Sat, 18 May 2013 19:31:05 -0700 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/ Lussumo Vanilla 1.1.4 & Feed Publisher http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=3339&Focus=76797#Comment_76797 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=3339&Focus=76797#Comment_76797 Sat, 16 Aug 2008 02:20:53 -0700 Chris M Ferguson Big Star]

I’ve talked a bit about this before, but the idea has grown since then. I come from music; before the keyboard, it was the guitar. Which is more similar than you might think — you hit keys or chords to achieve a specific effect suited for your needs.

And now that I’ve moved onto writing, and specifically, comics, the similarities to music continues to grow. See, films are a machine. There are too many rules for films — running time, budgets, sets. Films nowadays want to be music videos; look at a film like Juno where it relies too heavily on its music to carry the tone, but that’s for another night.

Pop songs are about two minutes; comic singles run for about twenty-two pages. Nothing new.

I’ve been looking at the Wall of Sound — a production technique created by record producer/psycho genius Phil Spector — and seeing how it relates to comics. The basic idea was creating a sound that was larger than life by layering orchestral arrangements on top of electric guitars, and then recording the songs in an echo chamber.

It was about getting straight to the emotion. Cutting right to the bone. The Ronettes Spector-produced “Be My Baby” is a pop symphony. And it begins, as best said by Jason Ankeny, “Hal Blaine’s drums are the Morse code of the gods — and somehow just keeps getting better from there.”

That’s what superhero comics have been doing for the last seventy years. It’s a pop symphony in twenty-two pages about larger-than-life things.

And a comic that reads like it was produced by Spector is All-Star Superman. Each issue is a stand-alone, meaning it can be read by itself without knowing who the hell Superman is, but it builds towards the end of the arc.

The writer Grant Morrison has said that he overwrites each issue, then compresses forty-four pages into twenty pages of script, just like a diamond. Each issue is epic, it’s big, yet it touches your soul.

Just like how a great pop song should.

Thoughts?

Visit the site at chrismferguson.wordpress.com ]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=3339&Focus=76923#Comment_76923 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=3339&Focus=76923#Comment_76923 Sat, 16 Aug 2008 17:11:27 -0700 warrenellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=3339&Focus=76949#Comment_76949 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=3339&Focus=76949#Comment_76949 Sat, 16 Aug 2008 19:23:48 -0700 Chris M Ferguson http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=3339&Focus=77405#Comment_77405 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=3339&Focus=77405#Comment_77405 Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:04:54 -0700 Brandon Seifert http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=3339&Focus=77557#Comment_77557 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=3339&Focus=77557#Comment_77557 Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:33:49 -0700 KieronGillen
KG ]]> http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=3339&Focus=261661#Comment_261661 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=3339&Focus=261661#Comment_261661 Thu, 23 Sep 2010 05:23:06 -0700 White35Mollie