| Author | Message | ||
     Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Have you ever been utterly in love with the work of a writer, artist, musician, film maker, etc, and then fallen out of love... Fallen out of love so deeply that you now regard with bemusement, dismay or even repugnance what you once adored? Back in the 80s I was a worshipper at the shrine of Peter Greenaway. I loved his films. They seemed perfect: symmetrical, formal, symbolic, numerological, ironic, stylish. Drowning by Numbers, The Belly of an Architect and (my favourite) A Zed and Two Noughts gave me exactly what I wanted from films... But when I watch those films now (more than 20 years later) they just don't do anything for me. I won't say that my love has turned to hate (that's too strong) but I wonder exactly why I thought his films were so brilliant. That's just one example of 'the end of the affair'. I have many others... And you? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.137.168.78 |
I suppose - at a push - it would be Piers Anthony, Edgar Rice Burroughs, EE Doc Smith. Hopefully not being pretentious, but don't these things happen as one's taste develops or changes with experience of reading, watching films etc? I hesitate to use the word 'mature', but that might be something to do with the changes or development. (Like stepping upon the shoulders of one's previous self? then stepping upon the shoulders of that new self. And so on). | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
Yes. The band Level 42. To my eternal shame... | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Yes, EE 'Doc' Smith... I was a fan when I was 15. I'm not sure I could bear to read that kind of stuff now, but don't we consciously make 'allowances' for pulp fiction that was published in magazines back in the 20s, 30s and 40s? I know I do. As for growing maturity: yes, I agree, Des. But I'm wondering... Is it also possible for that to work in reverse? Instead of stepping on the shoulders of one's previous self, and so on, how about sitting on one's previous self's lap, and so on... What I mean is: couldn't it be possible that aesthetic taste can regress as well as evolve? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.137.168.78 |
Very interesting, Rhys. Both your points in your last post may be something to do with nostalgia. I'll give it more thought. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
I liked Level 42 too! But I have a much bigger sin to confess than that... Ready? I was the world's biggest fan of... Emerson, Lake and Palmer!! | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Fuck! I've only just realised that Greenaway's film A Zed and Two Noughts sounds like it might be about Gary McMahon, his career!  | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
I tried to resist that, but I couldn't. I humbly await retribution... | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.137.168.78 |
Still thinking ... Books and films presumably have intrinsic value - the thing-in-itself. Recipients (the audience) bring the current ladder of'self' to that thing-in-itself and colour it with (a) their maturing experience or (b)nostalgia for a certain type of their past enjoyments when they were at a different stage in their ladder-of-self, or with both (a) and (b) as I find with much Chomu and Ex Occidente fiction? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.137.168.78 |
Some people would say I've already fallen off my ladder!  | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
Only two noughts? You flatter me. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.137.168.78 |
If there is an element of truth in what I said above at 12.36 pm - then this leads to another debate - about reviews of books and films and their value. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Hey, be grateful you aren't in minus figures, like me... I've just had an email from a bloke who says he's a writer and wants a "testimonial". I'm wondering if he's that chap that Ramsey mentioned who was some sort of fraudster or fake or something and was collecting blurbs to validate himself. Trouble is, I can't remember that chap's name and I can't find it using the search function either. Can anyone here tell me what it was? The bloke who wrote to me gave his first name as Tony. I don't know why alarm bells rang, but they did... | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.30.246 |
Here's the thread about him: http://www.knibbworld.com/campbelldiscuss/messages/1/4140.html?1312039190 Not sure that he's called himself Tony anything, but it's entirely possible he would! | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Ah, thanks Ramsey! | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.29.78 |
Spiderman and other superhero comics. Something happened that just left me unable to appreciate them. I think it was puberty. Occultism and other mystical bestseller fodder designed to make millions of readers feel they are the chosen few. Swinburne. The Robbie Williams to Tennyson's Frank Sinatra. The Bay City Rollers. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.26.188.49 |
So this Bay City Rollers thing isn't you just being all postmodern and ironic? You actually liked them? | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.27.151 |
It was a real-time crush, Gary. They were new, the songs were instant hits, and I was eleven or twelve years old. Even then it was about the voices, the hair, the eyes, the sheer concentration of teen cuteness – not the actual records. 'Give a Little Love' is nice though. And that spoken opening to 'Bye Bye Baby' is breathtaking. But no, a couple of years later I was over them. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.27.151 |
Saw Eric Faulkner and Les McKeown being interviewed (separately, of course) about the breakup of the Rollers a few years ago. They both looked strictly average, you'd walk past them in the street without a second glance. Gutted. | ||
| Pete_a (Pete_a) Username: Pete_a Registered: 07-2011 Posted From: 75.85.10.161 |
Never mind the Rollers. This -- "Swinburne. The Robbie Williams to Tennyson's Frank Sinatra." -- is genius. My hat is tipped, Sir. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.26.188.49 |
Don't Look Now, Joel! Eric! http://files.stv.tv/img/stvlocal/usernews/410x232/15528-faulkner-show-in-elgin-t own-hall-delayed-until-may.jpg Les! http://news.sky.com/sky-news/content/StaticFile/jpg/2006/Feb/Week1/1376511.jpg Both snapped at Ladbrokes, I believe. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 82.14.50.20 |
>>Spiderman and other superhero comics. Something happened that just left me unable to appreciate them. Do you still like Buffy, Joel? The writers stole all their best moves from superhero comics. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.50.56 |
I have to admit I'm mildly curious about the Green Lantern film. I'm sure it'll bomb. Other than that, I used to be into The Sweet when a teenager. There, I've said it. Siouxsie later delivered me from all that and I still have all their discs, but I now seem to have outgrown her, too. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.16.77 |
Cliff Richard when I was in my early teens. I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.122.107.183 |
I've been pleased to find the first few James Herberts are still good - if not better than they seemed at the time. Haunting of Hill House (the book) has really grown, too. Sadly, the film has fallen off my scale.  Recently I've been getting furious at John Carpenter for somehow going back and making nearly all his films but Halloween boring now. I've been watching The Thing and The Fog and been wanting to turn them off, so dull, so merely stylistically good. On the other hand, last night we projected Silence of the Lambs last night and we all loved it - well, me and Tris being the only two who watched it loved it. What an outright classic that film has become - every scene squrims with...something. Early King, my beloved King, however now also seems stiff. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.122.107.183 |
And a puzzle; Tris thinks Lecter a heroic figure. Odd, I can understand it. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.183.79.254 |
Interesting to see so much about music in this thread. I, too, had the dreaded ELP disease. I still have a few of their records but I tried a couple of tracks some years ago (and even went to see Keith Emerson in concert), but there's no going back, fortunately. At one time I even thought Bryan Ferry's version of "Sympathy for the Devil" was better than the original... However, that was thirty five years ago. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.122.107.183 |
Ramsey - some of Cliff's early songs have stood the test of time. They're sweet and fresh sounding. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.39.66 |
Stop it, you're scaring me. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.39.66 |
Stuart, when Buffy moved from TV to graphic novels, did you feel it had found its natural medium? Me neither. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.50.56 |
I used to hate anything written by Dean R. Koontz, but look and behold - I recently discovered a short story of his, "We three", which I really like. I wonder whethere he's written more stories in this vein. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.50.56 |
Cliff used to suck. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.184.109.190 |
There are sooooo many possible replies to that statement... | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.50.56 |
I know.  | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.184.109.190 |
Stevie, can we have a list please - the 10 best responses to that statement? Although Steve is a Chris De Burgh fan... Just thought I'd remind people | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.50.56 |
To paraphrase Sir Clifford himself: that's completely up the spout. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.26.73.239 |
Joel, some of the early Season 8 comic book Buffy stuff was okay. The two main problems with the comic seem to be: (1) The pacing is off due to the writers being unsure whether to treat a single issue of the comic the same as a single episode of the TV series i.e. a complete story each time out or treat it as a segment of a larger story. (2) The writers running out of ideas. Something that also happened on the TV show from time to time. Still, overall the TV show is way more consistent. Of course Buffy was originally a film. Not a particularly great one but I take it that the fact that you (presumably) prefer the TV Buffy to the film Buffy doesn't mean that you now dismiss all films. And maybe not even all superhero films -- even if the genre as a whole isn't to your taste some superhero films are obviously better than others. Anyway, back to the way superhero comics influenced Buffy. The characters, the themes and ideas. Whedon is heavily influenced by Chris Claremont's run on X-Men. Buffy is largely based on the Kitty Pryde character (when Whedon got to write the X-Men himself he based his run around Kitty). 'The Wish' is heavily influenced by 'Days of Future Past.' Dark Willow is Dark Phoenix. Buffy fainting when she gets overwhelmed by hearing the thoughts of everybody around her in 'Earshot' is straight of scenes Claremont wrote for the telepath Jean Grey. Claremont emphasised the soap opera side of superheroics and wrote a few issues where the flashy genre stuff got pushed to the background while the emotional stuff took centre-stage the same way Whedon did in 'The Body.' Claremont also did the comic reversal of expectations thing that Buffy's so famous for e.g. when Dazzler squares up to Juggernaut for an epic super-battle only to find that he's a fan of her records and is more interested in getting an autograph than in trading punches. And with the mutant X-Men fighting for equality against human prejudice the comic was a rallying call for empowerment in the same way Buffy managed to be. Okay, it's probably dated a bit. But as I've said before -- although maybe not on these boards -- Claremont's X-Men was the Buffy of its day. Of course it's doubtful if any of this will change your opinion of the superhero comics you read as a child. I was just curious as to why you were being so snotty about superhero comics when you obviously enjoy a lot of the same tropes when they're used in Buffy. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.155.207.87 |
To be snotty about comics is to be snotty about all culture generally. Comics can be incredibly rich and even truly beautiful, up there with the best of any art. And I still love early Spidey, looking back - but I had to leave them, at least for a while, like all of us do. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.6.95 |
"Recently I've been getting furious at John Carpenter for somehow going back and making nearly all his films but Halloween boring now. I've been watching The Thing and The Fog and been wanting to turn them off, so dull, so merely stylistically good." That's odd - I've had EXACTLY the opposite experience over the last few weeks. I watched THE THING (and again in HD), ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, ESCAPE FROM LA and ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13. (I hit the VAMPIRES roadblock pretty damned hard, though.) I'm looking forward to revisiting IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS, PRINCE OF DARKNESS and THEY LIVE (and STARMAN and THE WARD for the first time). (By the way, to answer the oft-asked question, I'm watching THE WATCHMEN. Is it the first feature filmed entirely in slow motion? Flipping awful.) | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.50.56 |
I too had another look at The Thing recently and found it much better than what I remembered. The acting is good, the sfx are still unsurpassed and Morricone's minimalistic score is entirely appropriate. A classic. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 121.90.143.66 |
I was absolutely wonder woman mad and wanted that invisible plane....so naturally, watched Lynda Carter in the TV series. Shudder. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Woman_(TV_series) As a kid I loved to read DC and Marvel comics. Never forgive my brother for stealing them all and selling them to a mate. http://www.dccomics.com/dcu/graphic_novels/?gn=1464 | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 121.90.143.66 |
'Forgave'....morning in New Zealand and need coffee. | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
Tony/Proto: I think I'm with Proto here - I return to my favourite John Carpenter films (The Thing, Prince of Darkness, The Fog etc) on a fairly regular basis, and find them undiminished by time. In fact, as more and more horror films are churned out by the likes of Rob Zombie and Eli Roth - people who have no idea how horror actually works - I appreciate even more the craft and sheer film-making skill that Carpenter brought to his best work. Sure, they weren't always the most narratively rich works, but they didn't need to be. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.155.207.87 |
You see I've been watching thriller movies on a Sunday night with my family - without trying to know too much about each film - and we've been enjoying the heck out of them, and as I said when I tried watching the Carpenters it's been like trying to squeeze milk from a dried-out old teet, there's just no pleasure left. I don't know - maybe I've just seen them too much. It happened with a couple of early Spielberg's, too, ones generally considered classics, some of which used to be my favourite films. I mean, how else could I enjoy a film like Red Dragon (seen only for the second time) more than I did a recent rewatch of The Thing or Close Encounters? But I did. I've been starting to realise that expectation and memory can cloud quality, that a good film or book is the one you are currently enjoying, not just a career or an old classic. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.37.255 |
Stuart, sorry, you've gone to great lengths to make a case that just doesn't relate to my reasons for no longer finding Marvel and DC comics readable. I wasn't claiming that they don't contain clever bits of plotting or narrative invention. That's not the problem. The problem is that their whole style, their use of crudely melodramatic and predictable language and imagery, strikes me as being far more appropriate to readers aged 9-11 (the age at which I last enjoyed them) than to adults or even adolescents. Everything – the sentence structure, the overuse of exclamation marks, the simplistic typography, the facial expressions, the 'explosion' images, the implicit causal discontinuity of each frame from the last and the next (in other words, the reliance on the frame structure as allowing magical change between frames, very much like the old adventure pulp device of "With one bound Jack was free")... it's all fine if you're nine years old, but to me as an adult it's boring and annoying. And each comic takes about ten minutes to read and costs as much as a book. As I know from the experience of friends, being a comics fan is like being a crack addict: your week's disposable income pays for less than an hour of enjoyment. Hence the obsession of comics fans with cross-reference and influence-spotting: when there's next to nothing on the table, you have to be intensely clever to extract value from it. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.38.138 |
P.S. Can I just clarify that I'm talking about a couple of brands, not the entire medium? Hilariously, comics fans talk about Spiderman, Thor etc as 'genres', when what they are is products within a couple of very limited brands – Marvel and DC – whose profucts are targeted at a juvenile market. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.38.138 |
Products, sorry. That wasn't an opportunistic bit of wordplay, just my keyboard wearing out. Can I reiterate that I'm not attacking comics as a medium. Apart from the comment about price, which works across the board. There are long, dense, satisfying graphic novels but they don't come cheap. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Thanks for everyone's contribution. Fascinating so far! But... we're concentrating perhaps too much on stuff that we liked when we were very young and which we have naturally outgrown because it objectively wasn't very good. This can be taken to the point of absurdity. For instance, when I was 6 years old I loved Pinky and Perky records; and when I was in the womb I was a big fan of amniotic fluid. Neither of those appeal much to me now... I'm wondering if we can move the debate up a gear and talk about stuff that's still good that we have fallen out of love with? Adult stuff. I'll go first. Ready? M. John Harrison... Harrison is a hugely important writer. Back in the late 80s and early 90s I read as much of his work as I could get hold of. I liked his work so much that I wrote an article on him for a French encylopedia. Here's the volume in question: http://www.moutons-electriques.fr/livre.php?p=index&n=1 But anyway... The point is that I no longer love his work. Something inside me changed. I still understand and appreciate that he's brilliant but... he bleaks me out too much. Every time I read Harrison these days I feel that I'm being told off. Seriously I feel I'm being berated for my optimism! And I really just want to shout at the page, "Lighten up, for fuck's sake!" So I've stopped reading him. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I have to say I'm more a fan of self-contained stories, whether it be anthos or graphic novels, when it comes to the comicbook medium. As for long running, and constantly reinvented superhero comics, I tend to be a purist and go for the original incarnation (i.e. Ditko's 'Spiderman' or Kirby's 'Fantastic Four', etc...) or those rare self-contained graphic novel reinventions that work (Frank Miller's 'Batman'). For me originality, strength of storytelling and beauty of the artwork always comes first. I find that repetition tends to breed contempt, no matter how good the contributors... | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.71.248 |
"when I tried watching the Carpenters it's been like trying to squeeze milk from a dried-out old teet, there's just no pleasure left." I feel that with the early Spielberg's and STAR WARS films. The Carpenters are more cynical and less rhetorical, though. They have a cooler eye which gives room for multiple stances for the viewer to take on different viewings. When you're very young, Snake Plissken is cool. When you're a little older he's hilarious. When you're older still he's a ridiculous psychopath. A little older and he seems the only genuine human being left in an inhuman system. And I love the little directorial grace notes. That close-up jump cut TO the fire alarm switch that Macready pulls in THE THING, for instance. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.137.168.78 |
In the seventies I was obsessed with the fiction of John Cowper Powys. Rhys having asked this question and stirring me to think about my tastes, I suddenly realised I haven't read JCP for years and (lo and behold) no urge to do so. His fiction is no doubt just as great, and just as much as it ever was at the top of the reach of my ladder-of-reading-self. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.29.18 |
"I'm wondering if we can move the debate up a gear and talk about stuff that's still good that we have fallen out of love with? Adult stuff." I can't think of any. I've gone in the opposite direction - there are works I love that on first encountering them I didn't like much at all. Let me confess a few - Leon Morin Pretre, Ordet, the St Matthew Passion, Decline and Fall... In the case of Lovecraft, I went through the process of falling out of love and then appreciating him all over again from a more mature perspective. Perhaps your present feelings about Mike Harrison are just a phase, Rhys. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Yes, Ramsey, perhaps so... Maybe I'll grow back into loving his work again. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.38.164 |
""when I tried watching the Carpenters it's been like trying to squeeze milk from a dried-out old teet, there's just no pleasure left." That's the 1970s production, though the lyrics still have charm – 'Only Yesterday' in particular. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.156.186.26 |
Well i decided to risk a reread of Guy Kay's Fionavar Tapestry - the first of twhich I read not long after it was first published. From the date in the front of the book, I was 16 or 17 when I read it. I'm enjoying it just as much now as I did then, if not moreso since I'm spotting subtleties to the writing and foreshadowing that would be difficult to spot on a first read. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.71.248 |
"That's the 1970s production, though the lyrics still have charm – 'Only Yesterday' in particular." Danny Wallace has coined a phrase for clumsily-written foreshadowing in a film: a "ChubbyMe" moment. It came about because halfway through a Carpenter's biopic someone commented on Karen's weight. Karen (thoughfully): "Chubby? Me?" | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.59.115.60 |
That's the 1970s production, though the lyrics still have charm – 'Only Yesterday' in particular. I somehow felt you'd be the one to pounce on that, Joel! | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
For me, Led Zeppelin. Like a spreading cancer, song after song becomes unlistenable-to anymore... there's virtually none left I can stand now... my patience for them has waned to a point where even trying on different "ears" - nostalgically, wistfully, ironically - nothing works.... Any works that are the opposite - where continued concentration and saturation only enhances the work? Where it seems, like muscles, the more you try them, the stronger and stronger they get, seemingly with no end in sight? I think Shakespeare would be the world's obvious answer, so discarding that.... Sticking with "rock" music, throw all the rotten eggs at me you want - it remains the Mac, in all their permutations. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.18.242 |
All the Mac's permutations post-Peter Green, sure. Before then, they were the best blues group the UK ever produced. Green pissed on Clapton from such a height the clouds got in the way. Led Zeppelin have to be contextualised. They kept the spirit of 1960s blues-rock alive at a time when British rock was divided between the more narrow roads of heavy metal and prog-rock. They refused to see England as the centre of the music world, or to narrow their focus either musically or lyrically. They were eclectic in a time of obsessive specialisation. They also had a personality, a human vibe that wasn't buried under layers of 'attitude' or pretension. And Robert Plant drinks in Black Country pubs and goes to see West Bromwich Albion play at home. Few more down-to-earth people exist in rock. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.137.168.78 |
Some of this thread sounds if no-one ever listened to classical music (music over several centuries) and were always concerned with divisive genres of rock in the late 20th century. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.183.79.254 |
"All the Mac's permutations post-Peter Green, sure. Before then, they were the best blues group the UK ever produced. Green pissed on Clapton from such a height the clouds got in the way." Succinctly put, Joel! | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Amen, Joel! And just to be clear, I over-saturated myself on the Zeppelin, so that's probably the factor there. Robert Plant indeed seems like a genuinely great guy, and still capable of great work (the Page/Plant album from a decade or so ago, that's a stellar and underrated piece of work!). Des - what praytell is this clah-sih-call music you speak of? | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.39.52 |
"Some of this thread sounds if no-one ever listened to classical music (music over several centuries) and were always concerned with divisive genres of rock in the late 20th century." Your point being? | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.216.104 |
I used to like Holst's THE PLANETS more than I do now. That's actually lowered the amount of liking for classical in the thread now, hasn't it? Whoops. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.137.168.78 |
We spent the early 60s arguing whether the Beatles or Rolling Stones were the best. I feel now that it's just that we forgot that music is one vast organism that has endured for several centuries - and that period / genre was a microcosm of an otherwise vast tentacular beast. It was just a local dispute, now forgotten. Affairs begin, Affairs end, but the Marriage of Music with our soul prevails... just as it did for Erich Zann. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.216.104 |
Remember before the great cold when Ogg used to bash the skulls with that tusk? I used to love that, but now I won't listen to anything pre-Nugg's concerto for mammoth ribs. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.137.168.78 |
LOL | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.216.104 |
With classical, it's rare that I go off anything, just accrete new things to admire: choral music, the chilly notes of Bach, Vaughan Williams. The first Sibelius I heard utterly thrilled me (Symphony No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 82: 3rd Movement), but everything I heard subsequently disappointed me. But Faure's Requiem remains the finest piece of art, in any medium, that I've encountered. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.216.104 |
I don't want it played at my funeral. I want it played at my death. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.137.168.78 |
I am a sucker for any Requiem. (Mozart, Faure, Verdi, Dvorak, Penderecki, Durufle...) | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 82.27.26.132 |
>>Stuart, sorry, you've gone to great lengths to make a case that just doesn't relate to my reasons for no longer finding Marvel and DC comics readable. Well, to be fair that's 'cos you didn't give me a clear answer until coaxed. Most of your dislikes of superhero comics seem to be based on tropes that have fallen into disuse or at least been toned down over the years. E.g. exclamation points were used 'cos shoddy printing meant that fullstops weren't always visible in the finished product. Because this was standard practice it took a while for people to realise they could stop using them when printing quality improved. The cost thing, while certainly a concern, can be alleviated the same way as with "proper" books -- buy from charity shops, borrow from friends, borrow from the local library. >>when there's next to nothing on the table, you have to be intensely clever to extract value from it. Depends what you're reading. Some superhero comics are shallow escapist drivel. At the other end of the scale you've got Watchmen. Obviously there's a lot of stuff that falls between these two extremes. Of course you can only judge superhero comics by what you yourself have read and if you've only read old school stuff then I can appreciate you finding it unsatisfying for the reasons you've stated. Even if I don't necessarily agree with you. >>the reliance on the frame structure as allowing magical change between frames Of course there are changes between the frames. Otherwise you'd have the exact same picture repeated over and over throughout the entire story with none of the characters able to move and with no scene changes. While it is possible to write a comic using this restriction (and it would certainly make life easier for the artist -- "You mean I only have to draw one picture this issue instead of over a hundred different ones? Yippee!") it's not something I'd like to see on a regular basis. The fact that you have trouble with this aspect of comics interests me. Most people I know who have trouble reading comics find them difficult 'cos they didn't read them as kids and so never developed the knack. They don't know which order to read the panels. Or which order to read the different speech balloons, thought balloons, captions etc within the panels. Or, as you say, they have trouble interpreting the flow of time (and movement) between the panels. But you DID read comics as a kid but still find panel-to-panel transitions awkward. Did you always find them difficult or is that you've lost the knack? Personally, the last time I read the Tintin books I found them a little clunky 'cos I'd forgotten the difference between European comic techniques and those used in American and British comics. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.57.88 |
A propos of nothing: I heard from someone that there are or have been reprints of the old horror comics Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella and such. Anyone have any idea where they might be obtainable? | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Cripes! I remember Eerie from my long lost youth. I think I was about 6 years old when I first saw a copy in the newsagents. Pestered my father to buy it for me. Didn't really understand what it was about but it scared me witless! | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.57.88 |
Or, indeed, obtained? | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 82.27.26.132 |
Hubert, you can get the Creepy and Eerie stuff off Amazon. They're pretty expensive though -- you might want to shop around with the booksellers Amazon links to. Or try www.abebooks.co.uk | ||
| Greg James (Greg_james) Username: Greg_james Registered: 04-2011 Posted From: 62.244.179.50 |
One from my youth would be Michael Jackson who I fell out of love with as a teenager for fairly obvious reasons. Also, his music stopped being much cop with HIStory. Another example from music would be Joy Division. I listened to them repeatedly for years and then just stopped in my mid-twenties. I think it was a simple case of overdose. More recently, probably my falling out of love with the gorier end of horror literature. I think here I also overdosed myself and it was on gross-outs, though it feels more like I'm moving on than growing up per se. | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
>One from my youth would be Michael Jackson who I fell out of love with as a teenager for fairly obvious reasons.< Don't worry, he probably fell out of love with you around the same time.  | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
Actually, Greg, you make a good point about Joy Division. I was obsessed with their small output throughout my twenties, but since turning thirty I find them just too heavy-going to listen to. I went through similar experiences with Radiohead and, for different reasons, The Smiths. But for all of those I suspect it was just a case of my tastes changing. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.10.185 |
Stuart – no! Please don't confirm my prejudiced suspicion that Alan Moore is to comics what Vince Cable is to the Lib Dems: the one figurehead invariably wheeled out in the face of general disparagement. No other medium has a single leading exponent so over-relied upon as a reference point – the closest parallel may be Hendrix in rock. I should have clarified that what I was referring to is unaccountable transitions between frames – I thought the 'With one bound Jack was free' parallel made that clear though. The dividing lines between frames are cracks through which causality and continuity seem to drain away, and the game resumes with the goalposts in a new place. The whole superhero concept lends itself to capricious deformation of characters and situations: anything can happen when a character has ill-defined 'special powers', an 'alter ego' that comes out of nowhere, or a 'destiny' imparted through the bite of a radioactive fan convention. The magic whereby narratives turn on the hinge of a vertical line is part of a greater conceit according to which everything happens according to comic-book rules, which are not rules that have much traction in any other cultural medium. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.57.88 |
Thanks, Stu. Will have a look. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.151.146.214 |
I've got to quote Neil gaiman and Dave McKean's collaberations as being possibly as close to perfection as comics can get. Anything drawn by McKean you know you're not going to get the standard frame by frame stuff... I also used to really love the Books of Magic comics written by John Ney Ryber (Or something similar) which were a follow up to a 4 part story written by Gaiman and drawn by 4 of the greatest artists comics had back in the early 90's. I wish I'd kept hold of them now... | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 82.18.201.194 |
Alan Moore tends to be used as a reference point 'cos (a) he's got street-cred and (b) most non-comics fans have heard of him. Other good comics writers are Frank Miller, Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Waid, Warren Ellis and James Robinson. That's just off the top of my head and confining myself to writers who have worked in superhero comics during the Modern Age (1985 to present). As for "unaccountable transitions between frames" it sounds like you're talking about times when the creative team have messed up. Generally speaking comics are written by one person and drawn by someone else, consequently they sometimes get their wires crossed about how to present the information on the page, the words and pictures not quite gelling together. Yes, this is annoying but bad storytelling (whether due to miscommunication or just plain lack of talent) is not unique to comics. With all your talk of rules and "deformation of characters and situations" you sound like the sort of person who dismisses all speculative fiction on the grounds that it's silly made-up stuff that doesn't make sense. Granted, superhero comics have their fair share of tropes and conventions, some of which are pretty daft, but so do other genres. For example do you honestly think that a real private eye could get away with the stuff pulled by Philip Marlowe and his literary offspring? Superheroes have evolved over time (and actually originated in prose -- look at The Shadow, Zorro etc). Writers and artists are constantly refining elements to try and allow the reader to more easily suspend their disbelief. Stan Lee's creation of Spider-Man -- with his money problems, illnesses, and moral dilemmas -- was a big step forward from previous superheroes. Modern writers are doing their best to continue this tradition. Sometimes an outdated concept can be phased out, sometimes it can be glossed over, sometimes it can be restructured so that the sillier elements are removed. And sometimes the silliness is part of what makes it fun in the first place. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.18.146 |
Stuart, I'm as deeply embedded in genre fandom as you, just with a different focus. What I'm complaining about is not imaginative departures from consensus reality but the lazy and predictable use of a certain kind of consensus unreality. There are parallel problems in genre fiction and (especially) cinema. In all areas, within the (sometimes obvious) limitations of my knowledge and taste, I try to make a case for creative genre work and against genre as mechanical product. To me, Marvel and DC comics are genre as product, branded mass-market fodder that may flatter its audience but has no respect for them. I've long since lost my affection for those products. There's lots more that is undoubtedly much better, but I'm not familiar with it. I'm not generally keen on the comic/graphic novel medium, but that's not specifically on grounds of quality, it just isn't a format that appeals to me as a reader – the usual thing of not feeling able to pace the reading experience, so it feels jerky and incomplete – that's purely a subjective issue. Probably the graphic novel I've got most out of are Art Spiegelman's Maus and Robert Crumb's recent version of the Book of Genesis. Alan Moore I feel is writing – very intelligently – for people who already know and are engaged with the comics tradition. That's not a criticism. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 129.11.76.216 |
In a fight between Joel and Stu, who would win? | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 82.18.201.194 |
Joel, I didn't mean to imply that you're not a genre fan. I just meant that in this instance your comments reminded me of the sort reactions common among non-fans. The whole I-don't-read-superhero-comics-'cos-I've-gone-through-puberty line smacked of throwing the baby out with the bathwater (although it was pretty funny). Now you've clarified your position I have to say that I agree with some of your specific points. Marvel and DC are all about the product; the companies that is, not the creative teams -- although admittedly in some cases the "creative" types are just as bad. And yes, Moore does tend to write for people who already read comics, with lots of in-jokes and comics references, but that's not the only focus of his work. I also sympathise with your feeling that comics feel jerky and incomplete. I have a similar problem with manga and, as I mentioned in an earlier post, found the European rhythms of Tintin a little disconcerting when returning to the books as an adult. The difficulty some people have with reading certain comics is something that interests me and is part of the reason I've been pestering you so much the last few days. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 82.18.201.194 |
>>In a fight between Joel and Stu, who would win? Depends. Can I use kryptonite? | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Joel vs Stu!!!!! I imagine Joel with bulging muscles, a red cape with a golden star emblazoned on it, and in one hand a hammer like Thor's and in the other hand a sickle make of some metal unavailable on Earth that can cut through tungsten... On his exposed chest is a tattoo of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and Bestwick all in profile (a bit like Colin Farrell in The Way Back) and his war cry is, "Dictatorship of the proletariaaaaaaat!!!!" Stu has special eel pies as his main weapon. He can bung them into the atmosphere like ballistic missles and rend his opponent's skulls with the ultra-hard crust when they land. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
 I think Stu would win on points. It wouldn't get nasty because there's no actual hostility. |