For now, though, watch this video (17 min.) about how frames tell stories, particularly in this comic. This time, all the artwork is the same throughout each chapter/comic, so you get one unified experience. Do we gain or lose something from that experience?
RESPONSE QUESTION: I want to help you work on your Template for this comic, so we'll borrow from the Template Questions again (so you can use this in your Template Response for Q2). Since there are so many Batman movies, what does a Batman comic really bring to the table? What makes The Long Halloween need to be a comic rather than just a film or a TV show? What can this comic do, or show, or illustrate that a movie couldn't? Try to discuss a specific scene or example and consider how it tells the story--the use of frames and the transitions.
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The comic allows the reader to be part of the story. They get to grow with Batman. They get to witness the internal struggle that Batman faces as he evolves into the superhero that we know. The comics give a focus to this evolution whereas the films are so much more preoccupied with external factors. They are both a visual media but because film is constrained to a timeframe the audience doesn’t get the opportunity to mull over each individual frame. This hinders time to ruminate about motivation and consequences. You could tell the same exact story but the audience’s action is going to be different between film and comic because of the audiences’ participation. The film viewing is much more passive, the audience is told pretty much everything, whereas the comic gives the audience the gutters to fill in. These moments allow the reader to become part of the story more than any other story form. I haven’t read this graphic novel before so when I got to the scene in which Gilda is packing up the basement and frame by frame she is admitting her role in the Holiday murders while burning the evidence in the furnace my mind reads it in heavy steps as if limping to the finish line. It absolutely threw me or a loop but each frame felt deliberate and had to be viewed thoroughly. I couldn’t speed to a conclusion. All of it was presented in the perspective of the fire giving Gilda a silhouette, denying the reader a view of her face to identify emotion. Does she feel guilt for the role that she played? She obviously doesn’t hold Harvey to any blame by her last words but she remains a mystery. The pacing and the perspective of these last few pages are absolutely amazing. I cannot imagine how you could recreate that in any other format.
ReplyDeleteYes, this is a wonderful scene, and I didn't see it coming. And even when it does come, we're left in the dark about how she feels about it or even how much she did. Is she as much of a super villain as the others? Or are villains even such a black and white category? She thinks she's doing good and protecting her husband, just as the Roman could argue he's protecting his own family (never mind how he does it!). Ironically, a comic can make the morality of this world more ambiguous by how it reveals the truth, or how much it lets us decide who is innocent and guilty. Movies can do this, too, but they often interpret more for the audience with direction, music, etc. A comic remains a silent medium, or as McCloud says, a mono-sensory medium. So we have to supply the rest based on the clues it leaves us.
DeleteI am really enjoying reading these comic books because we have to use our imagination to finish the story. When you watch a movie you don't get to use your imagination because everything is being told to you. In a movie if there is a physical fight going on, you witness who throws the first punch, who throws the last punch, and what happens in between. In a comic you often see who throws the first punch and who throws the last punch but not what happens in between, and that is what makes Batman: The Long Halloween different than if we were watching a Batman Movie. For example, when part of the Roman Gang is celebrating Thanksgiving in their hotel, we see in one frame that the shooter shoots his gun and then he shoots two guys. Then on the next page everyone at the table is dead. But what happens in between? Do the other guys put up a fight? Does the shooter have two guns and he kills the Romans so fast they couldn't even react? We really don't know what happened in those seconds so that is where our imagination starts to run and we create our own story to the story already being told.
ReplyDeleteI agree--sometimes the comic completely hides the story so we can only see little pieces of it. Whenever the killer strikes, we get it in black and white, so we can't even use the 'closure' of colors to help us figure things out. As you suggest, we just get before and after moments, and he have to fill in the rest, which makes it harder to determine who did it. It's very clever and it keeps us guessing to the end.That's why this is a truly 'detective' comic, because it's not just about beating people up, but about solving a mystery and having Batman using his skills to infiltrate the underworld rather than just blasting his way through.
DeleteI feel that the comic version of Batman gives us, the reader, the opportunity to discover Batman simultaneously as he discovers himself. Even though most Americans know something about who or what Batman is as this novel opens, Bruce Wayne doesn't. I feel that this really comes through, especially in the first few pages when we are introduced to Bruce but he is perpetually in the shadows. The first time that he is fully lit in the illustrations is when he is shown as Batman. Without getting too psychoanalytical, I think this is showing a proclivity of Bruce to see himself as Batman rather than Mr. Wayne. This is something that is subtly slipped into the context of just the first few pages and would have had to either been openly narrated in a film or have taken half the allotted time to get across.
ReplyDeleteA particular section I enjoyed was the Joker fight scene in the airplane. It's a bit of a trope but it's Batman so... The intensity and the sense of urgency is completely conveyed by the blocking in this section. Batman and Joker are shown standing on the fuselage of the plane and the fact that we, the reader, are literally counting down the seconds until midnight aids toward the feeling of careening at break-neck speed through the night sky. The panel breakup really adds to this scene, but somewhat counterintuitively, the large panels make it feel like the scene is taking too long and that we are running out of time. Also the fact that the artist chose to breakaway in the middle of this fight and cover other scenes is a masterful (or torturous) employment of suspense.
Great breakdown of this exciting scene--the layout of the panels does indeed create the tension and the sense of time running out. The big panels hide a sense of what's going on elsewhere in the scene, so we just focus on these micro-moments before Batman falls off the plane. It also suggests that Batman thinks he's in control, so he can dominate the scene--but even he can't see beyond the frame. It's a wonderful scene that could be totally formulaic in a movie, but in this comic, feels new and exciting.
DeleteJordyn Moore: The images in Batman, the long Halloween help tell the story by enhancing how one views the story line through the images. There are several instances in Batman, the long Halloween that without imagery would not be understandable. For example, when Johnny Viti is murdered there are no words at all, only images to guide us through the story. The images do leave some play for the mind in this panel, with the murderer still hiding behind the door and the items left at the murder scene. Because Batman, the long Halloween is written as a comic rather than a book I feel like you get more of an interaction with the story. This story makes more sense to me as a comic because, you are reading and watching the story unfold. I feel this way more for this story than the last because there are so many instances where you are mainly relying on images to understand the story. I believe with this story being set as a comic there is also some wiggle room to leave your mind wandering in a way I feel other forms of literature such as novels just can’t fulfill.
ReplyDeleteGreat points here--you are watching the story unfold in a way that you couldn't do with a traditional novel, and maybe not even with a film. When the words disappear, it 'sounds' like something, much more so than silence in a film, since we expect to read when reading a book. So when the pictures take over, we feel a sense of tension and a major change of pace. THere are so many ways to trick you into seeing things, or not seeing things, in a comic, whereas in a book we can actually take the narrative too much for granted (since it sounds like someone is just telling you what to see--a comic never quite does that).
DeleteI feel that what comics bring to the table that television can not is the ability to draw one's own conclusions. There are a lot of blanks that is left for the reader to fill in and it change from person to person, allowing the story to be personalized to an extent. We all interpret things to our own way of thinking and this allows a much broader interpretation from person to person. As for a Batman comic, i feel it brings an old ganster vibe to the the typical hero/villain dialogue and being a comic allows the reader to get more intimate with the story line, allowing them to feel as though they are a part of the action, rather than watching the action. This comic can can show the many different aspects within one scene of the movie that would be missed otherwise. For instance, in the scene within chapter two where Carla storms in angry because Carmine is expressing happiness, the way the frames play out, the reader is able to see the different perspectives that are going on all at once. Then by the end frame, one can see that ALberto is in the background absorbing and analyzing everything that is being said. the frame layout puts an emphasis on this fact within the comic. This would be an aspect that was completely lost on a show or movie.
ReplyDeleteYes, that's a great point: a comic is 'frozen,' so even when the action is moving fast, it's not really moving at all. So we can linger over the smallest details, and as you write, "absorb and analyze everything that is being said." In a movie things are literally moving too quickly. But a comic everything is both moving fast and not moving at all. It's all an illusion. But we're allowed to take apart the machine and study the ingredients of the spell. It's pretty amazing!
DeleteAs you stated, comics leave room for the reader to imagine in their own way what is happening between the panels. It becomes your story and the authors story all in one. In film, there is not much room left for imagination. Everything is spelled out in a movie, from how someone is killed to where the "ax" lands. The Long Halloween has several chapters that allows you to make your own connections. If it were a movie things might be too played out and then it couldn`t be an idea of your own. Like when Dent takes off his mask, nobody was expecting that as they read, yet if it were in film, you might have guessed it from cues of the actors. The comic creates it`s own suspense in your mind. This includes what you think the characters sound like and the noises of the story itself as it progresses. The part where all of the Irishmen are in jail is a prime example of good panel usage. Each of the men are interrogated in their own panel. As Batman is out to the side coming up with the conclusion that it is rehearsed. Then at the end of the chapter the whole page is taken up when the men are murdered at their dinner table. This shows how important this scene was because it took up the entire page and not a small panel like some of the other scenes were.
ReplyDeleteGreat reading/analysis of this scenes! Yes, we have to 'hear' everything in our own mind, so none of us hears it exactly the same way. We all "kill" people off differently with different ax strokes (to use McCloud's example). I like to think of a comic as music notes: the entire score is there, but it's up to us, the 'musicians,' to interpret it and make it sound. Otherwise, there's no music at all!
DeleteMayra Munoz: The Long Halloween brings out the imagination in us, gives us the opportunity to be part of the story, by adding the “missing” dialogs or pictures to the story, we are able to make part of this story our own. On a TV show or a film all of the details are covered, and hints are given throughout the story of whatever is to come, or it makes you think that something is about to happen and suddenly they change on you. In the comic, we make our own stories, make up our own assumptions and imagine what happened in between the lines. In the scene where Maroni and Gordon are eating and he starts laughing, the smile on his face tells us that the Joker has to be involved with Gordon’s reaction, Joker must have put something in his wine or food that is making him talk nonsense. The use of the frames and the transition of the story are so clear that they make us use our imagination to fill out all of those spaces. I am really enjoying reading these comic books!
ReplyDeleteGreat analysis here--yes, we can intuit from the subtle clues on the page what's going on in the story. While a film can do this, too, a film moves pretty quickly: we might miss these clues, so they often have to be very blatant for us to catch them. In a comic, they can be super subtle, because we can always go back and ask "now wait, what happened??" That's the beauty of a comic--that it moves fast AND slow at the same time. And it demands that we play a role in interpreting the comic, or else it kind of fall flat. I'm glad you're enjoying being one of the 'authors' of this work! :)
DeleteI think that film's ability to guide the audience's attention is taken to its extreme in comics, and that's what makes it the ideal form for a murder mystery like this one. It's hard to imagine a film or traditional novel being able to pull off the amount of moving around between times, spaces, characters, scenes, etc. that a comic book does. Perhaps it's that the gutter time in comic books is uniquely suited to the human mind; we can fill in the space between frames so much faster than a camera could. It's a big ask but we're up to it.
ReplyDeleteSpecifically, I'm thinking of scenes with Gilda. The frames easily move between close ups of her face (her eyes, enormous and spooky, are always a focal point) and scenes in the past, and her actions in the present moment while she narrates, and so on. It's so flexible and dynamic. Maybe that's why comics are capable of being uniquely evocative and uniquely action-packed.
Yes, and don't we do this naturally anyway, even in films? Often, when I see a film, I find that I've 'seen' aspects of the film totally differently than other people, or I've interpreted it in a much different fashion. A comic is more open about this, and basically says, "okay, you write this part." As you suggest, it's much more dramatic, too, since so little is supplied. Comics can only give us pictures...we have to add the rest. But they can also tease us into hearing, feeling, and interpreting things that aren't really there. A movie can do this, too, but it has to be more blatant about it (and use music, etc).
DeleteI think the comic makes the reader more interested. Throughout reading you can guess what will happen next, while the movies seem more predictable. I think the comic book has a neat way of portraying the story it wants to tell. Through the text and the illustrations you get more feeling and emotion than you do in a movie, and this allows us to really connect with the character. This comic also has opportunities for the reader to guess and make their own assumptions and story.
ReplyDeleteI specifically think of the first couple scenes in this book. When batman is stealing and catwoman comes to stop his is interesting, because batman is going against the normal hero stereotype. This makes me wonder if batman is a normal hero, or if he just wants justice for his parents. The story is also very dark in its illustrations, which also makes me wonder the true intentions. I feel like there will be some major character development later on, and I also like how action-packed this comic is right in the first chapter, it makes me eager to finish!
Yes, great points--the art makes us question who Batman is, and presents a grittier, more determined hero that at times subverts the superhero morality. As I suggested in the video, this portrait is closer to the original Batman, who wasn't a squeaky-clean do-gooder, but a pretty ruthless avenger of the world's sins. I think this is why people originally fell in love with his character, and why he became so memorable.
DeleteCallie Farley: The comics of Batman bring imagination to the table. That is why I love to read rather than watching movies or tv shows in general. Like Kari and Sam said, you get to grow right along with the characters, especially because you're usually rooting for the main character because you get to know them the best. I think that this really differs from film because you don't get to be as connected to the characters, which is a huge thing for me. Also, when you're reading the comics I feel like it has a different feeling than when you're watching the movies, maybe that's because of the comic art style and it just being sort of nostalgic, but it has a different feeling. Another thing is that sort of goes along with feeling connected to the characters is that I feel like you're more invested. As you mentioned in one of the previous videos each volume leaves off on a cliff hanger and in films sometimes it has a resolution, or at least it kind of wraps everything up at the end, but with the volumes you're consumed with the story, fully amerced.
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting idea, that a book (or a comic) can get you more invested with the characters. I mostly agree, since a film has to move so quickly, and you can't really go back...you have to keep watching the film unfold before you. But a book you can stop in the middle, or even read a passage again, and it seems like you're developing a slower, more natural relationship with the characters. This is important in this comic, especially with the Batman and Catwoman relationship. Each time they meet the same thing happens, with a slight twist...and we see more and more of what they mean to each other. A film might just show us two of these meetings and that's it. But a book can afford to show us more and bring out more of the subtle details.
DeleteBrittany Davis: I LOVE the batman movies they are so dark and gritty and the villains are the best in any universe, in my opinion. However, until now I had never read a Batman comic and didn't really think I could learn much more than what I know of the movies. Boy was I wrong. The comics bring so much more to the story, so many details that if you put in a movie it would be too long. One of my favorite things was how the comic repeatedly took you into Bruce Wayne's brain. Certain frames on certain pages would have boxes instead of word bubbles and those were either letting you know who was on the page, because there were so many characters, or you getting to know what he was thinking. That was especially powerful in the Mother's day chapter, where you find out that Bruce feels responsible for his parents deaths. These comics just let you immerse yourself in that world and everything that is going on in it.
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