Beverly--also not a comics person, even though I know lots of comic artists (BF's uncle is a famous comics guy who runs a school for illustrators in NJ, plus we just know and hang with a bunch of comics folk), Have actually edited some comic books, and love works ABOUT comic books. I know they're a great art form and have lots to offer which I am missing out on, I just can't get into them.

I don't like comics. I don't get comics.

t shuns Beverly

shuns Beverly

::hangs head::

I know. It's a shunning offense. But on the bright side? Robin's in my corner! Woo!

Robin's got a superhero name, though, Beverly. So she's kinda grandfathered in to the cool kids club.

Won't somebody think of the comics-impaired? Would a text version be so difficult to do? Think of it as--braille for the differently-sighted!

I'm with Beverly and Robin. I think that my only comic purchase was Fray #1, and I'm not too sure where that's currently at. I only read it once, anyway. I did like watching the '70s cartoon of Spiderman, and I also liked the first couple of Superman movies. But, I didn't see the first Spiderman movie until it had been out on dvd for some time, and still haven't seen Spidey 2, although I probably will eventually.

I can appreciate the artwork behind the best of the comics, and I did think that the graphic novel "Maus" is brilliant allegory (I paged through it on my lunchbreak at the bookstore once). I guess I'm just more of a comic strip fan--I can practically give lectures on Charles Shultz and Walt Kelly.

I'm with Beverly and Robin.

We're gonna have to start excommunicating people, aren't we?

t sits with Beverly and Robin

t sticks tongue out at Sean

Won't somebody think of the comics-impaired? Would a text version be so difficult to do?

For a lot of them, yeah, because in a perfect world the whole of text + art is much greater than the sum of the parts. So, while you *could* do a text-only version of, say, Batgirl Year One, you'd miss the incredible sense of movement and nostalgia in the pencils, the vivid beauty of the colors, and all the visual nods to that which will, timeframe-wise, come later.

There *are* novelizations of some big storylines out there. In the Batverse, Knightfall and No Man's Land have been done as novels (the latter is good, and I haven't read the former).

The art interferes with the story, for me. I can't assimilate the implied movement, figure out which dialog balloon in a given panel should be read first, assimilate a visage change...all stuff schoolchildren do with alacrity.

If your library has a copy, check out Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, which can really help with that sort of thing. And keep in mind that the art is the story, at least in part.

I don't know what the barrier is, but for example, comics art never elicits an emotion from me the way words can do. Traditional art, yes. The work of illustrators like Wyeth and Rackham and even Rockwell? Yes. But comics art...doesn't. It leaves me completely unmoved.

I did, however, buy a copy of the McKean tarot, and I find it much more penetrable than the comics.

My mind is a place where there is no linear path, I fear.

eta: Thanks, Plei. I'll look for a copy. I'm definitely feeling impaired in many discussions lately.