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Post by eheitner on Jul 27, 2023 12:46:37 GMT
You "just" write the book and break it up into narrative captions for an artist to labour over. More often than not, there's little interaction between words and pictures in these nonfiction comics, which is *shocker* terrible for comics. As OP pointed out "they seem to be more of a list of facts rather than proper storytelling," which is accurate. I'd also wager that non-comics publishers find that to be a low barrier for entry into the market because they know how to edit words (comics--not so much). I'm sure there's a hasty and too easily made generalization to be made about a race to the bottom in terms of quality to be made so I'll stop there. Ok, but again doesn't answer the question of why biography specifically as opposed to other easy-to-digest historical narratives?
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Post by owaddled on Jul 27, 2023 21:04:00 GMT
Ok, but again doesn't answer the question of why biography specifically as opposed to other easy-to-digest historical narratives? As I think about it more: 1) People like narratives 2) they like having a protagonist to care about. If you're doing a comic on how the pyramids were built or a famous war battle, I'd think a book publisher and the general audience would still want some personal stakes. And I think as soon as you add even a few more 'main characters' the decisions on what to include increase exponentially. If you're doing a non-fiction comic about say the Dada movement, how far back do you go? When does it end? Who do you give the most attention to, who gets left out? I'm not saying biographies don't have to make choices, but there are fewer choices to weigh, I would think.
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Post by franseen on Jul 27, 2023 21:25:49 GMT
Had a think about this as well and wonder if it's a matter of the bestseller precedent set by the likes of Spiegs, Satrapi, and Bechdel. All of their bestselling GNs are memoirs. That genre is additionally well-worn territory for non-comics fans. But despite the preponderance of what's hitting the shelves, let's be real and admit that not everybody has a great memoir in them, so a biography probably seems like the next best thing. I agree with owaddled that people need to identify or at least empathize with a protagonist which likely helps.
the snarky answer is of course that we all know how to deliver a report on somebody inspirational for our third-grade history class, and thus we circle back to the regurgitating wikipedia approach. Maybe we can all just agree that *that* specifically is not storytelling
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Post by soodumoodu on Jul 30, 2023 19:18:58 GMT
Not sure if it counts as a biography (I think it does) but I really enjoyed Derf Backderf's Kent State book. I read it for the first time recently and thought it was great. I especially liked the fact that he focused it around the 4 who died. If you're already familiar with the tragedy (like I was) you know what is going to happen to them and it becomes kind of horrifying to watch to live their lives leading up to the shooting and if you aren't the event probably seems even more shocking.
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Post by bayls171 on Sept 29, 2023 21:49:34 GMT
I've realized I am way more likely to enjoy the biography genre if it's not heavily narrated. Comics like Joseph Smith and the Mormons by Noah Van Sciver, Bill Griffith's Invisible Ink or Nobody's Fool (and definitely the new Bushmiller one will follow this format), and Chester Brown's Louis Riel of course. Nobody's Fool is what made me realize what I want in these non-fiction comics is an author that does so much research that they can get into the heads of the characters and write dialogue and create scenes. Schlitzie the Pinhead is a rather mysterious piece of history, but Griffith went in deep and portrayed scenes that were never captured, creating a visual for history forever lost. I think that's something that the medium of comics can actually contribute to the non-fiction genre, that's something a regular novel would have a harder time doing, and a docudrama movie would almost be too fictionalized. The ability to add in a little narration of facts here and there helps move the imagined scenes along. Nobody's Fool didn't get enough shine. I'm excited to know people will be reading the Bushmiller book I'm sure, it's going to be amazing. Another character that has a lot of lost history that Griffith surely dove incredibly deep into researching. What I'm not too interested in is illustrated wikipedia articles and pages with too many words on them. I read Nobody’s Fool last week and I really agree with what you’ve said here. Super underrated book and probably the best comics biography I’ve read? The way he brings the audience to understand 20th century “freak show” culture and Schlitzie’s place in it was incredible
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Post by adamszym on Sept 29, 2023 22:22:22 GMT
Has anybody mentioned Joe Lambert's Helen Keller book? Incredible book. So happy to see him posting his unbelievable sketchbooks on IG and really hope he finally publishes some new comics soon.
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Post by disneyweirdness on Sept 30, 2023 13:30:21 GMT
I just finished Three Rocks and am starting Scioli's Stan Lee bio. I loved his Jack Kirby book, but Three Rocks is such an incredible piece of work that anything is going to suffer by comparison.
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Post by bayls171 on Oct 7, 2023 7:48:26 GMT
Does Tezuka’s Buddha count? I’m not convinced it’s a masterpiece / his best work as I’ve seen some claim, but I just finished it and god it’s certainly not boring. Going between bizarre slapstick and “meta” jokes to pretty emotionally heavy moments, all to give a long and encompassing look at Buddha’s life, his lessons, and how he learned them
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Post by teemcgee on Oct 8, 2023 0:02:40 GMT
Has anybody mentioned Joe Lambert's Helen Keller book? Incredible book. So happy to see him posting his unbelievable sketchbooks on IG and really hope he finally publishes some new comics soon. Woah, hold the phone, Joe Lambert is actively posting content online again? What's his Instagram?
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Post by robindh on Oct 8, 2023 0:58:24 GMT
Has anybody mentioned Joe Lambert's Helen Keller book? Incredible book. So happy to see him posting his unbelievable sketchbooks on IG and really hope he finally publishes some new comics soon. Woah, hold the phone, Joe Lambert is actively posting content online again? What's his Instagram? He's posting on insta under the username jay.noplay, no indication that he's drawing again but I'm hoping against hope he'll come out with a mammoth gn or something out of nowhere. The sketchbooks he's posting are so delicious, beautiful typography especially.
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