevant. We are dealing with two event series aimed primarily at the semi-captive audience of superhero fandom and there I think sales figures at least provide some measure of indication of how much the audience is engaged or entertained by reading the series. IMO they does at least provide some measure of gauging merit, even though one should not make a fetish of them and certainly one should also consider long-term effects if we are dealing with serial entertainment. (For instance, when Grant Morrison wrote the X-Men, sales increased, but some interpret the long-term effects as negative because the new readers Morrison brought with him left when he stopped writing and many of the oldtime fans driven away during his run were reluctant to return.) <BR/><BR/>Not that disregarding sales really helps when you set up criteria and standards that in all probability are not shared by the detractors of FC. Such as the apparent supposition that a story told in a non-linear way is inherently superior to one told in linear narration. Or the one that if a reader dislikes FC as an incoherent mess that shows a fault on the part of the reader who than can be filed among uncultured peasants who read superhero comics only for senseless violence. You praised leaving gaps in the narrative as providing a kind of freedom to the reader, others might see it as turning the reader into the author’s serf. The reader has to work for the writer by filling in the gaps left by design, laziness or incompetence, he has to pay dues (the price of purchase) for this and if things don’t work out satisfactorily, then you declare it all the reader’s failure, not the writer’s. <BR/><BR/>Actually, I remain unconvinced that Morrison's non-linear storytelling is really crucial for the vocal dislike. It does seem to me that a lot of the praise heaped on Morrison for his work in general is on the lines of how clever his plots and storytelling is, while most of the complaints seem to concern his treatment of the characters he uses for them. So I think it is possible that it is more of matter of Morrison failing to win his readers' hearts than their minds. And when fans think that a writer is doing injustice to their favourite characters they also become a lot more critical about other aspects and will become less forgiving about e.g. plot holes and continuity violations (such as I would guess the unanswered question of who killed the driver in "The Big Sleep" would only be bothersome and "important" for readers/watchers who were not gripped by the novel/film on other levels).<BR/><BR/>Regarding your accusation of Val D'Orazio and others "jumping the gun": In this particular case, D'Orazio took into account more than 80 per cent of "Final Crisis" (the mini-series) and more than 90 per cent including tie-ins. (People who voice the opinion that Morrison hates superheroes in general presumably also take into account at least some of his other output, e.g. his X-Men run, so for that particular statement the ending of Final Crisis makes a difference of less than 5 per cent of the material under consideration; if the opinion is completely false, one really should be able to demonstrate this using examples from the 95+ per cent of material). “Jumping the gun” happens at the start of a race, not on the last ten or twenty yards of the final spurt. Maybe some of the vocal critics of FC were convinced that their previous assessments were incorrect, but I have my doubts. The happy ending of e.g. the Threepenny Opera does not change the general tone of work as a whole, and from what I’ve read about FC #7 it not only has a deus-ex-machina ending (this description is from a review praising it), but one that sounds somewhat ridiculous even for a superhero comic. I sometimes wonder how long the people who castigate fans for voicing their opinion “prematurely” expect them to wait or give a writer the benefit of the doubt. (In the case of “Brand New Day” I think it took over a year and 36 issues for that particular tactic to silence dissenters to be used appreciably less). Are readers supposed to wait until Morrison dies or stops writing superheroes until they are permitted to voice an opinion on his superhero writing?<BR/>In itself, this one little issue cannot reverse the trend, that has to be done in the publications of the future. And that leaves us with the question: How much freedom did Grant Morrison have to write the ending of “Final Crisis”, how much was preconditioned on what he agreed on with DC in advance and by DC’s preparations for their post-FC stories, how much of the change to a more hopeful tone was Morrison’s idea and does not stem from other people’s plans for the stories to follow? (Compare e.g. with the ending of One More Day, written and rewritten by J. M. Straczynski to fit in with the new status quo and more “positive” tone of Brand New Day.)Menshevikhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07112873248418375924noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-434879494642797092.post-54988034259506087742009-02-04T17:02:00.000-05:002009-02-04T17:02:00.000-05:00I'm right there with you, except for one of your p...I'm right there with you, except for one of your panel selections.<BR/><BR/>"I'm in a confusing story!" bit is a pet peeve of mine. If a character in a bad movie notes that it's <I>like he's in a bad movie,</I> that does not make the movie any less bad. <BR/><BR/>From a confused reader's perspective, a character saying that things are confusing isn't a useful cue. The reader <B>knows</B> that the work is confusing, and the author having a character admit as much could be (not necessarily is) a cop-out. Noting the confusion, rather than resolving, explaining, or doing anything with said confusion, does little for a reader beyond indicating that the author is not necessarily incompetent and is messing with you. <BR/><BR/>It's a personal peeve. Nothing serious.Harvey Jerkwaterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07118848012122050416noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-434879494642797092.post-47268367542074443632009-02-04T11:01:00.000-05:002009-02-04T11:01:00.000-05:00Just one nitpic, are you sure that the monkey hand...Just one nitpic, are you sure that the monkey handed man is Simyan or another of Darkseid's ape men? Because honestly, I don't think anyone has figured out who that is supposed to beUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06181297403784765781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-434879494642797092.post-89630509837946621092009-02-03T20:09:00.000-05:002009-02-03T20:09:00.000-05:00Guy Maddin's James Bond would be fantastic.Guy Maddin's James Bond would be fantastic.Calebhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01391759187396994380noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-434879494642797092.post-54070569054607353322009-02-03T19:44:00.000-05:002009-02-03T19:44:00.000-05:00Great analysis, very cogent. We're so used to read...Great analysis, very cogent. We're so used to reading comics in more-or-less the same way. But with <I>Final Crisis</I>, we're faced instead with a quick, steep learning curve as we figure out how to read it. I understand why some people couldn't (or wouldn't) keep up. But then others refused to even try, as you described (superbly) in your first post.<BR/><BR/>Regardless, it's nice to see someone draw connections to works like <I>Ulysses</I>. When <I>FC</I> began, I was halfway thru <I>Manhattan Transfer</I>; these days I'm re-reading <I>Infinite Jest</I>. I'm struck by the similarity between the structures of these three works. What Morrison called "channel-flipping" is really a form of modernist collage/montage.<BR/><BR/>I also hear an echo of the reception that has greeted works of radical modernism. There's baffled outrage from some readers who claim it's incoherent & inherently flawed; other readers feel a rapturous sense of discovery & a sense of possibility that's akin to emancipation. I suspect that Morrison is aiming for the latter, esp. given the metatextual themes about creativity.<BR/><BR/>Me, I'm thrilled that someone's attempting to write modernist superhero comics. If <I>FC</I> isn't quite as successful as <I>Seven Soldiers</I> (& most critics seem to agree it isn't), it's still refreshing to read a superhero comic that challenges you & encourages you to use your intellect as well as your eyes.salkjdfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08485341251196557956noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-434879494642797092.post-15380525342729088742009-02-03T12:10:00.000-05:002009-02-03T12:10:00.000-05:00I enjoy your posts, Dr. K. One word I saw used qui...I enjoy your posts, Dr. K. One word I saw used quite a bit (mostly involving JG Jones' artwork) was 'dread.' This was NOT a fun comic to read, but I'm on the side of those who loved it. I agree with you that the story did get confusing (you get whole pages with GL dilating to two or three panels with the entire GL Corps, as an example). At the same time, with the price of comics being what they are, I'd rather have a book I need to read twice and pore over the artwork then flip through it at the bus stop and wait for the trade. Your last two posts are good examples that this book CAN be understood.Wayne Allen Salleehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17199261942617339556noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-434879494642797092.post-49028809620581272472009-02-03T10:10:00.000-05:002009-02-03T10:10:00.000-05:00I accept your interpretation of what Grant was try...I accept your interpretation of what Grant was trying to do, but I still don't find it especially accessible, and felt that the disjointed feel of the latter half of the series subtracted from the overall entertainment value. Skipping from story beat to story beat and simultaneously moving back and forth in time was just too much.<BR/><BR/>My favorite incarnation of Grant Morrison's work is when he has a strong editor smacking his hand when he tries to get too clever by half. His JLA run, for instance.CandidGamera :https://www.blogger.com/profile/04751863192933490300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-434879494642797092.post-3809693163419279312009-02-03T09:28:00.000-05:002009-02-03T09:28:00.000-05:00Very cool, Dr. K.Years ago, Scott (I think you've ...Very cool, Dr. K.<BR/><BR/>Years ago, Scott (I think you've met Scott) and I were talking about how hard it would be for any comics story to beat the scope of Crisis on Infinite Earths -- where the very whole of existence is in jeapordy all at the same time, and ends with "real" change in the DCU.<BR/><BR/>We figured the only way to outdo it would be to create a story that made the reader actually feel like their life was in danger, as well as the characters.<BR/><BR/>So far, your breakdowns make a pretty convincing argument, I think, that Final Crisis, narratively, was almost that comic.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com