Why did Bronze Age comics seem so averse to the rule of "show don't tell"...

Why did Bronze Age comics seem so averse to the rule of "show don't tell"? It's one of the basic principles of good writing, probably even doubly so for a visual medium like comics, and yet comics from that era are filled with panels like this if not worse. Did they just think that their young readers were too stupid to know what was going on?

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>Did they just think that their young readers were too stupid to know what was going on?
Guess so.

I always thought it was a Stan Lee thing. His writing was always bombastic and theatrical and other writers just imitated his style.

Is that one story about the editor worrying kids won't get the word "mutants" true?

It was either BWS or Wrightson who told a story of how they were illustrating a Kull story in which Kull goes deaf.
In order to signify that, the art was made in grey tones. No color.
The editor had those pages colored anyway on the bases that "people bought a full color comic book. They want to see color."

Same goes for the copy. Sten Lee even said that filled pages with tons of text so it would look like you were getting more content for your money

Lee himself is merely one of the imitators of this style. It existed long before him, in the cheesy Bronze/Silver Age sci-fi stories Marvel used to publish back when they were Atlas.

>before him
>in the cheesy Bronze/Silver Age
Why do people who don't know anything about cape comics insist on giving opinions on cape comics?

OP's pic is from Claremont

I'm not a normie I swear reeeee I just confuse Golden and Bronze a lot

Without the text, you'd have no idea what was happening in that panel. Shitty art + stupid kids = comics like those.

Aside from that, making kids read is doing them a favour. Picture books are for ages 5 and under.

Stan Lee wasn't the first comic book writer.

Comics weren't yet meant to be movie storyboards. They were essentially illustrated novels.

Thus, the show don't tell rule didn't apply.

I wore an onion on my belt, cause it was the style of the time

I find claremont incredibly hard to read because he goes at a glacial pace. It feels like he's reciting the obvious to the audience.

With that said, I don't get why Claremont's run is so beloved

>Comics weren't yet meant to be movie storyboards. They were essentially illustrated novels.

You realize that a good comic is neither of these, right? Things unique to the medium like paneling, page layout, and visual/text synergy are what should be used to tell a story. Also, the "it's a novel with pictures" defense doesn't make any sense considering 1) novels often still follow the "show don't tell" rule, and 2) the comics usually do rely on the pictures in other places

>glacial pace
Stuff happens far faster during his run than in current decompressed comics.

Different user, but I think he's talking about actually reading the comic goes at a glacial pace, not how much shit happens per issue. For example, you'll see something happen in a panel, *then* you read about that same thing happening in a speech bubble, *then* you read a narration box telling you that the thing just happened. It can get really obnoxious.

Oh, well i agree on that part, but how is that a bad thing? Some of the best comics make you pause, go back, reread the page in multiple ways for different interpretations, read it with the art, read the words and then read the composition of the page. Comics are unique in that they allow you to tell many naratives simultaneously. Claremont didn't get into that part often but slowing down your read was clearly intended. He wanted you to slow down at certain points.

>Some of the best comics make you pause, go back, reread the page in multiple ways for different interpretations, read it with the art, read the words and then read the composition of the page
That's true, but that's not what Claremont does. Instead of having the different storytelling techniques work off each other and compliment one another, he's just getting the exact same information across 3 times.

>He wanted you to slow down at certain points.
There are better ways to do that than filler wordswordswordswords

Claremont was great at coming up with stories and characters, he was just kind of shit at the comic equivalent of prose.

I seem to recall someone saying writers were paid by word.

> "show don't tell"
that rule is a scam
you pay money to READ a comic book, you should have enough text to READ for more than one minute

show don't tell applies to text prose too, you retard. It doesn't just mean "use pictures instead of words" it means to demonstrate something to the reader as opposed to just telling them that it happens.

I made no qualitative statement about what a comic should be.

I'm just explaining how comic books, historically, were written the same way as pulp magazines, with the writer doing a script and an author filling in illustrations.

People like Eisner who wrote and drew their own strips understood the potential for comics to be a more visual medium but for a long time they still were written in that tradition.

>show don't tell applies to text prose too,
how? dare to name an example?

If the Bronze Age was "tell, not show". What was the silver and golden age?

The best age

Yeah he wasn't the best at it. He was trying to reinforce things. Sometimes it worked really well, Inferno was great with that. Other times it wasn't as good.

I still prefer old Vertigo because the reinforced narration over the panels was best at that point. I prefer wordy comics, but that may be because i come from a novel reading and writing history

1. this 2. writers were paid by the word
2b. writers are egomaniacs and resent themselves for needing an artist so they re-exert "control" over the book by putting their stamp on every panel.

Did you just never pass a high school English course? Jesus Christ. The axiom of "show don't tell" was created for prose.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Show,_don't_tell

This. Once I discovered Vertigo, I had a hard time finding anything to read in mainline DC or marvel.
Do you know any books that are like the vertigo ones?

I'm not an english speaker. The idea of show don't tell in a text prose feels asinine and good enough for a burger.

>I prefer wordy comics, but that may be because i come from a novel reading and writing history
I'm fine with wordy comics, I'm not fine with filler wordiness that add nothing to the page that the picture couldn't already do itself.

It's not just an English thing, it's pretty universal
>The concept is often attributed to Russian playwright Anton Chekhov
You're just an illiterate

Lel, I don't give a shit about russian writers, I have my own national writers

but comics are primarily a visual medium user

The Bronze Age was pretty much the first generation of creators that grew up as fans of comics. Before then the only real valuable skill was being able to draw (or brand and market in Stan's case). Bronze Age writers were guys that loved comics and saw that comics had credited writers and they knew they couldn't draw so they set their sights on becoming comic book writers. They were also boomers so a lot of Bronze Age guys were college educated unlike previous comic creators and lot of them studied English and comp academically.

Unless you're from Mars I guarantee you that show don't tell is used there

>I don't give a shit about russian writers
Then how can you understand good comics? Seriously a lot of comics rely upon you being well read in all forms of literature. Russian writers are pretty great, you should read them

I think you have to go to eurocomics for sometthing similar to Vertigo. Stuff like Jodorowski comics could get a bit wordy at time too. But it was usually to make everything even more over the top. He wanted to reinforce every idea so his best stuff has words and pictures working together.

>rely on being well read in all forms of literature

i can't think of any examples besides morrison and king books that directly reference lit

Humanoids Inc
Young Animal but it's lighter. I highly recommend Shade.

but we were discussing text proses

>Russian writers are pretty great, you should read them
I've read Gogol once, and Nabokov and didn't like it.

I'd rather read Joseph Conrad, even if he was a totally crappy writer

Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Gogol. Expand your horizons.

>morrison and king
Nearly all the british invasions requires greater reading than comics.

There is value in reading a wide array of literature to appreciate other works beyond direct references. It allows you to have a better handle on different uses of things like symbolism, characterization, and story structure. Again, these are all things you would understand if you passed freshman [insert whatever dumb language you speak here]

>I highly recommend Shade.
Seconding.

I've read Dostoevsky Crime and Punishment. It was actually good, albeit delirious as fuck. However, more often russian writers are pretty weak

A basic rule is not to describe what the reader can see. Or _ought to_ see if the artist did his job right.
And the writer should know because, under the Marvel Method, the dialog is added after the pictures are drawn.

Panel 1: Villain pulls out thermo-dimensional concussion gun. We see sparkly F/X coming out of muzzle.
Panel 2: Hero surrounded by Kirby crackle, being knocked off his feet.
Panel 2 speech balloon: "Oh no! He's hit me with his thermo-dimensional concussion gun."
DUH!

Damn it must have been easy to be a comic writer back then

How are you not getting this? "Show don't tell" means conveying the mood, the atmosphere, the emotion of the situation instead of simply describing the actions.

>It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off — then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball.

vs.

>When I feel bad I get the urge to go sailing.

Because you still have to TELL something

Not really. It's a quality vs. quantity situation, where Lee didn't just write a single title, but for several years, had to consistently write all of them.

This. It's a universal concept

Part of me thinks you're just retarded for not getting the difference between "tell" as in laboriously describe things using exposition, and "tell" as in using words, but part of me wants to give you the benefit of the doubt since you're a non-native English speaker and maybe you just suck at English. If it's the latter, stop trying to argue writing on an English board, if it's the former just get off the internet.

I'm sorry, I grew up reading books that were showing, instead of telling, and that's why I am a retard now

Have you read golden and silver age comics? They were all extremely wordy. And with the exception of an opening splash panel, everything was crammed into small panels. That's just how things were done back then.

Its because of the Marvel Method of writing stories. Writers would write a brief outline of the plot, then artists would just draw out how they felt like it would go, leaving room for word balloons. Then the writer would go back in and fill in the word balloons with dialogue later.

Because of this there ended up being needless word balloons in pretty much every panel, so characters would just end up narrating what they were doing a lot of the time.

>i'll just deflect and say I'm retarded "ironically" instead of making an actual argument

>Why did Bronze Age comics seem so averse to the rule of "show don't tell"?
Methinks they were trying to emulate radio shows.

What argument? You won.

I think I get what you're trying to say. You're saying comics and modern (american) lit are too much action without a lot of meaning?

Yes. That's exactly what I mean.

Wow haven't thought about it like that.

>Bronze Age comics seem so averse to the rule of "show don't tell
Things Moench worked on tended to abide by it like Deathlok and Moon Knight. Same for Mantlo stuff most of the time. And Cap comics would occasionaly do it as well.

Show don't tell typically means: getting the same amount of meaning across through description, active actions, and dialogue instead of plainly stating the actions as they have happened.

Indeed. That's why I am laconic.

>when you drew the pictures you're lettering but still have everyone describe what they're doing anyway

This one doesn't seem nearly as bad as Claremont

he took a lot of cues from the old testament, mythology (hopi, indian, etc - he was into ancient aliens stuff but that's off topic) and shakespeare

>a good comic is neither of these
Only according to standards established decades after the fact.

Golden and Silver where "tell, don't show"
Bronze was "tell AND show"
Iron was "show, don't tell"
Modern is "show, don't think"

pretty nice analysis

One of the reason was because any issue could be someone's new.

Exactly!

I won't stoop so low as to imply the artists might have left a lot of balloon-space to reduce the number of things they had to draw.

>Modern is "show, don't think"
Is this where you try and say that no good comics have been written in the past 20 years and that your pure issues from the 70s and 80s were superior in every way?

Even after the Bronze Age, Claremont never really stopped doing this, as if he never fully trusted the artists to show what was happening.

>doesn't care that the generalization about the Golden Age isn't 100% accurate
>doesn't care that the generalization about the Silver Age isn't 100% accurate
>doesn't care that the generalization about the Bronze Age isn't 100% accurate
>doesn't care that the generalization about the Iron Age isn't 100% accurate
>instead triggers as fuck at the insinuation that his event- and politic-driven 00s-10s rags are garbage
lol

If you look at the art without the dialogue you'll find it often isn't clear exactly what's going on. The art was cranked out very fast and there wasn't always a lot of communication between the writer and the artist. So the dialogue would explain what we might not be able to see for ourselves.

Basically the words trick our eyes into thinking we see more than we actually do. That's part of the process of "compressed" comics storytelling. Instead of showing the process of a character falling, which might take more than one panel or detailed art, you have simple art and the writer puts in some words to make it clear what's happening.

Today's comics often have moments where it's not entirely clear what's going on, because writers would rather err on the side of explaining too little than explaining too much.

>i can't think of any examples besides morrison and king books that directly reference lit

That's because you only read capeshit.

Because I've seen posts like yours a dozen times where people put the holy uncompressed comics of the 70s and before on some ridiculous pedestal and it gets really old.