How can people read comic books?!?!

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Mathias

Mathias

So I went over to my sister's house yesterday and borrowed The Watchmen. I can't read it for shit! My mind is so used to reading actual books, that I don't have the patience to jump from bubble to bubble. I can read things like Calvin and Hobbes just fine, but when it comes to graphic novels, I'm stuck.

I'd love to read through The Watchmen, but seriously it's as tedious as trying to read a book in another language. The main problem I have is the speed that I'm accustomed to reading. I speed read - nothing crazy like flipping a page a second, but I'll chug through a 300 page novel in like 2-3 days. I hate having to slow down to catch all the dialog in comics. Is there any technique anyone knows of to help you speed read through comics?
 
strawman

strawman

I suspect that rather than learning a technique to read them quickly, you'll probably be better off learning a technique to slow down and examine each image that goes with the dialogue, rather than merely glancing at the image as you go from bubble to bubble. There's little point to reading a graphic novel if you aren't going to spend time on the pictures. In fact, I'd almost go so far as to say that one should be spending the majority of the time on the pictures and only a little time on the text.

Still, it's a jarring move from books to graphic novels, further The Watchmen is one of the more difficult graphic novels to get through for someone not used to them. I've heard many people indicate that they really had to read it through a few times to catch everything.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

What Stienman said. A good graphic novel is going to have a lot of its story in the imagery otherwise it would be better off as just a novel. Watchman is very dense in its imagery, and the artwork is just important to take in as the dialogue.

Save your speed reading for the articles at the end of each issue. You'll still move through the issues quickly, because there's less to read in a graphic novel than a traditional novel.

And if you get the hang of it, and find you can enjoy the medium, then I recommend Preacher and Sandman next. Those, combined with Watchmen, are my favorite comics of all time.
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

Why are you trying to read a canadian rock band?

And i've always wondered, do ppl that read books that fast actually remember them after a few weeks (i know someone who doesn't remember much and i never got the point of doing it).

And like everyone said, you need to look at the pictures more.
 
ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

First off, jumping right into Watchmen would be like jumping into Citizen Kane if you're interested in movies. Work your way up, man.

I'd honestly say read some lighter stuff to get accustomed. One of my personal favourite things to recommend to people wanting to start reading is Flash: The Return of Barry Allen. It was a story told around the early 90s (ish), not to be confused with Flash: Rebirth, which properly brought back Barry Allen and...ugh, anyway, yeah. It's fun, light read that I've always enjoyed reading.

Or, you could start where I started collecting comics seriously: The Death of Superman trade. If you like it enough, you can follow it up with The Funeral, then The Return trades. :D
 
Espy

Espy

Decide what genre interested you.

Superheroes? Which ones? Batman? Go read Year One. Spiderman? Ultimate Spiderman trades. Something better than 99% of superhero comics? Invincible.
No superheroes? Alright... Crime? 100 Bullets or Criminal.
Horror? The Walking Dead, Hellboy.

Don't forget, a HUGE part of comics is the art, so if the art of a series isn't grabbing you then you probably need to move on. Find a book that has art that really gets your attention and makes you want pay attention to it.
 
Mathias

Mathias

Espy said:
Decide what genre interested you.

Superheroes? Which ones? Batman? Go read Year One. Spiderman? Ultimate Spiderman trades. Something better than 99% of superhero comics? Invincible.
No superheroes? Alright... Crime? 100 Bullets or Criminal.
Horror? The Walking Dead, Hellboy.

Don't forget, a HUGE part of comics is the art, so if the art of a series isn't grabbing you then you probably need to move on. Find a book that has art that really gets your attention and makes you want pay attention to it.
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I think I'm going to ask for the Walking Dead collection hardback for father's day. That and Watchman are really the only graphic novels that interest me.
Added at: 12:31
Dave said:
(I thought it was funny. :()
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I just didn't like him coming across that I was being smug about reading graphic novels. I really want to read Watchmen. I've seen the movie. But I wish I could read it at the pace I'm accustomed to for novels.
 
Espy

Espy

Mathias said:
I think I'm going to ask for the Walking Dead collection hardback for father's day. That and Watchman are really the only graphic novels that interest me.
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Awesome, yeah, just take your time with it. Enjoy each panel for what it is. The text and the pictures together form the art of the thing.
 
strawman

strawman

It should take the same 2-3 days to read through Watchmen that it would take you for a generic novel.

So you should be able to read it at the same pace. It means staying on each individual page for a few seconds as you would for a regular novel - not just for the amount of time it takes to read the word bubbles alone.

In some ways it's harder to "speed read" imagery, though it seems like it should be easier. Further, Watchmen is hard to parse visually - there's not just a lot going on, but it's somewhat disjoint and frenetic.
 
Charlie Don't Surf

Charlie Don't Surf

I just don't know how to give advice on how to read. Just look at it until you parse all the information. The more you do it with comics, the easier it will be. I take longer to read comics in general since I look at the art longer (especially if I particularly like the style). You'll get faster with practice, just like normal books/text.
 
SpecialKO

SpecialKO

Espy said:
Don't forget, a HUGE part of comics is the art, so if the art of a series isn't grabbing you then you probably need to move on. Find a book that has art that really gets your attention and makes you want pay attention to it.
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100% this.
 
North_Ranger

North_Ranger

Staff member
Dave said:
Also read Maus.
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Seconded.

Personally I would also recommend League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, if you're interested in re-interpretations of Victorian stories. And no, the original comic is nothing unlike that film by the same name THAT WAS NEVER MADE.

The problem, however, is that if you think Watchmen is dense with imagery, League has about one Victorian novel easter egg per panel (it gets better/worse in the supplemental New Traveller's Almanac which has about one every sentence ;) ).
 
ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

Mathias, Walking Dead's great. Though if you want more bang for your buck in one go? There's a Walking Dead Compendium. It's softcover and collects the first 50 or so issues in the series. Takes up a lot less room than the hardcovers. :)
 
HCGLNS

HCGLNS

Find a child and read the graphic novel to them as you would a toddler's book, out loud and point out what is happening in the pictures. That should be enough for your brain to handle the slow pace of pictures.
 
Zappit

Zappit

Staff member
Try Bone. Quick read, black and white images, simple yet detailed art that's quick to process. Plus, fun-as-hell book.
 
Mathias

Mathias

North_Ranger said:
Seconded.

Personally I would also recommend League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, if you're interested in re-interpretations of Victorian stories. And no, the original comic is nothing unlike that film by the same name THAT WAS NEVER MADE.

The problem, however, is that if you think Watchmen is dense with imagery, League has about one Victorian novel easter egg per panel (it gets better/worse in the supplemental New Traveller's Almanac which has about one every sentence ;) ).
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Nope. I hate stories in Victorian settings and get an urge to punch anyone who dresses in Steampunk. Sowwey. :hide:

Except Pride and Prejudice with Zombies. Now that was pretty cool...
 
ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

Waaaaait a minute. We're batting about this the totally wrong way. Mathias is a man of SCIENCE. We need to give him SCIENCE.

Atomic fucking Robo.

He has a supervillain named Doctor Dinosaur (an evil genius veloceraptor) and has an ongoing feud with Stephen Hawkin.
 
Mathias

Mathias

Well, I gotta admit, I was reading without giving the art a second thought - just going from bubble to bubble. I'll give it a shot later tonight.
 
R

Raemon777

My recommendation: Start with Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics."

It's a nonfiction comic book that explores comics as a medium. It breaks down the medium in a way that's fascinating and accessible to everyone. It goes over the history of the medium (starting from hieroglyphics), then talks about techniques that comics use to tell stories (in particular, things that can't be done in film, novels, etc), and then in the end builds up to a lot of awesome points about art in general, using the techniques he just broke down for you.

I read it without having any particular interest in comics (it was assigned for a class). By the time I got to the end, I was really excited about them and was able to appreciate them better. I understood why I'd want to read a comic book rather than other various kinds of entertainment.
 
Frank

Frank

To the OP here, dude, my dad said the exact same thing after I took him to see the movie and then had lent him my copy of it. He couldn't deal with it in almost the exact same way as you.
 
Mathias

Mathias

Well it definitely is a better experience when you stop and "smell" the pictures, so to speak. I still don't like how I have to slow up my reading, but I can chug through.
 
J

Jiarn

I do, I call him out on his shit. He purposely enters threads to troll. There is a difference.
 
drifter

drifter

Jiarn said:
I do, I call him out on his shit. He purposely enters threads to troll. There is a difference.
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Charlie Don't Surf said:
Just look at it until you parse all the information. The more you do it with comics, the easier it will be. I take longer to read comics in general since I look at the art longer (especially if I particularly like the style). You'll get faster with practice, just like normal books/text.
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Selection bias. Just sayin'.
 
Cajungal

Cajungal

Staff member
He follows young Charles around the same way that Chippy followed that guy around... y'all know the one.
 
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