NEWSARAMA Has First 14 Pages Of Ultimate Nightmare Posted Online

[rob_react]

[i think a lot of writing today has become extremely loose and sloppy because writers have to churn out 5 and 6-issue story arcs for the TPB market.

 

I have to admit the TPB was one of the things that crossed my mind also when I read the preview. And essentially, that's the problem with it.....in 14 pages, I still don't know what the heck is going on....and I'm not curious to find out either.....

 

I thought it was a pretty basic setup. 100 years ago what is believed to have been a comet struck the Tunguska region of Siberia (a real event.) As was discovered by those two unlucky guys, there's a reason the place has bad vibes surrounding it. Nearly 100 years later, an alien broadcast takes over the Earth's airwaves and illustrates the truth about what happened there, a truth so horrific it forces people to kill themselves rather than face what is to come.

 

cue dramatic music... What is that truth? What will earth's heroes do to stop it?

[25CentComic]

Not to get caught in between what surely will be come a flame war but I usually pick up books based on how good the story is and how long it takes me to read it. So the word ratio IS important to me. Otherwise, I might as well be looking at paintings in a museum. Comic books were meant to be READ not just looked at.

 

On a side note, here is an interesting site that takes into account how long it took them to read an issue when they grade its quality.

 

Big B Reviews

[OldGuy]

Comic books were meant to be READ not just looked at.

 

Don't let Bassman hear you say that....

[lighthouse]

Comic books were meant to be READ not just looked at.

 

Don't let Bassman hear you say that....

 

Yeah ... everyone knows comic books were meant to be SOLD.

[Foolkiller]

I wasn't a big fan of this preview -- if I can get the trade somewher down the line at half of cover (and of course that will likely be available) maybe I'll buy it. This is one of those books that you can read while standing in the actual comic book store instead of dropping the money to actually buy it.

[rob_react]

Not to get caught in between what surely will be come a flame war

 

I can guarantee you it won't I've said pretty much everything I need to say by now and I don't need to argue my point until I've smashed it down to atoms, so a flame war is not in the cards.

 

Plus I have War and Peace to read, beer to drink and a couple of dominican cohibas waiting for me...

[Aces]

Interesting.

 

A whole group of people wiped out?

Planet destroyer?

 

Galactus!?

[Kevin Boyd]

UN preview is a decent set-up, albeit a little overly cinematic.. but definitely in line stylistically with Ellis' other works like the Authority (and Planetary).

 

Chapter one of a graphic novel really. I'm intrigued but I will wait for the final collected edition.

[FFB]

And does EVERYTHING have to be a $$ call with you? It's a rip-off because Ellis decides that the best way to tell this part of the story is visual? The word per dollar ratio isn't high enough for you?

 

Looks good to me. I'm in.

 

Long as the story is told well, I don't care whether the book has 8,000 words or 8.

[FFB]

You know, Rob, for someone who rails against how intolerant J_C, for example, can be, you can be pretty, shall we say, opinionated yourself when someone touches one of your sacred cow issues like the quality of new books or the ethics of the collecting/dealer community (and by no means do you have overwhelming popular support behind these views). Some might even find this to be just a tad ironic itself.

 

Gene,

 

You do have to admit that there is something ironic about someone who owns the entire set of original artwork for the Silent Story in GI Joe complaining about a comic book with not enough words.

[FFB]

Haven't you heard the numerous complaints on this Forum about new comics not delivering value at $2.99 for a 5-minute read?

 

I have to admit complaining about this a time or two, but my primary complaint is the use of full page splashes that aren't necessary. Of course, this book has that problem too. I just enjoyed the set up for the story, which I thought was well done.

[delekkerste]

Gene,

 

You do have to admit that there is something ironic about someone who owns the entire set of original artwork for the Silent Story in GI Joe complaining about a comic book with not enough words.

 

I didn't know that artwork required any words? Last time I saw, the title of the $104 million Picasso was "Garcon a la pipe", not "Garcon a la word balloon."

 

My argument seems to have been dumbed-down to the catchphrase "there's not enough words" when, in fact, my point has always been there's "not enough story" (which is usually, though not always, correlated with a paucity of text). G.I. Joe #21 is a book with no words (aside from the title and a computer screen display), but has a great, complete story. Ultimate Nightmare #1 has very few words and even less story to speak of. 14 pages and we haven't even seen any of the principal characters. Telling a story in 5 or 6 watered down issues vs. 2 or 3 solid issues is both (a) poor storytelling and (b) poor value for the consumer. Can we really expect people to join the comics hobby when they have to make 5 or 6 monthly trips to their LCS to read a single storyline? Half a year and $12-$18 bucks for less than a half hour's worth of reading entertainment?

 

Furthermore, if comics today are so great, then why is it that virtually no single issue is notable in any way, shape or form? Without looking through your collection, can anyone tell me what happened in USM #44, UXM #38, ASM v. 2 #48, New X-Men #124, etc., etc.? And yet, why is it that I can tell you the principal storyline of every Uncanny X-Men issue from GS #1 to #143 or Daredevil #158-191 off the top of my head? You know why? Because not only were these books of excellent quality, A LOT OF STUFF HAPPENED in each issue, it took a long time to read them and they stuck in your head! They delivered a lot of bang for your comics buck. Why is it that I can tell you exactly what happened in every Uncanny X-Men issue from #165-#182, some issues of which I haven't read in almost 20 years, and yet I can't tell you what happened in almost any single issue of Ultimate X-Men? BECAUSE HARDLY ANYTHING HAPPENS IN ANY SINGLE COMIC BOOK BEING PUBLISHED TODAY. And that, in my book, is not a positive thing in an age when comics are competing with the Internet, DVDs, videogames, etc. for the entertainment dollars out there.

[Illiterati-migration]

In short (since you're probably quoting the heck out of the last one to write a novella and you just edited your post out from underneath me and I don't want to do the same to you...) if you're going to argue against decompressed storytelling and you want me to take you seriously, please frame the argument in terms of artistic merit. I honestly couldn't tell you the cover price of half the books I buy.

 

Good lord. Settle down, Rob... Gene expresses an opinion and you post, then reply to yourself, then reply to yourself AGAIN all bashing a very valid complaint... and then you do it again!

 

You like new books. We get it. We've gotten it the other 5,000,000,000 times you've talked about how great they are.

[FFB]

My argument seems to have been dumbed-down to the catchphrase "there's not enough words" when, in fact, my point has always been there's "not enough story" (which is usually, though not always, correlated with a paucity of text).

 

Easy, Gene. I agree with the central point you're making and it is my primary complaint with today's books too. There is not nearly enough story in each book, compared to what we used to get 20 years ago and I think it has everything to do with the fact that they are putting fewer and fewer (and bigger and bigger) panels in each book. What Marvel is doing is making panels bigger so that less story takes up more space. This allows them to charge more money for less "story," but bigger pictures. Some people like the bigger pictures. I'm not one of them. Neither are you, it appears. I believe that there should almost never be more than three splash pages per comic book (first page, last page, and maybe one in the middle), and usually even that many aren't necessary.

 

Having said that, I think that there have been some great story arcs recently, and an arc is now the equivalent to what used to be a single issue or perhaps a two-parter. If you think of it in those terms, then in my opinion, there is nothing "wrong" with today's books other than the price, which I agree is pretty high for what we're getting. The quality of the stories isn't bad -- it just takes several months and several times as much money to get the story.

 

The reason I posted what I did was that you chose to couch your point in terms of how many words the book had versus the number of words in a silver age book. That's what I found funny.

[uclapeterg]

Interesting.

 

A whole group of people wiped out?

Planet destroyer?

 

Galactus!?

 

When was his last appearance anyways??

[Aces]

Interesting.

 

A whole group of people wiped out?

Planet destroyer?

 

Galactus!?

 

When was his last appearance anyways??

 

Has he made an appearance in the Ultimates?

 

And what would they use against him?

 

The Ultimate, Ultimate Nulifier?

[joe_collector]

Interesting.

 

A whole group of people wiped out?

Planet destroyer?

 

Galactus!?

 

I'm not sure if the alien imagery was on purpose, but it looks a whole lot like...

 

Phoenix.

[FlyingDonut]

Gene,

 

You do have to admit that there is something ironic about someone who owns the entire set of original artwork for the Silent Story in GI Joe complaining about a comic book with not enough words.

 

I didn't know that artwork required any words? Last time I saw, the title of the $104 million Picasso was "Garcon a la pipe", not "Garcon a la word balloon."

 

My argument seems to have been dumbed-down to the catchphrase "there's not enough words" when, in fact, my point has always been there's "not enough story" (which is usually, though not always, correlated with a paucity of text). G.I. Joe #21 is a book with no words (aside from the title and a computer screen display), but has a great, complete story. Ultimate Nightmare #1 has very few words and even less story to speak of. 14 pages and we haven't even seen any of the principal characters. Telling a story in 5 or 6 watered down issues vs. 2 or 3 solid issues is both (a) poor storytelling and (b) poor value for the consumer. Can we really expect people to join the comics hobby when they have to make 5 or 6 monthly trips to their LCS to read a single storyline? Half a year and $12-$18 bucks for less than a half hour's worth of reading entertainment?

 

Furthermore, if comics today are so great, then why is it that virtually no single issue is notable in any way, shape or form? Without looking through your collection, can anyone tell me what happened in USM #44, UXM #38, ASM v. 2 #48, New X-Men #124, etc., etc.? And yet, why is it that I can tell you the principal storyline of every Uncanny X-Men issue from GS #1 to #143 or Daredevil #158-191 off the top of my head? You know why? Because not only were these books of excellent quality, A LOT OF STUFF HAPPENED in each issue, it took a long time to read them and they stuck in your head! They delivered a lot of bang for your comics buck. Why is it that I can tell you exactly what happened in every Uncanny X-Men issue from #165-#182, some issues of which I haven't read in almost 20 years, and yet I can't tell you what happened in almost any single issue of Ultimate X-Men? BECAUSE HARDLY ANYTHING HAPPENS IN ANY SINGLE COMIC BOOK BEING PUBLISHED TODAY. And that, in my book, is not a positive thing in an age when comics are competing with the Internet, DVDs, videogames, etc. for the entertainment dollars out there.

 

Because Uncanny X-Men 165-182 was your personal Golden Age, Gene. Why do you know what the principal storyline of Daredevil 158-191 was? Because you were reading those books when you were 12-15. The same reason why I can tell you everything that happened in Fantastic Four 160-200 - those were the books I devoured when I was 11-15.

 

I don't read any of those titles you listed. Pick a title that I do read, and I'll happily give you a plot synopsis.

[delekkerste]

Because Uncanny X-Men 165-182 was your personal Golden Age, Gene. Why do you know what the principal storyline of Daredevil 158-191 was? Because you were reading those books when you were 12-15. The same reason why I can tell you everything that happened in Fantastic Four 160-200 - those were the books I devoured when I was 11-15.

 

I don't read any of those titles you listed. Pick a title that I do read, and I'll happily give you a plot synopsis.

 

This is a specious argument, and it's very easy to point out why by means of a simple example - the fact is, I have a much better chance of recalling the details of any SA or BA book I read for the first time in the past few years (through the numerous TPBs I have purchased) than any book I've purchased off the rack during that time period. Not only do I find these issues to be generally of higher quality, but there was (a) a lot more content per issue and (b) they actually had cover artwork that was relevant to the interior story. Now, look at Ultimate Spider-Man today - not only does practically nothing happen in any given issue, but almost every cover looks exactly alike (some Spider-Man pose which has nothing to do with the storyline), making it impossible to recall the details of any particular issue. The complete storylines also become less memorable and more difficult to recall given how their impact is stretched out over so many issues and over so long a time period (if you're reading books on a monthly basis instead of in TPB format or all at once, you will undoubtedly start to forget by the end of a story arc what happened at the beginning of it).

 

Now, don't get me wrong - I agree with FFB's point that there have been some very good storylines over the past few years. However, I don't like the fact that it takes 2 1/2 times as many issues to tell a story as it did 25 years ago. IMO, it's lazy storytelling and greed on the part of the publishers. As this month's CBG article points out, the comics reader is paying more money for less content than any time in comics' history (as measured by the number of words and panels per book; furthermore, they calculated their statistics tracking the content of ASM over time - given that JMS is one of the few writers who actually uses a lot of dialogue, the results would be even more skewed had they replaced ASM with USM for the "2004" data point).

 

IMO, comics need to be delivering more for less to compete with other entertainment mediums, not the other way around. Publishing individual pamphlets, where practically nothing happens in any given issue, at a $2.99/pop price point and requiring consumers to go back to their LCS 5 or 6 times to read a single storyline is not, IMO, conducive to promoting a healthy hobby.

[blowout]

I thought the "Ultimate Nightmare" was out already: