The Spider-Man Week in NYC site has gone live! Sony’s site features an interactive map, countdown clock, events listing, links and pretty much all the bells and whistles you’d expect. Spider-Man Week officially begins on Monday, April 30.
And yes, there’s a link to Free Comic Book Day. Looks like this is one year where it absolutely paid off to link FCBD to a comic book movie opening!
Elayne Riggs
Elayne Riggs is the creator of the popular blog Pen-Elayne on the Web. She was a founding member of Friends of Lulu, an organization dedicated to increasing the involvement of girls and women in comics, as readers and creators. She is married to inker Robin Riggs, with whom she shares two cats, and has odd love/hate relationship with Hillary Clinton.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
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As good as the art is (and I stand by my statement that this is a Masterwork), in this issue the writing (and editing) is equally bad. What happened to dialog and story? We have an unknown and unnamed character give an uninterrupted rant for three pages. His sermon/diatribe/lecture drones on and on and on. Like this! ;) The language doesn't sound like it's coming from the mouth of a guy, riding the rails a hundred years ago. This sounds like a high school term paper, written at three in the morning, the night before it's due. This rambles and uses big words, but it misses the point. This is all about preachy rhetoric and very little about advancing the story. Who is this guy? This Super-Hobo? What makes him say stuff like, "A eunuch designated to represent the manhood of a people," to a young kid and think he's actually communicating ideas? Nobody talks like this! Nobody. Not even me.Super-hobo saves young children from crazed Ukrainian pedophiles. And he carries around a picture of his tortured grandfather's scarred back. How does a picture like that get in the hands of a slave's grandson? Does the grandson just carry around the picture as a visual aid for the hobo lecture circuit?Look. The message is important. The injustice, torture and inhumanity of slavery is a bloody nightmare throughout the majority of history black people have on North America. BUT…Trevor Von Eeden MADE this same point, with many of the same graphic elements on pages 3-6 of this story. This is redundant. Worse, this breaks rule #1 of comics. Show, Don't Tell! That word balloon on page 30 is in danger of swallowing Super-Hobo's head. The ramblings undercut the gut-churning power of that single image, the photo of the scarred slave. Let that one picture do the talking. You take a powerful moment, drag it out, and make it … dull. That's the last thing you want to do, blunt the cutting edge of this story.Here's my suggestion for an edit. It will get ignored, but I'm an incorrigible kibitzer.Super-Hobo: That's a picture of my Grandfather, Jack. He was a slave, long before the Big War. White People did that! White People treat us like dogs.Young Jack: You must really hate White People, huh?See? I just cut out two and a half pages of ranting! And the story still makes sense and moves along just fine.I'm not the best person to say this. I have trouble shutting up. But … this issue has too many words. A little less talk and a little more action.
We went back and forth on that a lot with Trevor, but eventually decided not to cut the text. Hopefully, the entire thing reads better in the larger context of the novel.
Thank you, Glenn. At least you can see my point and I'm not just shouting into the wind. I'm not trying to be overly critical or nitpick. The art it too good and the story is too compelling to let this get lost in soap-box speechifying.
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I gotta agree with Russ. It just is too much dialogue and it does seem entirely unnatural and unnecessary. The other installments and the art and overall idea though are top notch. Ill wait to pass judgment till I see the whole work.
I do find it laughable that Russ of all people is calling for someone to be less verbose…
Hey, I found it laughable too! That's why I said stuff like, "His sermon/diatribe/lecture drones on and on and on. Like this! ;)," and "I'm not the best person to say this." I know irony when I see it, even if the jokes on me. But, then again, I don't think of myself as a GRAPHIC artist, just a neurotic commentator. But, laughable or not, do I have a point about this episode of "The Original Johnson"? Is it too wordy, too pedantic? When you get done laughing, I'd actually like your opinion on the story too.
I forget not everyone knows I made the "its too wordy" comment way back when I saw the pencils…