Comics UK

I prefer Dandy adventure stories to DFC adventure stories which not much happens in them..

DFC didn't send me issue 3.emailed them to inform them...
Recieved issue 4 and still the stories are not doing much...
What do others think..

Just feel the stories are like modern childrens books...not comic adventures..

Wished Jamie was drawing his strip (the puzzle page is nice) and Laura's work had started that would help me to get interested in it again..

Peter Gray wrote: Recieved issue 4 and still the stories are not doing much...
What do others think..

Just feel the stories are like modern childrens books...not comic adventures..

I can understand that they'd want the look and tone of modern children's books (as they want to attract children who read books) but I think the stories are paced slowly so they move along at a more natural pace for when they're compiled into books. It's a problem that many American comics have too, and it's a shame this so-called "decompressed storytelling" is being adopted in The DFC. Whatever faults the comics of old had, they knew how to pace an episodic serial. (Fleetway had great cliffhangers, and Thomsons had nice self-contained episodes that moved the plot forward. Two differing but sharply edited techniques.)

Seems that the terser writing styles that suited comics so well for decades are being forgotten. It's a shame because as it is at present some of The DFC serials are intriguing but unfortunately not that exciting.

James Turner's Super Animal Adventure Squad remains my favourite. Too bad it's only a single page strip.

Lew

I hadn't posted anything about the DFC yet because everyone seemed to absolutely love it, some of the talent is undoubtedly knocking about, and I was willing it to win with as much good feeling as everyone else - so I thought maybe it would be better to say nothing. But as Peter has asked, I'm not at all keen.

I think that overall the adventure stories are dull and uninvolving with no interesting lead characters. Hardly anything ever happens. John Blake has some potential but it's plodding along without much gripping incident, really, and already seeming a little repetitive. I'm not sure if The Boss or The Spider Moon could get much more boring.

I don't really think these do have the tone of modern children's books because many popular children's books, like the Alex Rider series for example, move at a cracking pace and are written to be page-turners. There seems to be no understanding of how to write serialised comic strips with strong cliff hangers - something that could definitely be learnt from the classic IPC weeklies.

As Lew says, they're probably intended to be collected as graphic novels at some future date - or maybe it's a lost art, or maybe making the serials more 'commercial' with 'can't wait for next week' cliffhangers would be considered too vulgar by the DFC ... ? But this kind of strip writing for kids needs to be much tighter, pacier, punchier and filled with incident. As it is, is anyone of any age really gripped or looking forward with anticipation to the next instalments?

I also find most of the humour strips to be unfunny with very weak scripting and in some cases, very crudely drawn, too. I'm surprised Sausage and Carrots and New at the Zoo got in there. In an age where kids are hooked to the likes of The Simpsons and Family Guy, etc. much stronger comedy scripting is needed. It definitely needs some Jamie Smart and Gary Northfield-stylee madness in there, humour strip-wise.

Vern and Lettuce looks cute but seems, like Zoo, to be aimed at kids around four or five, whereas John Blake, for example, seems aimed much older, especially with the swearing, which gives the comic an uneven feel. Surely the babyish stuff would make the comic uncool for the kids the 'older' strips are aimed at?

Overall, if this is for kids, I think it needs much more of a 'pulp' sensibility; more of a personality and attitude. Comics were always kids' culture - something kids would adore without maybe their parents even approving. The way the DFC works, of course, it's something parents have to pay for, and it seems to me very much more like something parents would choose and approve of rather than something kids would choose for themselves. It's all so mild and respectable, tame and polite. There's no anarchy, energy, attitude or anti-establishment feel. Nothing outre or outlandish.

I think I'd have cancelled after four issues had I done the standing order - as it is, I'm with it for 13, and do hope it picks up. I'd certainly love to be raving about it, and still hope I end up doing so.

Raven wrote: It definitely needs some Jamie Smart and Gary Northfield-stylee madness in there, humour strip-wise.

Be careful what you wish for - I have a strip starting in issue 11!

SLOW-PACED comic-strips have their place, and are an acquired taste.....WILL EISNER'S fantastic 1940s strip, 'THE SPIRIT' , for example, often stopped dead in it's tracks to stretch out a 2-or-3 page sequence of the titular hero recovering [on his hands and knees] at a sink unit in a seedy building......EISNER skilfully conveyed startling use of perspective, 'charicuso', drama,---and above all, atmosphere, and I was certainly drawn into, and entertained by, the unique world he successfully created.

BRITSH COMICS traditionally use longer stories that 'skip' mundane, uneccessary acts, giving us the neccessary key information, and leaving our imaginations to 'fill in' the events we don't actually see: all excellent for developing reader's imagination.

Yesterday, I was looking through some mid-80s 'JUDGE DREDD' reprints, and I was struck by just how conventionally-minded the story technique was; many of these stories run to 6 pages or longer, so they could afforded to indulge in slower-paced tales,-----but preference appears to have been given to the use of large, dynamically-detailed 'splash' panels.

The bizarre mutants, droids and culture were integrated into a surprizingly traditional framework; more modern comic stories often slow everything down, almost as if the artist/writer is trying to convey a more 'cinematic' effect; this is fine if you are in the mood for this sort of thing, but in general, it doesn't 'grip' me in quite the same way as traditional pacing in storytelling.

ISPYSHHHGUY wrote: ...more modern comic stories often slow everything down, almost as if the artist/writer is trying to convey a more 'cinematic' effect; this is fine if you are in the mood for this sort of thing, but in general, it doesn't 'grip' me in quite the same way as traditional pacing in storytelling.

I think it's often more of a commercial rather than an artistic decision nowadays. Graphic novels sell better than comics so everything has to be stretched into a 5 or 6 issue arc to fill a book compilation, whether or not the story is deserving of such length, often resulting in the 'character taking six pages to scratch their nose' effect.

Of course, slower paced comics can be perfectly legitimate. I'm not sure it's the kind of approach that would make fans of children, though. Children are used to fast-paced entertainment and absorbing lots of information quickly nowadays.

Gary Northfield wrote:

Raven wrote: It definitely needs some Jamie Smart and Gary Northfield-stylee madness in there, humour strip-wise.

Be careful what you wish for - I have a strip starting in issue 11!

I will certainly look forward to that.

Blitz boy was very exciting to read...in The Dandy 1964...

DFC this is an exciting adventure story...
too much talking heads at the moment...

I've just got hold of a 1983 Buddy with a 'Blitz Boy' serial in it. I wonder if it's a rewrite or completely different.

Even if they are going to compile these things into books at a later date, that's no excuse to slow them down... try reading a collected edition of Modesty Blaise, which generally had four panels a day... good enough like that but reading a whole storyline can leave you breathless!

It's the same with Judge Dredd classics like The Cursed Earth, every weekly episode is "thrill-powered" alone but it still works as a book.

As for "not liking" the "can't wait for next week" cliff-hangers... don't these people watch Doctor Who? Even I'm willing it to be 7:00 tomorrow already!

I agree, the adventure stories are at a slower pace. I'm enjoying them, though. A lot of the old comics had rather 'ludicrous' plots - which were fun, but even as a kid I found some of the short-cuts ridiculous.

I don't think there's any editorial control saying "this is going to be a graphic novel, stretch it out". Certainly not for me (indeed, I don't expect mine to be collected at all). But there is an intention behind the comic to be strong on story - whether this bears out or not will remain to be seen.

This topic forms an interesting partner to the recently resurrected Are we dumbing down comics for today's kids? topic, where kids who have such short attention spans that they need everything in super-fast bites are lamented (great post from SH about kids being able to take on more complex and involved stories). The DFC isn't a comic from the 1970s, it's for a new market, and one that it is looking into new territory to find it.

I'm a bit on the fence... I'm really enjoying the stories and the fabulous artwork, but did wonder at being 5 issues in and how far each story has come. John Blake is setting up mystery after mystery with very few answers... so I want to stick with that - it better be good! Spider Moon is gorgeous, a lovely serene and floaty world - more manga in style, but possibly more adult anime in pace (and I don't mean x-rated). Mobot High is building up, and is an intriguing concept. And I'm liking The Boss, but would expect it to start resolving soon (I have no idea if it does).

For myself, my strip is four-page episodes and I'm going for a mini cliff-hanger on every page! It'll be a while before it appears yet though. I expect it to be liked and loathed in equal measures

I'm enjoying the comic so far, but if I were still 10 I'd be rather bored. I can remember not liking the comic my parents bought for me (Dandy and Look and Learn)
in the early 70's. I used to buy Warlord & Action nd stuffed them up my jumper so mum didn't see it when I got home.

Let's have some action, maybe even a war story.

Shame there's nothing like phil the fluter, or Mr Bubbles something magical in this day and age would be really funny.

nottinghamian wrote:I'm enjoying the comic so far, but if I were still 10 I'd be rather bored. I can remember not liking the comic my parents bought for me (Dandy and Look and Learn)
in the early 70's. I used to buy Warlord & Action nd stuffed them up my jumper so mum didn't see it when I got home.

Let's have some action, maybe even a war story.

Now, that's an interesting reply. My parents idea of a safe comic was the Beano. But to give them their due, my brothers were allowed to pick their comics as long as it was Scottish based. So I read most of DCT's output and gave it my own marks out of 10.

In comparison, most of the IPC output did well, but wasn't worth the extra Danegeld to read. I hope that DFC spreads its net wide and not only has fantasy and wizard stories, but has things like "Conrad's War" to entertain their readers.

Now I know that my reply has rambled, but I like to think that comics appeal to us all. And I know that comics, when I was a kid, were my escape from mundane suburbia/class eclecticism so I would like to think that the next generation of kids have the same sort of escape valve instead of being funnelled down a road less travelled.

More action in this one page...good cliff hanger...every panel interesting...makes you want to read more...

DFC learn from this...
edit the stories down...or make changes...