Joe Quesada inadvertently started the decline. Joe mandated the removal of Thought Balloons. The purpose was to make new stories more easily transferred to film/tv/other media. Remember when DC started their direct-to-dvd animated movies? Remember how badly received the first arc of the Superman/Batman comic was? Because most of the comic story was rendered in Thought Balloons, so going to film lost a huge portion of the story.
Now, a lot of GOOD comics were written under this mandate, so WTF am I talking about? This: The mandate lowered the bar, lowered the standard of what it takes to become a comic book writer. This is why they hired so many people off of Tumblr, because their "standards" were able to meekly pass editorial at Marvel's standards (themselves very fricking low). I enjoyed Quesasa's tactic of bringing in television writers to write for comics, those writers actually knew how to compose a story (yes, there was some trash too, I liked a lot of JMS's work but not all of it was good, and some of his worst was Quesada-mandated. And JMS on Superman was awful. Not every writer bats a 1000).
Politics and agendas have always been around since pen and paper were invented, but at least writers were able to compose interesting stories. Also, Jim Shooter would never have constantly rebooted Captain Marvel so many times when she failed to stick. I won't even bother to read a modern comic for FREE. So all of these modern-based ML are easy passes for me.
Things have gotten so bad now they intentionally stir up NEGATIVE controversy for advertising purposes. And yes, many people hate what Joey Q did to SpiderMan and MJ's marriage. But his mandate to eliminate Thought Balloons rippled through and destroyed an entire industry by unintentionally lowering the bar in the quality of writers getting into the industry.
Carol got the same amount of relaunches as everybody else, less even than the big hitters.
Is that your actual retort? No facts presented, just your feels that the numbers were equal? FF, Spidey, etc, etc, etc didn't need reboots because their sales were there. Dazzler was sold until her sales fell below threshold, Dazzler did not get rebooted constantly. Carol has been forced upon the readership despite the support never being there, consistently. Shooter would have never kept rebooting her with her sales numbers being what they are.
Nah Carol has always been popular.
Not OP but no, her sales are terrible.
Nope, they're great.
OP here, you're feeding a troll. That's why I didn't respond further to their stupidity. I see they already replied to you. Don't feed the trolls.
>Frank Castle being his own narrator is an absolute essential part of Punisher storytelling
This guy gets it!
Thought Balloons are a storytelling tool. Some writers use it better than others, some characters benefit more than others (Galactus is more mysterious & ominous without them). But to deny all writers to use that tool (hypocritically, as others pointed out Joe used them in BND) is what started the decline.
Seething that Carol outsells your fave, I see.
Also, before anyone quips "comics were always political":
Captain America punched Hitler in the face. He did NOT, however, punch him in the face for every single issue. He developed a revolver cast of characters, villains, allies, love interests. etc.
Comics are a visual medium first and foremost so they should be able to tell a story through the art without needing excessive thought balloons. Reading older comics really cemented for me how pointless most thought balloons are.
I always see younger readers with this opinion, and I hate it. Yeah older comics could be wordy, but it’s not like that was the case by the 70s/ 80s onward where monologues really helped get in a character’s head. Yes, visual medium, but seeing a characters inner thoughts contrasted against action can be very effective.
Now you get excessive word balloons and captions. I think OP makes a good point, but I also think decompressed stories have hurt even more.
I used to believe this up until I got older and looked closer at older comics and newer comics.
I agree that comics should tell a story through the art more than thought balloons, but there are some things that thought balloons and captions can do that Trying To Be Like A Movie can't.
>Comics are a visual medium first and foremost
And yet, they've always contained words, haven't they? Regardless if you switch from internal to external dialogue, it's only extreme outliers like the silent classic GI Joe issue that has zero dialogue. Your argument is invalid.
How about you read the rest of my post, you homosexual.
>reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!
I did read your post, you homosexual, I just quoted the most relevant part instead of the whole thing. Cry more about it, you don't get Participation Awards here, son. You're the dipshit determining what is and isn't "needless" like a Monday Morning Quarterback.
No you didn't, moron. I said EXCESSIVE thought balloons are a problem because usually they can be skipped over and you'll miss nothing.
>homosexual
>moron
Yes, son, you're a genius in your own mind. Shame you can't debate or discuss without screaming and throwing a tantrum while resorting to name calling. Now frick off to your corner, suck your thumb and reflect on how to interact with adults.
The 2000's where the real dark age of comics.
They all stop being Heroes & became celebrities with powers.
I think it was Bill Jemas who hated thought balloons. Brand New Day was Quesada's pet project and it was full of thought balloons (even though Peter was narrating most of the issues and it's pretty redundant).
What happened around the turn of the century was that Marvel had had a very conservative writing culture (I don't mean politically conservative) and Quesada and Jemas revamped it to be more like the fashionable way of comics writing, which basically means the British way.
So before 2000, almost all Marvel comics were still written Marvel style: the artist works from a plot outline only, the writer then does the script over the pencils. That changed around 2001 in part because they started bringing in writers from DC (Morrison, Millar) and the indie world (Bendis) who never worked any other way but full script..
Change isn't always good but it was probably inevitable.
I recall Matt Fraction a few years ago said Quesada was trying to encourage writers to go back to Marvel style, which isn't surprising since he's an artist and probably enjoyed the freedom of it.
I believe Fraction's Hawkeye and some Ewing's stuff are in a sort of modified Marvel style where they are basically fully scripted but the dialogue isn't finalized until the pencils come back.
>here it is, this Brand New Day Presented by Marvel Comics On Sale Now
come on
Hey, I didn't say it was good, just that it used thought balloons.
I disagree. Thought balloons and huge internal monologues were always the worst part of comics
But why though? Books have internal monologues.
Is it just a manga style preference against it?
It only works in books because a book also to tell you because it can’t show you. I feel narration boxes for internal monologues in comics is just exposition dump when a competent artist could have achieved the emotion with a well drawn panel.
It works well only in a story that’s primarily a flashback. Daredevil Yellow using it as Matt’s letter to Karen worked. But a standard comic where you see massive exposition internal monologues boxes while seeing scenic shots of the city always annoys me
>It only works in books because a book also to tell you because it can’t show you. I feel narration boxes for internal monologues in comics is just exposition dump when a competent artist could have achieved the emotion with a well drawn panel.
But how do you show a character hiding an emotion? An artist can easily oversell it by making the expression look too fake. Real emotions aren't so cut and dried. There can be a real disconnect between internal thoughts and outside action that would be undersold if you don't know what the character is thinking.
They make sense sometimes. I stress: sometimes.
Excessive thoughts is probably why I don't like a lot of anime. I hate when characters are reading to fight yet they spent 5 minutes standing still while we listen to their thoughts.
I hate thought balloons.
Thought balloons are still pretty mainstream in indie/underground comics, usually where the character is among other people and can't speak their thoughts out loud.
What killed it in superhero comics is the way they were used as, basically, an exposition device, with characters thinking stuff for the benefit of new readers.
What replaced it, though, was having first-person narration all the time ("My name is Matt Murdock. I'm blind. Here's why a blind man can fight crime, in case this is your first comic...") which isn't exactly better, but at least is easier to letter.
Frank Castle being his own narrator is an absolute essential part of Punisher storytelling that often goes unmentioned, so it's easy to forget how important it is. It's a part of why the 2005 Punisher video game feels more true to the character than the movies.
Castle being his own narrator is an absolute essential part of Punisher storytelling
>This guy gets it!
Not sure why my post didn't attribute correctly
No more, I'm putting you on a diet. Your mommy is still trying to get the stains out of your last pair of underwear you allowed her to change.
>No more, I'm putting you on a diet. Your mommy is still trying to get the stains out of your last pair of underwear you allowed her to change.
Moving away from "done in one" stories eventually killed the Superhero comic.