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There is something about my brain, I think, that does an abnormally poor job at parsing/understanding/grokking graphic novels and comics.
I've wondered this for a while now, but it popped into my head most recently when I finished reading the first volume of Monstress. That comic is gorgeous. I loved its world, I loved what it was going for. And yet I felt vaguely confused the whole time, about who's-doing-what and whatnot, and I could feel most of the plot points falling out of my head as soon as I closed the book. I read a couple reviews thereafter, and was shocked at the subtlety/detail that people were picking up on—they'd point to a really beautiful exchange spanning two pages, and I'd be like, "whoa, what the hell, when did that happen?"
Turns out it's hard to enjoy comics when all the details feel fuzzy to you, who knew!
Some thoughts on why this might be the case:
* Let's start with some comics I do recall really enjoying: Rurouni Kenshin, Fruits Basket, Skip Beat, Watchmen, Saga, The Less-Than-Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal, Bleach, Death Note. I also read Questionable Content in a feverish 72-hour blitz sometime in college, though when I look back, I wonder what exactly I saw in the comic—like, I definitely can't read it now, most of the jokes seem lame, what was it that made me binge-read the whole thing? What was it? Relatedly, what will we tell our descendants when they ask us to explain Megatokyo—
* And yet, even among comics I remember enjoying, for some of them, I struggle to remember basic plot points, or what moments I most enjoyed, and so on. I mean, I'm pretty bad about remembering plots in general, but it's especially bad with comics; I can remember most novels I enjoyed reasonably well. Whereas, if I were to describe Saga off the top of my head right now, I would remember "uh there's a Romeo and Juliet romance between these two races that hate each other" and "there's a cat that can tell when you're lying, it's owned by a bounty hunter or something" and "uh something with computer-monitor-headed people??" and... annnd that's it. Does anyone else experience this?
* Also: the forgettable-ness seems skewed toward western-ish comics, though it doesn't exclusively include those. I've been reading Pluto lately, for instance, which everyone tells me is A Great Manga, and yet I can already feel plot details getting fuzzy in my head, a mere week after reading the last volume. Other comics I had trouble getting into (despite really liking their core premises or other stuff): Unsounded, most of the classic X-Men arcs.
* I do have a hunch that there's an aspect of "talkiness" in non-Western comics that makes it generally easier for me to grok those. Like, both shonen and shojo comics tend to have a fuckload of introspection, pages and pages of it. There will be whole chapters in Rurouni Kenshin where Sano's painstakingly analyzing Kenshin's fighting stance, and we're getting flashbacks into the opponent's fighting history, and Kenshin's giving Long Spirited Speeches, and while this is the sort of thing that tends to drive me nuts when watching anime, I love it in manga. Perhaps it makes each battle feel more like an "event", rather than an explosion of color on four pages? Similarly, shojo will have like 800 pages of will-they-or-won't-they for every school dance, blah blah. Western comics, I think, tend to have a bit less of this "talkiness." Though Watchmen was pretty talk-y. And yet, I love Watchmen and remember it well! So.
* Similarly, I really don't spend a lot of time dwelling on each page. I read the text and then turn to the next page pretty quickly. Maybe other people do the whole savor-the-art-on-each-page thing? It's not that I hate the art, obviously, I just tend to be pushing more for a "fluid-feel-to-the-collective-page-turning-result" thing than a "pause and savor each page" thing, which is perhaps unusual.
* Another possible factor: manga is largely black-and-white, whereas the Western-ish stuff is usually in color. I wonder if there's something about *that* that makes processing easier.
* TJ and Amal was so good. So so good. I should probably go reread it actually—
* It's also possible I just have Correct Taste, and Monstress actually was sort of forgettable and confusing, har har de har. Answer's probably somewhere in the middle :P
I'm most curious for anyone's thoughts, whether anyone else experiences this, or whether I sound totally crazy to you, etc :P
I've wondered this for a while now, but it popped into my head most recently when I finished reading the first volume of Monstress. That comic is gorgeous. I loved its world, I loved what it was going for. And yet I felt vaguely confused the whole time, about who's-doing-what and whatnot, and I could feel most of the plot points falling out of my head as soon as I closed the book. I read a couple reviews thereafter, and was shocked at the subtlety/detail that people were picking up on—they'd point to a really beautiful exchange spanning two pages, and I'd be like, "whoa, what the hell, when did that happen?"
Turns out it's hard to enjoy comics when all the details feel fuzzy to you, who knew!
Some thoughts on why this might be the case:
* Let's start with some comics I do recall really enjoying: Rurouni Kenshin, Fruits Basket, Skip Beat, Watchmen, Saga, The Less-Than-Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal, Bleach, Death Note. I also read Questionable Content in a feverish 72-hour blitz sometime in college, though when I look back, I wonder what exactly I saw in the comic—like, I definitely can't read it now, most of the jokes seem lame, what was it that made me binge-read the whole thing? What was it? Relatedly, what will we tell our descendants when they ask us to explain Megatokyo—
* And yet, even among comics I remember enjoying, for some of them, I struggle to remember basic plot points, or what moments I most enjoyed, and so on. I mean, I'm pretty bad about remembering plots in general, but it's especially bad with comics; I can remember most novels I enjoyed reasonably well. Whereas, if I were to describe Saga off the top of my head right now, I would remember "uh there's a Romeo and Juliet romance between these two races that hate each other" and "there's a cat that can tell when you're lying, it's owned by a bounty hunter or something" and "uh something with computer-monitor-headed people??" and... annnd that's it. Does anyone else experience this?
* Also: the forgettable-ness seems skewed toward western-ish comics, though it doesn't exclusively include those. I've been reading Pluto lately, for instance, which everyone tells me is A Great Manga, and yet I can already feel plot details getting fuzzy in my head, a mere week after reading the last volume. Other comics I had trouble getting into (despite really liking their core premises or other stuff): Unsounded, most of the classic X-Men arcs.
* I do have a hunch that there's an aspect of "talkiness" in non-Western comics that makes it generally easier for me to grok those. Like, both shonen and shojo comics tend to have a fuckload of introspection, pages and pages of it. There will be whole chapters in Rurouni Kenshin where Sano's painstakingly analyzing Kenshin's fighting stance, and we're getting flashbacks into the opponent's fighting history, and Kenshin's giving Long Spirited Speeches, and while this is the sort of thing that tends to drive me nuts when watching anime, I love it in manga. Perhaps it makes each battle feel more like an "event", rather than an explosion of color on four pages? Similarly, shojo will have like 800 pages of will-they-or-won't-they for every school dance, blah blah. Western comics, I think, tend to have a bit less of this "talkiness." Though Watchmen was pretty talk-y. And yet, I love Watchmen and remember it well! So.
* Similarly, I really don't spend a lot of time dwelling on each page. I read the text and then turn to the next page pretty quickly. Maybe other people do the whole savor-the-art-on-each-page thing? It's not that I hate the art, obviously, I just tend to be pushing more for a "fluid-feel-to-the-collective-page-turning-result" thing than a "pause and savor each page" thing, which is perhaps unusual.
* Another possible factor: manga is largely black-and-white, whereas the Western-ish stuff is usually in color. I wonder if there's something about *that* that makes processing easier.
* TJ and Amal was so good. So so good. I should probably go reread it actually—
* It's also possible I just have Correct Taste, and Monstress actually was sort of forgettable and confusing, har har de har. Answer's probably somewhere in the middle :P
I'm most curious for anyone's thoughts, whether anyone else experiences this, or whether I sound totally crazy to you, etc :P
