This is more accurately a squeeee than a review. ACM lent me the first five trades of Fables, a series of graphic novels by Bill Willingham, and I am ridiculously hooked. I had read the first one a long time ago and it didn’t grab me, but ACM insisted I would like it if I kept going, and she was so right.
The premise is that centuries ago, a mysterious Adversary swept across all the lands of (European) fables and fairy tales, killing or enslaving everyone, except those who managed to get through a few doorways into our world. Now they live in Fabletown: one block in Manhattan and an upstate farm where all the non-human Fables have to live. They’ve signed a general amnesty forgiving all actions before the founding of Fabletown — such that the Big Bad Wolf (now in wolfman-human form and named Bigby), for example, is the sheriff — but not everyone is so reformed…
I’ve gotten obsessed in that way that I can with comics and TV shows: I need to know more about these people’s lives, what goes on that we don’t see. I need to figure out the answers — I had a moment of being pretty sure I’d figured out who the Adversary is, and I actually gasped, “Oh s__!” on the train.
So why do comics and TV shows elicit this reaction, but movies and books don’t? Because they’re serial, of course — that has to be a lot of it. There’s more coming; there’s enough time to build up anticipation and misdirection before delivering a payoff for something that happened years ago. But books could do that too, and yet I’ve almost never encountered a series I wasn’t done with by the end of the third book. L. A. Meyer’s Bloody Jack series is a recent exception, but it’s hardly an obsession in the way that I’m talking about here. Harry Potter is the other exception, but even that has been slow going in a number of places and rarely obsession-inducing. I think even authors get bored by the third book; that’s why most series are trilogies (or should be even if they aren’t — Orson Scott Card, I’m looking at you).
Maybe the other piece is that comics and TV are visual. Maybe I’m enough of a visual learner to only truly be able to attach to something if I can see it. Though there are plenty of books in which I was completely immersed and obsessed while I was reading them, but I didn’t want a sequel… I don’t know. I don’t have an answer, but I think it’s an interesting phenomenon.
Question 1: Do you notice the same thing with your story consumption? Do you get more attached to stories told serially or visually or something else-ly? Why do you think that is?
Question 2: What’s your favorite “Oh s__!” moment in a story? That’s my favorite part of story consumption, when all the pieces fall into place and you can see the next steps a few moments before the characters do, and you’re knocked upside the head with the emotional weight of it — when you realize you know who Valen is, and which characters are Cylons. I know I’ve had loads, but I can’t remember them; help me out! (Warn in the subject line if it’s going to be a spoiler for something, please!)
4 responses so far ↓
1 Martha // May 11, 2007 at 7:19 pm
Hmm. See, there are totally book series I’ve felt that way about, but not as easily as tv shows. I’m more of a character person than a plot person, but for serious obsession I need characters that I really love + serial storytelling. And preferably long-simmering romantic tension - I’m way more likely to get obsessed if I’m shipping (although the obsession may be more general). And book series have a better track record for paying off well on that than tv shows - the Peter Wimsey books, the Lymond Chronicles. There are other mystery series I love, but those are usually all about the characters for me.
And I’m really not particularly visual - like, I’ve said this before, but the reason I’ve never gotten into comics is that I end up just reading the text and forgetting to look at the pictures; that might get better with practice, but at that point it just sounds like too much work.
My thoughts are disorganized! And I’m drawing a blank for #2 (except, oh, Veronica Mars, season one, several moments, but especially the next-to-last episode!) I’ll be back if I think of more.
2 Martini-Corona // May 11, 2007 at 7:51 pm
I have “oh shit!” moments in books, too, and I am always sad when a book that I love is NOT part of a trilogy (even when it’s probably better that it isn’t). My most recent and jarring “oh shit!” moments are from reading Cloud Atlas (which Roommate J also really liked) — but like Fables, it builds sometimes very slowly to the oh-shit-ness. I think that makes it better — Now Entering Total Payoff Town! You made it!
My last “oh shit” moment in Harry Potter was Tom Malvolo Voldemort. I’ve been pretty eh about all things Potteresque since then…
3 rikchik // May 12, 2007 at 9:02 am
The “Jack of Fables” spinoff series has a great “oh shit!” moment in the first collection.
4 Jaime // May 12, 2007 at 10:57 am
On SRO, they just rhymed ‘joker’ with ‘mediocre.’ Genius. The hook of the song, which otherwise blows, is ‘I’d rather be 9 people’s favorite thing, than 100 people’s 9th favorite thing.’
Sorry, I got distracted. I agree with Martha- I am ALL ABOUT the books. Even TV I adore, 10 minutes after I’ve turned it off I’ve stopped thinking about it. And despite my long childhood addiction to Archie’s, I never got good at reading comic books- it takes me 5 times as long to read, because I read the text, then I look at te pictures, then I read the txt again to see how it relates to the picture, then I look at the picture again, then I read the text of the next panel, and then I reread panel 1 to make sure it follows. That is way too much work, so I gave up on comics.
But books- first of all, even if there’s only 3, each book is so long, it’s worth at least a season of TV. Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars books had several great ‘gah!’ moments, but the clear winner, at the moment, are the George RR Martin’s, (I’m saving the new one so I can reread all of them in a row this summer.) I was so involved with Katherine Kurtz and David Eddings’ endless series I used to have dreams about the characters, and while Eddings hasn’t held up, I haven’t reread Kurtz to know. Right on with Orson Scott Card, btw.
More later,
J
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