“Next time leave the exposition to the narration.”
The way we read comics is important. It’s one of the ways comics can tell a story versus other formats. The thought balloon, for example, is an evolution from the word balloon, a way for the reader to know what’s inside someone’s head without them speaking it out loud for some reason. That makes them look silly. Reading a character’s thoughts is a benefit to the audience, but some reason the caption box has taken over going over the character’s thoughts.
The problem is that the caption used to be the place for narration, whether someone was narrating to another character during a flashback or the third person narrator was filling in information for the reader, once comic creators realized that this wasn’t prose or an audio drama script and you could just show what the characters are doing, that would be clunky if the characters said it. Thus it reduces the “as you know” trope because whatever the reader needs the narrator can fill in.
Instead now the “first person” caption box is where you read the thoughts of the character, under the belief that this is better. However, whatever trade-offs it has I don’t feel is worth it. To set this discussion up I have a video from NerdSync Productions and Scott Niswander, with help from Strip Panel Naked host and comic letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou that goes over the history of the thought balloon and why the switch to captions was made. Then I have my own thoughts because it wouldn’t be a feature article if I didn’t.
BW Media Spotlight 
BW’s Daily Article Link> Legacy Media’s Decaying Grip On Attitude
Why do we hate the prequels? Yeah, the dialog is a bit clunky but there was a time that Jar Jar Binks wasn’t the most hated thing in Star Wars until Rey showed up. When The Phantom Menace hit people were excited…until the Jar Jar hate and spitting on young Anakin to the point that the kid playing him rather violently lost his love for the franchise for a long time due his being bullied by his schoolmates changed everything. It seems the mainstream entertainment media likes to make our decisions for us, or thus is the theory by Bounding Into Comics contributor A.C. Graves makes, but could they be losing their hold with the advances of the internet? If the internet existed in 1999 the way it does today could the Jar Jar defenders have had a stronger voice? Should they even be trying to tell us what to think about a particular story? I’ve never tried to. I just tell you what I think.
I also recommend listening to the video in that article by the Critical Drinker. (Not the ad videos. Seriously, BIC, you’re overdoing it.) And maybe check out his videos on YouTube. He’s quite interesting and often quite funny as well.
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on September 7, 2022 in Movie Spotlight and tagged commentary.
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