A kind commentator on my humble comic asked if I'd like some real critique, so I thought I'd better take the plunge.

Fire away - just please don't tell me that Poser stinks, as several of "my" commentators have stated. I agree, it's cheating, it's impure, it's not art, it's a cheapening of the proud comics traditions, and so on, and so forth - it's just the only way this poor amateur can do a comic all on his own in his spare time ;o)

But do take any and all shots on the story and everything associated with it. I'll read it all, especiall any advice about improving my stuff, and consider it all - I just might not have the skill to implement it all ;o)

Cheers,

Thip

Ooops (looking sheepish) - forgot to add the obvious : just click "thip" under my avatar to get to the comic.

I only manage to read to page 17 today, but I like it. I will tell you more when I´m done reading to the current page...

Alright hi there. I went back and re-read the entire thing, so I could get a fix on what it was I was going to say to you.

So here's the disclaimer: what follows is all my own opinion, I might be so far off base it's not worth the time it takes to read it. It's all just personal opinion.

K?


What I'm most concerned about in terms of the way I see the plot line shaping up, is that you avoid certain pitfalls of defaulting to conventional shorthand to move things along. For example;
expository dialogue that might give us information but sounds out of synch with the rest of the writing. I'm thinking of the banter re: telling us about the Con Hierarchy and the Shepard's role and status, et. al.,., during Petrovsky's challenge to Loco. Jo's line about Izzy being the top shylock, pimp, and all-around wheeler dealer in the entire division. This kind of dialogue does get info out, but to me, it's at the expense of authenticity.


I think I mentioned that it takes an ability to think cinematically to write for the comic form well. But I think there's a down side to that. Comics aren't film, and there are things that work in film but not comics, and there are things that are accepted conventions in film that don't work even in the movies but are used anyway.

To wit: stuff like banter during knife fights is common in certain action-genre films. Personally, I think it's as inauthentic now as it was the first time it was used. There's got to be a better way to get information out. And even tiny infodumps like having a character "explain" to someone who they are for the sake of that audience just on the other side of the fourth wall.... (Jo telling Izzy that he's the top shylock, etc, etc) it feels like a lapse to me that can be avoided.


Something else that I think works better in film than comics: heightened-tension action scenes. Film has the advantage of working in real-time, and so something like Jo trying to draw away the Magnetic storm while trying not to get roasted at the same time, and having it all build to an explosive crescendo works best with fast-moving pictures and loud sound and fury, whereas the first scene with a "Maggie", on the Imperial transport, has a completely different trajectory in its building up of tension. The true danger of the storm, and the Doctor's revelation that he had lured them into proximity with the storm in an act of self-sacrifice, are revealed gradually, and the tension is not an action based "race with the storm", as with Jo. The tension isn't dependant on "action" but is more psychological. It works better in a comic than a purely action sequence.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Now, maybe I'm wrong but I think the best way to describe at least part of what you're doing, is as a kind of homage to any number of film genres. Which is cool, but you walk a thin line when you do that. You're working with established form, ok. But to me, the entire "Jo lures away the Maggie" scenario - to give you a specific example - steps over that thin line, from homage, or reference, into cliche. To deconstruct:

A) Group is threatened by imminent lethal danger

A) a) The danger is of a nature that the group appears powerless to defend against it

B) One group member (preferable Protag. - possible secondary char.) mounts an "impossible" challenge to the danger.

C) Danger is defeated/averted, but at the apparent sacrifice of Protag.


Okay; here we've got a template that's worked for everything from cheapo Roger Corman horror flicks to Gandalf's apparent demise at the claws of the Balrog.


A particularly Hollywoodized Action-Adventure genre coda to this would be

D) Group commiserates over death of their hero

E) Hero (off-screen) announces presence and apparent escape from death by interjecting snappy line into group's dialogue.

Which is what happens in the scene with Jo and the storm.


Now, that's the deconstruction of it, but what it adds up to in my book is: Overuse or Slavish Adherence to Genre Conventions = Predictability. Which is why, when your previous batch of pages ended with Loco about to be shishkabobbed in an unfair fight, and you left us at the cliffhanger, I had little doubt that something would appear from offscreen to intervene at the last possible moment.

Predictable.


Now, I like unpredictable as a matter of course, and when I encounter a story that will by its very nature be drawing on the conventions of genres as its framework, one of the things I really want is to be surprised. I think if you're going to work in a well-established form or genre you ought to see about making things fresh, and one way is to subvert those predictable elements.




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another thing that I'm starting to notice more is the somewhat diffuse focus between the various plotlines. Again; there is something very cinematic in the grand sweep of the story, and the converging plotlines cover a broad cross-section of the facets of your universe. Clearly you're using filmic editing techniques - sometimes quite well, I'll say, those jump cuts in the middle of dialogue works a lot, but again... I wouldn't overuse it. Because it's something we all know too well from god knows how many movies.

But I do feel like it's getting to the stage where I really want to be able to latch on emotionally to some - or even one - of your characters. Maybe now we're straying out of style and technique and into some much more personal feelings.


You've got a big framework for your story, being that it spans planets and .. Is the empire consist of galaxies, I'm not clear on that now... ? .... anyway, and a lot of disparate settings and groups of characters. Things are very structured in terms of social dynamics, separation of each group and the very proscribed interactions they have with each other. A solid framework.

But as time goes by the characters are beginning to feel more and more like units or elements in the structure of that frame. Personal preference disclaimer: I do tend to like even epic-scale stories to be brought down to a mor intimate level with characters.


You already told me that9it was your intention that these characters not be particularly likeable. So we've got three general groups - the Empire, the mercenaries, and the cons - all of whom appear to have a social order that is at once highly militaristic, violent, and authoritarian. There's very little counterpoint.

(As a side note; I don't think I was every quite straight on exactly what Jo's crew was originally doing down there. She said something about "keeping an eye on both sides", but I don't think I understand what that meant)

And so, when Petrovsky pulls a fast one on Loco and calls in his goons to help him eviscerate the Shepard.., and then the kid appears out of the outside of the frame to chunk a blade into Petrovsky's arm, thus saving Loco's bacon...

I don't have much of an investment in all of this. By now, I've seen gunfights and ships blowing up and shot up and shot down, but there are things I'm missing and I think they shouldn't be missing at this point.

I don't know who's story this is. The closest I can come might be the Doctor, but maybe I'm only saying that because he's the only character not locked into that militaristic mode. But even if you want to present multiple viewpoints of the story, I think doing I t through the sensibilities of different characters rather than from a purely omniscient viewpoint adds a whole lot in terms of giving me something to really latch onto.

You're really good at the broad picture. There is a real sense of an entire universe outside the edges of the frame. I can see that you've given it all a lot of thought. But I don't feel that with the characters. They mostly feel like ciphers to me. It feels to me that you haven't given the same kind of consideration to just who these people are. So Jo's another version of the tenderhearted hardass sergeant that's the staple of many a war pic... the Doctor is the humanist/intellectual who takes the high moral road... Loco is the wily and tough guerilla leader fending off threats from without and within his band... and to take that as the canvas on which to create a character is fine, but I don't feel any real character creation going on,. Granted, not all of them have had enough screen time to give us much more than a thumbnail sketch of who they are. But We've spent enough time with Jo that I suspect the story may well follow her as a main protagonist. And I still have no sense of what lays beneath her surface. She's not enough of a real person to me.

And in the final analysis, real people is what I want. If they were real people, with their own unique personalities and backgrounds, then you wouldn't have to worry that they're going to fall into cliche default mode when such a situation arises; they won't always do the predictable things. The story will be shaped in part by who they are and what hey would do under the circumstances.



Okay. Hope this isn't too much all at once. Just some thoughts I had regarding your stuff.

Later

Hi, Lily,

Thanks loads for taking the time to write such a detailed comment on Purga. And no need for a disclaimer - this kind of feedback is invaluable BECAUSE it is a personal opinion. Anyone can 'deconstruct' a story on a purely technical level, I prefer to know how it actually "feels" to a reader.

You are completely right that I do (try to) think cinematically. That's why I've used only one text box in the entire story - I hate that corny voice-over stuff ;o) That's why I run into the infodump problem time and again. I do try to unobtrusively "show, not tell", but showing everything would make the story balloon to incredible length. I can tell from your comments that I haven't quite made it yet ;o)

You are also right that I use clichés. It's partly a conscious choice, as clichés are an infodump in themselves. Sort of "don't even show, they already know". I can tell from your story that you've recognized the basic types - such as Jo - very easily. That's sort of necessary when trying to set up the broad picture of an entire world/empire in a few comics pages. Be patient, though - I intend to (hope to) break those clichés, that's why I set'em up.

That also ties into the banter-during-fighting (which is, of course, actually info-dumping during fighting). You've got me there, I do try to keep it down, but it was the best solution I could come up with. Actually, I'm twice guilty on that particular scene. It is both an infodump and a show-don't-tell description of something that will be important in a scene (far) later on.

The Izzy interlude is a simple choice - he isn't very important to the story, but his function is; so I settled for slipping his function into Jo's dialogue instead of a separate scene. I actually thought it worked quite well. Having re-watched "Kelly's Heroes" (that's a hint *LOL*) I can see that I could have shown-not-told his function. Wouldn't have thought of it without your critique, though - that's why critique is so valuable ;o)

Your point about HOW to create heightened tension in action scenes is something I have never even thought about! That's quite irritating, you know, I thought I was very aware of comics storytelling ;o) I'll need a lot of coffee to think that through, and I think some very interesting storytelling ideas may come from it!!!

I can tell, however, that one thing has worked. As you say, you've gotten the impression of a world where all the groups are "highly militaristic, violent, and authoritarian. There's very little counterpoint." The counterpoint should appear, however small, during the story. That IS the story, on one level. But my shaky abilities at "show-don't-tell" has caused the first hundred pages to be mostly set-up. Don't get scared, but there's approx. 150-200 pages still ahead. During those pages, I hope to be able to establish the main characters as having "their own unique personalities and backgrounds".

Whether I make it or not is, of course, up to my readers to judge when we get that far.

Stay on board, and thanks loads for your comments!!!