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Post by Trevor on Jul 31, 2015 7:25:53 GMT -5
At dvdtalk, we've had monthly viewing challenges for over a decade now. They started with a Horror Challenge in October where the unofficial goal was to watch 100 scary films for the month. Any participation was welcome, not just the diehards who watch 5-10 movies a day. The Challenges grew into elaborate things where sponsors donate prizes, people create fancy smancy lists, and the discussion thread gets thousands of posts. Horror every October grew into Holiday films in December, Sci-Fi in July, and now we have a Challenge every month.
Last year, we started monthly comic book challenges in our small comic subforum there to coincide with the film challenges. The unofficial goal is to read 100 books of that month's genre, but any participation is welcome. It's mainly just a monthly thread to encourage discussion, help each other get through our unread stacks, and get us outside of our 'superhero box' some months. October is horror comics, November is comedy, December holiday, July science fiction, August fantasy, etc.
So anyway, I'm still fairly new here, but think that perhaps the idea could do well here as well.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Jul 31, 2015 12:58:33 GMT -5
At dvdtalk, we've had monthly viewing challenges for over a decade now. They started with a Horror Challenge in October where the unofficial goal was to watch 100 scary films for the month. Any participation was welcome, not just the diehards who watch 5-10 movies a day. ( Emphasis mine) Who the hell has the time to watch 5-10 movies a day?! Surely these people must be unemployed and very lonely. That said, I do like the idea of a monthly comic reading theme. However, I barely even have time to read stuff for my Star Wars review thread lately, so the chances of me getting around to reading even a handful of comic books on a certain theme each week, is basically zero to none. But I would certainly enjoy reading a thread like that if one should get started. |
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Post by Trevor on Jul 31, 2015 13:48:02 GMT -5
You'd be surprised at how many people routinely hit 100 movies each and every month, with many sometimes passing 300. In the TV forum there, some people watch at least 10 hours of content a day. Crazy, I know. *
* Confession time. I did it twice or thrice back in my single and OCD about film days, but nowadays I watch maybe three hours of TV a week.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2015 14:12:41 GMT -5
WE have a few in place already, housed in the events section. Shaxper hosted a horror reading event in October, which I believe he plans on reprising this October. March features our participation in Read A Graphic Novel Week sponsored by the Eisner foundation that I oversaw, and depending on the yearly topic, the 12 Days of Christmas leads to a lot of reading as people compile their choices for our centerpiece event.
There is also a monthly film topic challenge thread in the community section.
For the most part, aside from the 12 Days of Christmas, I would say participation is on the sparse side. The levels are sustainable for the event, but it doesn't draw a large base, as a lot of folks here have a lot of time commitments and not a lot of disposable time to commit to such. And many have their own review threads and such that eat up what time they do have.
If people are interested, I'd say go for it, but I an skeptical about how sustainable it would be on a monthly basis. especially if it is genres people don't already own the books for. Libraries can be iffy for acquiring comics outside super-hero stuff and there's nothing like Netflix that legally allows you access to a lot of comics you don't own (outside of Marvel Unlimited, but that's one publisher not all that good for exploring multiple genres), so I think there could be some logistical issues with folks getting access to material for books they don't own that could limit or prohibit participation for some. Again, not saying don't do it, but my gut tells me it could be a hard sell to get it to flourish here.
-M
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Post by Trevor on Jul 31, 2015 15:26:46 GMT -5
WE have a few in place already, housed in the events section. Shaxper hosted a horror reading event in October, which I believe he plans on reprising this October. March features our participation in Read A Graphic Novel Week sponsored by the Eisner foundation that I oversaw, and depending on the yearly topic, the 12 Days of Christmas leads to a lot of reading as people compile their choices for our centerpiece event. There is also a monthly film topic challenge thread in the community section. For the most part, aside from the 12 Days of Christmas, I would say participation is on the sparse side. The levels are sustainable for the event, but it doesn't draw a large base, as a lot of folks here have a lot of time commitments and not a lot of disposable time to commit to such. And many have their own review threads and such that eat up what time they do have. If people are interested, I'd say go for it, but I an skeptical about how sustainable it would be on a monthly basis. especially if it is genres people don't already own the books for. Libraries can be iffy for acquiring comics outside super-hero stuff and there's nothing like Netflix that legally allows you access to a lot of comics you don't own (outside of Marvel Unlimited, but that's one publisher not all that good for exploring multiple genres), so I think there could be some logistical issues with folks getting access to material for books they don't own that could limit or prohibit participation for some. Again, not saying don't do it, but my gut tells me it could be a hard sell to get it to flourish here. -M Yeah, it's definitely not for everyone. I'm at the point where comics are my only real hobby so averaging a couple/several issues a day is normal; and figured at a comic specific forum there might be a lot of people that read even more than that. (While many of us may go months between issues of course.) With me, having such a huge library sometimes makes it difficult to choose what to read next. The challenges have been fun and helpful in making those reading choices by giving a genre/company each month. August is fantasy for us, for example, so I've piled up some Fables and Conan trades. It was a shot in the dark. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2015 15:35:50 GMT -5
It's a cool way to do things, and there might be people interested, so don't give up the ghost yet, it takes some time for everyone around her to check in and see the thread, so there may be eough interest to get something going.
-M
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jul 31, 2015 15:50:47 GMT -5
I think if you place an emphasis on quality vs. quantity so that a person could read one relevant book a week and still feel totally involved, this could really work.
I'd certainly be up for it.
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Post by Trevor on Jul 31, 2015 17:20:55 GMT -5
Just to clarify, they way we've done things so far, there isn't a set list of books; each person gets to choose whatever they want from the chosen genre.
And we don't even have to have a number goal actually, any participation is gravy; there are no winners or losers; someone who reads one book and someone who reads 100 for the month are 'tied for first place'.
Even with just a few participants and very few people reading any of the same books, it's still been nice to read people's comments on what they've read and (mainly, for me at least) recommendations on what to read.
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Post by Cei-U! on Jul 31, 2015 20:51:21 GMT -5
I may occasionally chime in but I have a few thousand Golden Age comics to try to at least glance through and next to no time for extraneous comics reading. Sorry.
Cei-U!
I make no promises!
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Post by Trevor on Jul 31, 2015 21:20:01 GMT -5
WE have a few in place already, housed in the events section. Shaxper hosted a horror reading event in October, which I believe he plans on reprising this October. March features our participation in Read A Graphic Novel Week sponsored by the Eisner foundation that I oversaw, and depending on the yearly topic, the 12 Days of Christmas leads to a lot of reading as people compile their choices for our centerpiece event. <snip> -M An event section? I learn something new here every day! I'm definitely not trying to reinvent the wheel or take over any part of this site. It sounds like my Challenges are different enough to complement those things, except October maybe. But it's just that the Challenges are such a fun time and integral part of life at my movie forum, that I'd love them to turn into the same at my comics forum. It's a cool way to do things, and there might be people interested, so don't give up the ghost yet, it takes some time for everyone around her to check in and see the thread, so there may be eough interest to get something going. -M I think if you place an emphasis on quality vs. quantity so that a person could read one relevant book a week and still feel totally involved, this could really work. I'd certainly be up for it. Yeah, maybe I'll go ahead and start a thread and just consider it a test month. Get some feedback, tweak my idea, see how much interest we end up with by the end August. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Jul 31, 2015 21:30:10 GMT -5
I'd be down, I love our monthly movie quest and this would inspire me to read more comics which is never bad.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2015 23:02:31 GMT -5
Suggestion-"Dog Tag Days of August"-war comics anyone?
-M
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Post by Trevor on Aug 1, 2015 0:53:42 GMT -5
Suggestion-"Dog Tag Days of August"-war comics anyone? -M I love the wordplay! And would enjoy, but this illustrates one of the major problems we had/have in planning these Challenges. You want a subject that is diverse enough to include a ton of choices/content, but not too specific. What we decided when planning a war challenge for films (and later comics) was that 'war' was just slightly too narrow a focus. Many people don't have or enjoy war films/comics. What we ended up doing in both cases was to expand it to a "Historical" or "Reality" Challenge. Basically, anything that could be real life was included: westerns, biographies, slice of life, etc. Of course, some argue that this is too inclusive, but we've found that it is better to be broad as to encourage participation. And one beauty of it is that one is free to narrow their personal focus as much as they choose. So while one person could read a hodgepodge of titles from all categories under the umbrella of "Reality", another could focus entirely on DC war comics of the early 1950s. It is/was a very tough call on what genres to choose. Still very much a work in progress, but we ended up with mostly very open ended subjects to encourage broad participation. We had the broad genres of Horror, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Humor; Holiday for Thanksgiving thru New Years, which, while limited, includes more than might since pretty much every title of every genre has holiday stories, sometimes every year; Company months of DC or Marvel or 'The Rest'. I can argue myself on either side of the fence as to whether those are all too broad or not; but in the end inclusion seems the best route. And selfishly, since I'd already planned and started Fantasy for the month of August, and can't imagine being involved in two different subject matter events, I was going to stick with Fantasy as our theme. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 1, 2015 2:11:50 GMT -5
Just as devil's advocate, war can be pretty inclusive as well, Starlin's Dreadstar featuring the war between the Instrumentality and the Monarchy or even Star Wars could expand war comics to sci-fi, while one could include a Conan or King Conan comic with a war in the backdrop as well, Civil War could be included to get some super-hero action in the "war" genre as well. Certainly things like Maus, while not tecnically a "war" comic but has the war as a backdrop could qualify as well. All depends how you want to interpret things I guess.
But I like wordplay as well, so I had kind of brainstormed ideas for monthly challenges, I had things like sword and sorcery September and November Noir as suggestions on the list in addition to the Dog Tags Days of August, assuming of course Shax's horror comic event would rake center stage in October.
But yeah there is a fine line between too narrow and too broad, but I think part of the challenge aspect might be to get people to try things outside their normal comfort zone and be experimental in their reading. I've been using my own method of expanding my reading habits and motivating me to get to things that have sat on my shelves or in boxes for too long and finally crack them open to read them, and something like this could be used as another tool in the toolbox of doing so. I think it might take a little more notice for people to be ready to participate though.
-M
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Post by Trevor on Aug 1, 2015 10:02:23 GMT -5
Just as devil's advocate, war can be pretty inclusive as well, Starlin's Dreadstar featuring the war between the Instrumentality and the Monarchy or even Star Wars could expand war comics to sci-fi, while one could include a Conan or King Conan comic with a war in the backdrop as well, Civil War could be included to get some super-hero action in the "war" genre as well. Certainly things like Maus, while not tecnically a "war" comic but has the war as a backdrop could qualify as well. All depends how you want to interpret things I guess. But I like wordplay as well, so I had kind of brainstormed ideas for monthly challenges, I had things like sword and sorcery September and November Noir as suggestions on the list in addition to the Dog Tags Days of August, assuming of course Shax's horror comic event would rake center stage in October. But yeah there is a fine line between too narrow and too broad, but I think part of the challenge aspect might be to get people to try things outside their normal comfort zone and be experimental in their reading. I've been using my own method of expanding my reading habits and motivating me to get to things that have sat on my shelves or in boxes for too long and finally crack them open to read them, and something like this could be used as another tool in the toolbox of doing so. I think it might take a little more notice for people to be ready to participate though. -M Great points. Definitely a situation where it'll be hard to please everyone. At DVDTalk we actually have scheduled an Outside-Your-Comfort-Zone Challenge, a month where you're challenged to read stuff that you normally never would. Libraries and all the digital freebies online will come in handy here. I think I'll still create a test thread for August and we'll just mess around at it and fine tune it and see if it's something we want to do monthly. |
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