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Post by Prince Hal on Nov 17, 2015 17:32:00 GMT -5
Another thing: for whatever reason, the normally fearless Panther is revulsed and terrified by this newt. Okay, fine, but the newt looks like Albert the alligator as a little gator: cute, not frightening. And since when are newts bloodsucking carnivores?
I'm guessing this is Don McGregor's writing, as he always wrote as if he were being paid by the word, and as usual, said writing is often impenetrable. That last section, try as I might, has not yielded its meaning, for instance. And, Gawd, do I hate the word "negative:" vague and imprecise. (At the risk of being redundant.)
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Post by Ozymandias on Nov 23, 2015 14:30:03 GMT -5
He just woke up from a delirium induced dream, he was tied up and losing lots of blood. I guess the initial sensation, of not knowing what was crawling up his hand, under those conditions, can be construed as fear. The nausea mentioned is described as "reflexive", probably because of the physical reaction, to the newt pressing his Adam's apple? As for it being a bloodsucking carnivore, it was just testing the blood, to see if it was to its liking (which wasn't), leaving T'Challa alone in the next panel.
The last part of the text, is a mere reference to nature's cruelty. Admitted, his writing wasn't exactly straightforward, but I don't see this as his main problem.
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Post by Prince Hal on Nov 23, 2015 15:18:47 GMT -5
He just woke up from a delirium induced dream, he was tied up and losing lots of blood. I guess the initial sensation, of not knowing what was crawling up his hand, under those conditions, can be construed as fear. The nausea mentioned is described as "reflexive", probably because of the physical reaction, to the newt pressing his Adam's apple? As for it being a bloodsucking carnivore, it was just testing the blood, to see if it was to its liking (which wasn't), leaving T'Challa alone in the next panel. The last part of the text, is a mere reference to nature's cruelty. Admitted, his writing wasn't exactly straightforward, but I don't see this as his main problem. I'm almost scared to ask: What's his main problem, if -- to be kind -- a lack of straightforwardness isn't? |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Nov 23, 2015 16:22:55 GMT -5
Oh, yeah, I think McGregor's a terrible, terrible scripter.
But a pretty great writer in most other ways, and his B. P. definitely pushed the boundaries of "code acceptable."
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Nov 23, 2015 16:27:18 GMT -5
Oh, yeah, I think McGregor's a terrible, terrible scripter. But a pretty great writer in most other ways, and his B. P. definitely pushed the boundaries of "code acceptable." Thank you for expressing that for me. I've tried to formulate that exact thought for a long time. McGregor was a very good plotter. But he never saw a page that didn't need to be jam packed to bursting with purple prose that described exactly what the artist had already drawn. Which given the high caliber of a lot of the artists he worked with was an even more egregious disservice. |
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Post by Ozymandias on Nov 23, 2015 16:36:25 GMT -5
What's his main problem[…]? He abused the word count, when embellishing action sequences. That's neither uncommon nor necessarily a bad idea, but given his convoluted style, not a great combination. This is particularly unfortunate, because the storytelling (which was ahead of his time) suffered from this; he was breaking with words, the flow accomplished with pictures. |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Nov 23, 2015 21:25:36 GMT -5
Right, right, right. He was a really great visual writer, doing all these tricky Eisnerian formal experiments at a time when no-one in mainstream comics (even Eisner!) was doing that kind of stuff, except for the occasional Steve Gerber book. Y'had Steranko in the '60s and then it became a lot more commonplace in the '80s with Alan Moore and Frank Miller, but not many other guys doing this  in McGregor's day. |
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Post by Prince Hal on Nov 24, 2015 0:55:49 GMT -5
How much of that was Billy Graham, I wonder? I loved that Black Panther series (poorly distributed in my area, unfortunately, so I always seemed to be able to find only every other issue) despite McG's wordiness, but definitely because of the Graham art, which was hardly "Marvel-style." Neither was McG's writing, which at least bespoke of passion rather than formula.
Still, an editor, either his internal one, or Len Wein, shoulda/coulda made McGregor a far better scripter.
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Post by Ozymandias on Nov 24, 2015 3:55:55 GMT -5
How much of that was Billy Graham, I wonder? Still, an editor, either his internal one, or Len Wein, shoulda/coulda made McGregor a far better scripter. Given the Marvel way of producing comics, that's a valid concern. I just look at what he did with Buckler:  I don't recall such an elaborated page composition from him, when working with other writers. On the editors side of things, considering this quote from Thomas, it gives me the impression they didn't worry a lot: |
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