about me

 

still ill I'm still struggling with a winter cold that showed its first symptoms on December 20. There was a brief period in the middle where it looked like I might be getting better, but the cold roared back into life on Friday and has been pummeling me full-bore ever since. So the grand total here is, what, nineteen days? Unbelievable. Although it did enable me to lie on the couch last night and watch four consecutive episodes of Heroes and not feel guilty about not doing anything else. My verdict: it's flashy, breezy, unreservedly stupid on occasion, fun but low on import. "Candy," said my viewing partner, and that's a pretty good one-word summation. I could probably say something thoughtful to fold it into the larger thoughts about "seriality" from last time, but I'm sick, so I'll let Abigail Nussbaum do it instead: "[Comic books and television] share a large number of similarities which make them ideal for cross-pollination: continuous, open-ended storytelling; a mixture of standalone and multi-part stories; large casts of characters; slowly accumulating backstories and ever-complicating settings. Perhaps most importantly, whereas film is ultimately ingested in solitude, television, like comics, is a communal medium, constantly engaged in a dialogue with its audience. More interesting, however, than the question of how comics can use television are the ways in which television can learn from comics--by far the more innovative and experimental field--about its own capabilities as a storytelling medium. [more]" (Thanks to DMF for the Nussbaum link; I'd read her whip-smart piece on Battlestar's second season a while back but hadn't poked more around at her writing since. I'm starting to think that her blog is pretty much a must-read for people who want to think seriously about television and narrative.) Post on seriality and videogames still in the works. Stay tuned. Labels: comics, media commentary, narrative, seriality

Monday, January 08, 2007 11:24 AM   Comments: Post a Comment