Too Many Words?

[telerites]

Just finished up reading a few issues of the Marvel western Ghost Rider series (1967). One thing I noticed was how verbose the stories written by Gary Friedrich were. Too wordy for my tastes. It may have been his style because I know Stan Lee could be wordy as could Roy Thomas and I had never thought about this.

Since I haven't read any books published in the last fifteen years - I wasn't sure what the trend was now.

It made me wonder what other folks thought - can a comic book have too many words? Any writers that you think are overly-wordy?

[Sir Tim Drake]

Just finished up reading a few issues of the Marvel western Ghost Rider series (1967). One thing I noticed was how verbose the stories written by Gary Friedrich were. Too wordy for my tastes. It may have been his style because I know Stan Lee could be wordy as could Roy Thomas and I had never thought about this.

Since I haven't read any books published in the last fifteen years - I wasn't sure what the trend was now.

It made me wonder what other folks thought - can a comic book have too many words? Any writers that you think are overly-wordy?

To answer the last question first:

http://www.cowboypal.com/donmcgregor.jpg

More generally: Comics is the art of visual narrative, the two halves of that term being equally important. The words and the images ought to work harmoniously together and "support each other's strengths" (McCloud). So if either the words or the pictures make it difficult to read the other, or (unintentionally) detract from the impact of the other, then that's a bad thing. If a splash page shows Spider-Man leaping through midair and attacking the Tarantula, it shouldn't also show him delivering a 50-word speech, which he couldn't possibly have uttered in the time it took him to leap at the Tarantula.* That just creates a cognitive dissonance between words and images, and shatters the flow of the visual narrative.

But I think it's also possible for a comic to be too imagistic as well as too wordy. This is a problem I have with some of Barry Windsor-Smith's stuff. His artwork is so lush and beautiful that you feel obliged to spend many seconds appreciating each panel, rather than going on to the next panel and continuing the narrative.

It's also possible for a comic to be overly wordy, but with good reason. Maybe the artist actually wants the reader to slow down and stop paying attention to the image. For example, Moebius includes a hyper-wordy panel in the early part of Arzach, though I'm not sure what he's trying to accomplish with it.

In comics, words and pictures should function like two halves of a pair of shoes-- neither one has more importance than the other, and each is required for the successful functioning of the whole.

*This example comes from Spectacular Spider-Man #1, written by, I think, Gerry Conway.

[Kan-Man]

I started collecting while I was learning to read in the early 70s. I have a vivid memory of skipping the captions when I started to read comics. Marvel's stuff at the time, in particular, seemed loaded with them.

I stopped collecting over 20 years ago, but whenever I've read anything written recently it seems I can finish it quickly. There's not nearly as much to read within an issue as I remember when I was collecting regularly.

[Slam_Bradley]

I think there's a fine line between too much verbiage and not enough verbiage. Sir Tim hit the nail on the head with Don McGregor. No matter how good his ideas may be, he overwhelms his books with TOO MANY WORDS. This is particularly a sin when he's with an incredible artist/storyteller like Paul Gulacy.

On the other hand, I find a lot of comics, particularly newer comics, that I can read in 4-5 minutes. Some of that is the "decompression" that's big in today's comics, but some of it is a dearth of words.

Good comics combine art and story in to a totally different artform.

[MDG]

To answer the last question first:

http://www.cowboypal.com/donmcgregor.jpg

First thing I thought of. Compounded by the fact that more than once I've been really enthusiastic to read something by MacGregor after reading an interview or article where he talks about it. Then when I read it, I'm always disappointed that it's not as great as he says it is.

(Same thing with Harlan Ellison's collections where he writes an intro to each story. The story never lives up to the intro.)

But I think it's also possible for a comic to be too imagistic as well as too wordy. This is a problem I have with some of Barry Windsor-Smith's stuff. His artwork is so lush and beautiful that you feel obliged to spend many seconds appreciating each panel, rather than going on to the next panel and continuing the narrative.

I often feel that artists that put in a lot of "detail" can do a disservice to the story. It may be beautiful to look at, but can get in the way of the story. (Probably why I prefer Canniff and Toth to Raymond and Frazetta).

I started collecting while I was learning to read in the early 70s. I have a vivid memory of skipping the captions when I started to read comics.
One thing I used to skip in the 70s--and still do most of the time--are those paragraph-long intros at the beginning of many DC Golden Age stories.

MDG

[gking727]

Don McGregor for sure, though I generally always love his stuff regardless. I just reread Nathaniel Dusk a lcouple of weeks ago. I also recently reread Steranko's Nick Fury Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. stuff and some of those stories got a bit out of control at times.

[benday-dot]

I think there's a fine line between too much verbiage and not enough verbiage. Sir Tim hit the nail on the head with Don McGregor. No matter how good his ideas may be, he overwhelms his books with TOO MANY WORDS. This is particularly a sin when he's with an incredible artist/storyteller like Paul Gulacy.

On the other hand, I find a lot of comics, particularly newer comics, that I can read in 4-5 minutes. Some of that is the "decompression" that's big in today's comics, but some of it is a dearth of words.

Good comics combine art and story in to a totally different artform.

Well said. And it is not only the lack of words in contemporary comics that is responsible for decompression, but the lack of narrative drive. I have read and enjoyed wholly captionless strips, where the illustration ably tells the entire story without verbal assist. This purely visual storytelling is as old as cave art and medieval illuminations, or as recent as, say, Chris Ware's Sparky the Cat. Such mute sequential art is the plaything of the imagination, and is capable of striking forth in the most unforegttable, iconic fashion. The problem I have with much of todays books is that hardly anything happens from issue to issue. There is a real absence of excitement. For this reason I tend to buy books today by assembling the whole of the 4 or 6 (or whatever) issue arc before reading a single issue. Otherwise, I am so underwhelmed from month to month that I often forget what little transpired in issues past. Too often, in contemporary comics the whole is definitely meant to subsume its parts.

One comic book creator who I felt acheived the word/picture balance quite well was Frank Miller. Never overly verbose Miller knew when to let his noir panels do all the talking and also just when to pipe in with his characteristicly spare hard boiled prose. Going back further, I also think Stan Lee generally knew when to respect a Kirby panel, especially all those full and double page spreads that were so much the awesome signature of the King.

[Brad Curran]

One thing that's lessened my enthusiasm for Silver Age comics a bit is noticing how uneccessary so much of the text is. I understand the reason for it, given that they were writing for kids and every comic was someone's first comic and what not, but it can get tedious, so much so that I do tend to skip a lot of the dialogue in a Stan Lee written or or Wiesenger edited Superman story. Of course, you can still follow the stories while skipping a lot of the extraneous text and not miss much, and with great storytellers like Kirby, Romita, and Ditko, it can be a joy (yes, I have a Marvel bias; I have way more Essentials than Showcases. And I can handle Stan and Roy Thomas's over-verbiage more than, say, Robert Kanigher's or... whoever wrote the Gil Kane Green Lanterns, which really got on my nerves).

But, like Aaron, I do think that the words and pictures should compliment each other in comics, and while they have better reasons for that than a lot of today's comics (at least the worst offenders), I have less of a tolerance for that kind of thing than I used to, and prefer the lack of captions and exposition in today's comics to something that's overwritten (well, at least the ones I enjoy, and I do tend to value density in my single issues to something I can finish in two minutes).

[jaguarshark]

And I can handle Stan and Roy Thomas's over-verbiage more than, say, Robert Kanigher's or... whoever wrote the Gil Kane Green Lanterns, which really got on my nerves).

Yeah, but without Broome's verbiage, how would you be able to tell what was green and yellow in the Showcase volume? Maybe Broome saw these black-and-white reprints coming. He was a visionary, I tells ya!

Actually, if there's one mainstream superhero comics run that I think is really, really, vastly under-valued, it's early Broome and Kane GL.

[Aaron King]

Re: the Broome references to color in the Showcase GLs... I think I made this same point when I first got the book. "Gee, what's wrong with Hal? *next page* Oh! He's floating through golden yellow space dust!"

[Agentum]

hehe, yes but he may have thought that maybe some time this is going to be printed in B&W in a big Showcase book:D