I kinda stopped caring about immersion a long time ago. If the storytelling works - it works. If it doesn’t - which happens a lot in Hollywood - well, tough shit.
I’d say I’m with you on that. I feel sort of similarly when reading BD fiction-- the author can go for whatever outlandishly oddball world-building they want to, but the storytelling has to be there, as well as a level of internal consistency. Cheats and shortcuts tend to erode the ‘truth’ of such worlds.
Again, interesting comments on the movie-making technique that sadly go over my head for the most part. I hope you find some early-era film scholars to talk to on the Fediverse, as I’d kinda like to be a fly on that wall.
regarding BD storytelling - from my perspective - it’s the Caza Bilal conundrum - both have it in opposite ways.
Caza is like sun exploding with his narrative style in Arkhe and Lailah and it takes time just to figure out how it works but then it just clicks but you also understand how this thing won’t work any other way.
Then there is Bilal who seemingly always plays it comparably straight but if you read closely he goes full Derrida on story elements like he’s rendering every story into a chess problem that requires some extreme out of the box thinking and the whole thing completely transforms in meaning. This method peaks in Nikopol (sometimes literally with chess boxing storyline).
on a sidenote going back to America - the Liefeld paradox. That dude is both not very good artist in technical terms but also incredibly inventive if absolutely ridiculous storyteller. His stuff just works. I happened to read Youngblood (don’t look at me like that) and was amazed how braindead the stories are but how efficient the storytelling is.
Creators like Caza, Bilal, Andreas and Druillet aren’t exactly my cup of tea, so I’ve only read a limited amount of their stuff. Of course I’ve still featured them quite a bit in my community, but for me personally their work exists in something of a BD subgenre that’s never really grabbed me like some others. I find with them, typically there’s a mix of weirdness, sci-fi, horror, outlandish design and alien vibes, almost like they’re telling tales from another plane of reality. Me, I’m very much in to a: ‘show me an historic humanity from some era or other, but make it strictly believable’ sort of chap. But I also get that everyone (or different groups) is looking for something a little different from BD, and that’s to be appreciated. Plus those four above are still some of the greatest creators, with plenty of real aspects to enjoy in their work.
was amazed how braindead the stories are but how efficient the storytelling is.
Yeah, that’s also something to respect. Plenty of brain-dead (or extremely lighthearted) series in BD that nevertheless know how to set a pace and keep to it, how to create smooth panel flow and camera angles that help make the facile story work, etc, etc.
Me, I was pretty big in to American mainstream stuff for some years in the 80’s, but I kinda left that all behind for indie / alt stuff by 1990, then had a long pause on comics, then utterly fell for BD maybe 20yrs ago. Been an interesting ride, I guess.
Yup. They’re Metal Hurlant crew and their stuff is on an island of sorts in many ways. Same thing to a lesser extent with Pilote regulars - once you saw enough of their stuff you can see from a mile away.
There was also some Heavy Metal and Metal Hurlant stuff that absolutely did grab the hell out of me.
The five-parter series “Oath in Amber” for example appeared translated in two of the HM issues, which you can read online. Super-good, down-to-earth worldbuilding, altho that said, it did feature a legendarium / mythic / curse-like factor. Overall it felt like a classic old tale from earlier civilisations, frankly. I’ll try to post some excerpts one of these days. For now:
thanks. gotta check it out. I’m yet to revisit 90s Heavy Metal proper and the sour taste of 80s Heavy Metal is brutal.
Latter day Heavy Metal is such a strange beast. While the relevance was long gone Eastman did such a good job publishing something for everybody. Just pure smorgasbord approach - all over the place. Not all of it landed but it was leagues above Tits and Ass Heavy Metal of mid to late 80s simply because it was usually just plain weird going back to the beginning. The Morrison run was majestic little thing as well. Too bad the economy wasn’t there to make it work all the way.
Some good observations. HM went through such distinct phases, with one of the recent ones (after Eastman sold out, so ~2020’s) one of the most awful from every viewpoint imaginable.
As a late-bloomer to relationships, I gotta say I was as titillated as anyone else by the T&A stuff in the 80’s and 90’s, but just as an incidental. It could also be annoying and a signal that the story was lacking. Where it went over the line for me was in stuff like Druuna, where abuse & borderline-slavery was involved. (I posted a couple times about that here)
Too bad the economy wasn’t there to make it work all the way.
Truly. HM was such a great gateway to fairly serious and creative BD. As I see it, that’s something critically needed in the States.
i haven’t read much post-Morrison issues so i guess i’m not missing out. It is baffling that anthology format is not doing great these days because from my perspective (and i guess it is rather widely accepted) - it is a gateway to a lot of stuff at once. I guess it is one of the casualties of digital economy.
Druuna is such a weird comic. Serpieri definitely got skills and his world-building is very consistent but goddamn is he overdoing the sex part ten times over. I think there is some kind of point hidden in there but i haven’t read much of his stuff past the original couple of chapters so can’t tell.
It is baffling that anthology format is not doing great these days because from my perspective (and i guess it is rather widely accepted) - it is a gateway to a lot of stuff at once.
The essay / article I have pinned in my community does a great job digging in to the ins and outs of all that when in it comes to Europe. As for the States, I suspect a good bit of that still applies. Less trade of weeklies and kiosk-based & anthology content, more concentration on discrete graphic novels and niche content. Something like that, anyway. I’d be curious to hear what you thought of that article, though. It’s super-comprehensive.
I think there is some kind of point hidden in there…
I agree with that, but I tend to think that Serpieri, given his audience (Italian and otherwise), never quite needs to get to any clear conclusions. In other words, he has the luxury of waffling around endlessly with his plots and themes, all the while satisfying his readers with the riveting, mostly-naked figure of his ‘heroine.’ Not unlike another genius artist like Juan Gimenez, I really wish these guys had spent more time working with excellent writers of BD, like Jean Dufaux, Fabien Nury, Hubert, Vehlmann, etc.
I’d say I’m with you on that. I feel sort of similarly when reading BD fiction-- the author can go for whatever outlandishly oddball world-building they want to, but the storytelling has to be there, as well as a level of internal consistency. Cheats and shortcuts tend to erode the ‘truth’ of such worlds.
Again, interesting comments on the movie-making technique that sadly go over my head for the most part. I hope you find some early-era film scholars to talk to on the Fediverse, as I’d kinda like to be a fly on that wall.
regarding BD storytelling - from my perspective - it’s the Caza Bilal conundrum - both have it in opposite ways.
Caza is like sun exploding with his narrative style in Arkhe and Lailah and it takes time just to figure out how it works but then it just clicks but you also understand how this thing won’t work any other way. Then there is Bilal who seemingly always plays it comparably straight but if you read closely he goes full Derrida on story elements like he’s rendering every story into a chess problem that requires some extreme out of the box thinking and the whole thing completely transforms in meaning. This method peaks in Nikopol (sometimes literally with chess boxing storyline).
on a sidenote going back to America - the Liefeld paradox. That dude is both not very good artist in technical terms but also incredibly inventive if absolutely ridiculous storyteller. His stuff just works. I happened to read Youngblood (don’t look at me like that) and was amazed how braindead the stories are but how efficient the storytelling is.
Creators like Caza, Bilal, Andreas and Druillet aren’t exactly my cup of tea, so I’ve only read a limited amount of their stuff. Of course I’ve still featured them quite a bit in my community, but for me personally their work exists in something of a BD subgenre that’s never really grabbed me like some others. I find with them, typically there’s a mix of weirdness, sci-fi, horror, outlandish design and alien vibes, almost like they’re telling tales from another plane of reality. Me, I’m very much in to a: ‘show me an historic humanity from some era or other, but make it strictly believable’ sort of chap. But I also get that everyone (or different groups) is looking for something a little different from BD, and that’s to be appreciated. Plus those four above are still some of the greatest creators, with plenty of real aspects to enjoy in their work.
Yeah, that’s also something to respect. Plenty of brain-dead (or extremely lighthearted) series in BD that nevertheless know how to set a pace and keep to it, how to create smooth panel flow and camera angles that help make the facile story work, etc, etc.
Me, I was pretty big in to American mainstream stuff for some years in the 80’s, but I kinda left that all behind for indie / alt stuff by 1990, then had a long pause on comics, then utterly fell for BD maybe 20yrs ago. Been an interesting ride, I guess.
Yup. They’re Metal Hurlant crew and their stuff is on an island of sorts in many ways. Same thing to a lesser extent with Pilote regulars - once you saw enough of their stuff you can see from a mile away.
There was also some Heavy Metal and Metal Hurlant stuff that absolutely did grab the hell out of me.
The five-parter series “Oath in Amber” for example appeared translated in two of the HM issues, which you can read online. Super-good, down-to-earth worldbuilding, altho that said, it did feature a legendarium / mythic / curse-like factor. Overall it felt like a classic old tale from earlier civilisations, frankly. I’ll try to post some excerpts one of these days. For now:
https://www.bedetheque.com/serie-201-BD-Serment-de-l-Ambre.html
https://heavymetalmag.wordpress.com/2015/08/09/ep-1-the-oath-in-amber-vol-1-2-1996-1999/
thanks. gotta check it out. I’m yet to revisit 90s Heavy Metal proper and the sour taste of 80s Heavy Metal is brutal.
Latter day Heavy Metal is such a strange beast. While the relevance was long gone Eastman did such a good job publishing something for everybody. Just pure smorgasbord approach - all over the place. Not all of it landed but it was leagues above Tits and Ass Heavy Metal of mid to late 80s simply because it was usually just plain weird going back to the beginning. The Morrison run was majestic little thing as well. Too bad the economy wasn’t there to make it work all the way.
Some good observations. HM went through such distinct phases, with one of the recent ones (after Eastman sold out, so ~2020’s) one of the most awful from every viewpoint imaginable.
As a late-bloomer to relationships, I gotta say I was as titillated as anyone else by the T&A stuff in the 80’s and 90’s, but just as an incidental. It could also be annoying and a signal that the story was lacking. Where it went over the line for me was in stuff like Druuna, where abuse & borderline-slavery was involved. (I posted a couple times about that here)
Truly. HM was such a great gateway to fairly serious and creative BD. As I see it, that’s something critically needed in the States.
i haven’t read much post-Morrison issues so i guess i’m not missing out. It is baffling that anthology format is not doing great these days because from my perspective (and i guess it is rather widely accepted) - it is a gateway to a lot of stuff at once. I guess it is one of the casualties of digital economy.
Druuna is such a weird comic. Serpieri definitely got skills and his world-building is very consistent but goddamn is he overdoing the sex part ten times over. I think there is some kind of point hidden in there but i haven’t read much of his stuff past the original couple of chapters so can’t tell.
The essay / article I have pinned in my community does a great job digging in to the ins and outs of all that when in it comes to Europe. As for the States, I suspect a good bit of that still applies. Less trade of weeklies and kiosk-based & anthology content, more concentration on discrete graphic novels and niche content. Something like that, anyway. I’d be curious to hear what you thought of that article, though. It’s super-comprehensive.
I agree with that, but I tend to think that Serpieri, given his audience (Italian and otherwise), never quite needs to get to any clear conclusions. In other words, he has the luxury of waffling around endlessly with his plots and themes, all the while satisfying his readers with the riveting, mostly-naked figure of his ‘heroine.’ Not unlike another genius artist like Juan Gimenez, I really wish these guys had spent more time working with excellent writers of BD, like Jean Dufaux, Fabien Nury, Hubert, Vehlmann, etc.