i really don't know.

like, i think the next really BIG person in comics is going to be the guy who figures out how to bring back the 9-panel grid.

i like the decompression trend in that when i pick up a book, i want to see the artist. i like comics because there's art in there, right? so i like that trend because i think it rightly emphasizes that comics are a visual experience and blah blah blah. a lot of old comics just- the artists are amazing but they'd be amazing in these really tiny grids, and they almost never got to show off. and those are the moments you'd have to WAIT for to an extent.

like in watchmen, there's a scene where ozymandius kills some assassin- and i remember that was one of the few scenes where gibbons really got to do something big and action-y, and how exciting that was.

but at the same time: the dave gibbons comic we all remember is WATCHMEN, not Give Me Liberty. And Give Me Liberty gave him plenty of space to play- anyone read that anymore? No. ANd while I'd agree the later martha washington books are subliterate pretty crap- just hated those later books, I thought GIve Me Liberty was reasonable (though thinking about it- i think serious-minded people hate give me liberty)(i read give me liberty when i was very young, so who knows what i'd think of it now)... but, assuming arguendo that give me liberty doesn't suck balls, is the fact its less popular meaningful visa vi the relative merits of storytelling style? or just the way art works, you know, where some books survive and some books don't? the latter sounds right, but...

but then when you think about moore, and by moore, and all this what i'm trying to get at is the CUTTING, you know, between images, which he'd do where you know- i don't know how to describe cutting- or there's that steranko three-panel sequence in that horror comic he did, house of shadows??? have you ever seen that one? brilliant comic. uhm, cutting.... okay, i don't know what cutting means...

but has our ability to even experience that- like, back then, you got one splash page and it was at the beginning of the book, you know? like, whereas watchmen had those big splashes at the end when everyone in new york is dead, that meant something because people didn't take up that much space back then, did they? but now, would it mean the same? has our ability to ... feel that degraded? or would it be the same because of the CONTEXT of those images in an otherwise very image-dense book? well, again probably the latter...

still, just thinking about moore's put me in the mood to see something... with a certain density. like, obviously the serial to bookstore transition- noone's really got that figured out yet. but still, it's like- noone's really gone in the direction of having TONS happen per book. everyone's got, like, one scene per trade now. why? is it because bookstore audiences want to see pretty art more? i'm not sure why that'd be the case, necessarily.

consider james ellroy, how ellroy only really got the sort of acclaim he has now when he started that "I got three donuts. I drove to the beach. I shot JFK. I filled out paperwork for the next three months. i went on vacation to botswana. headhunters tried to eat me. i came back, and found out the donut place went out of business." super-fast, super-density stacatto style. when people read a normal book, they don't expect it NOT to have a lot of information, do they?

see: i'm just babbling, but yeah, i was just wandering around, wanting to see something with TONS of panels in it, but not tons of panels but ... wanting a certain type of informational density. or no, tons of panels, actually- i wanted to see something that cut around a lot and had a certain style.

i almost went with smax, which i know you like, but i didn't have much money the other day, and i'm not a real fantasy fan these days. as a kid, yeah. and i almost went with the second top ten trade but i didn't have $15, money's tight, and i was never a huge top ten fan- it always seemed kinda like schtick, too much(which is irrational). i guess that's the appeal of sleeper, which isn't my book, but it does seem like he at least tells the story in a way where it seems like a lot's happening per issue- there's always a lot of flashbacks and circular narratives and stuff. i'm not really fond of that sort of thing, strikes me as being stuff i didn't enjoy about some 90's neo-noir, but...

and i don't mean this to DECRY anything. like, i didn't like the last powers because the story didn't really move forward any, but i loved the one with the monkey sex. sure, that could've all happened in three panels, but i liked that it took the whole issue. i'm not one of those guys who are like "that could've happened in one issue." i hate those fucking guys, man...

like, i'm not even sure i'm saying PLOT compression is the funny thing. like, well on the one hand, i love a comic where a lot happens. i love infinite kung fu because TONS happens every issue. but ... take teenagers from mars. not a lot happens in a given issue, at all, but you know, there's a lot of panels in that book, a lot of stuff that's paced out to time jokes right.

on the other hand, decompression ate bryan hitch's brains, apparently, so how good a trend could it've been...

but even beyond that, you know, the jess lemon complaint. the "isn't it funny noone else tries to do this anymore?" complaint. i took some time at the shop this week to page through watchmen, and because of scott tipton's essay on v for vendetta, to glance through v for vendetta(which i've only read the once)(christ, dave llyod's awesome), and...

at the same time, i'm seeing moore out of context for most of my life. i came to those works after they'd come out. at the time, like, i'm sure there were moore clones- rick vietch's swamp thing or whatever, i don't know who, that awful new statesmen book- read one of those and it sucked, never read enough vietch to say- didn't care for his stuff much, bratpack or whatever.

i mean, everyone says early gaiman's a moore clone and it didn't hurt him any, but...

like reading tipton's essay on v for vendetta, it's like- "shit, there was a LOT to that book, wasn't there?" like, the moore level of world-building, is it even possible anymore? who knows- is anyone doing it?

or you know what's funny about alan moore is noone's ever mentioned he's cursed? dave gibbons does watchmen, almost never heard from again- doesn't do anything great ever again. dave lloyd does v for vendetta, never heard from again. like, yeah, they do comics still, but ... well, i haven't seen the originals yet, but neither guy's really been given something like that ever again...

or just that ... like those works weren't created in a void- there must've been a supporting ethos that enabled those works to exist, right, so what happened where you could have a book like v for vendetta then, but now... ? and i don't mean that in a "Let's talk about the patriot act" liberal kind of way, but in a ... how have things DEGRADED way?

because ultimately, that's what looking at moore feels like- like things have degraded. have they? i can't say they have. i think that's wrong, even if i can't point to anything that i'd say competes with either of those works too successfully in certain qualities(though not all). that strikes me as wrong anyway because... i'm sure the kid who comes to 100 bullets years later will be saying all this when its his turn to be a guy wasting a saturday morning(okay evening now- this is why i shouldn't wake up at 2 pm)on the internet, you know? i'm sure there's that element. because he comes to it later, you know, and that warps your vision. but but but...

but yeah, thinking about moore's screwed with my head because it makes things seem degraded-y, even though i'm not sure that's true.

i probably should've just bought hawkeye... it was a #1. that could be worth double someday. it could appreciate by 100%, and i could have profitted two bucks and wouldn't you all be jealous then???

yeah, i don't have any fucking idea what i'm talking about either... i haven't eaten all day, except for peppridge farm milano cookies- we're having this grocery strike and i don't want to cross the picket line, but man can't live off of trader joe's alone, so...
-abhay