7:57, March 3, 2007
I’m writing this offline, planning to post it later. No Internet connection right now at home. This is a drag, but not a serious problem, since I have ready internet capability via the colleges. Or, if that’s not enough, Mom and Dad’s house.
Anyhow, I’m sitting here typing, glancing at the moon periodically, and waiting for my older brother to call. He’s been tasked with finding out when tonight’s lunar eclipse is going to start, using HIS internet connection. He didn’t know this was his task until a few minutes ago, when I called him and told him it was his job to find that information and call me back. He took my demands in good grace. This is because he’s a good brother.
When you find a brother who will not bat an eye when his phone rings in the evening and you start badgering him for information he doesn’t have, you should hang on to him. He’s probably a keeper.
Anyhow, there’s supposed to be a lunar eclipse here tonight. Not sure if it’s going to b a total eclipse, a partial, or what; I found out about it through hearsay, and my information call hasn’t come through yet. Good night for it, though; reasonably clear, and I can see the moon quite well over my neighbors’ rooftops.
More on the eclipse as it develops.
In other news, I spent the day at a Heroclix tournament with some friends. Heroclix is a game where you and an opponent duke it out with little action figures of various comic book heroes and villains. There’s lots of information about it on the Internet, I’m sure. Seems to have a fair following. I’d played once before, and did quite well, because my superhero team was built by Chen, who’s both sharp and vicious-minded about this sort of thing. This time, alas, I built my own team and piloted it to a remarkable perfect loss record.
— Breaking Eclipse Update —
Elclipse came and went unnoticed. It ended at 7:11 in this time zone, when the moon was just rising and I wasn’t watching. Supposedly wasn’t much to see from here. Too bad.
— End of Breaking Eclipse Update —
As it turns out, there’s more to building a good Heroclix team than picking figures that look cool. Enough of that, however. While I was at this event, I was able to observe a large collection of comic-book geeks collectively geeking out over recent comic books. This was very interesting to me. I’m not much of a comic book geek. I’ve never bought a comic book in my life, as a matter of fact, although I’ve read a few belonging to friends or at libraries. My exposure to comic book superheroism comes primarily via cartoons on television, and swimming in the great sea of popular culture we call the Internet.
Kicking back and observing, however, I came to an epiphany. Not necessarily the most profound epiphany in the history of deep thoughts, but I take what I can get. Here goes: Comic books are soap operas for young males. By comparison, actual soap operas are soap operas for unemployed women. Now that I’ve offended two major population segments, I can explain.
Compare the presentation of the two. Soap operas come in short, choppy episodes. They feature convoluted and melodramatic storylines, with frequent shake-ups in the form of characters being introduced, leaving, being killed, coming back, sleeping with/marrying/cheating on/divorcing/murdering each other. Comic books come in short, choppy segments, once a week or less. Comic book storylines are constantly being spiced up in the form of betrayals, deaths, new characters, old characters coming back, characters having relationship issues with each other, etc. Basically, if you put the cast of General Hospital in tights and exposed them to mutating radiation, you’d have the Marvel Universe.
The major point they have in common, to my view is that both mediums are not primarily event-driven stories, although they have major events occur. They’re primarily character-driven stories. You don’t subscribe to Batman in order hear the timeless story of Batman’s showdown with the Joker. At heart, we know Batman’s going to defeat the Joker, but the Joker will show up again in the future. You subscribe to Batman’s comic because you want to see how Batman reacts to the Joker’s plan to brainwash Alfred into a deep-cover assassin, or to see if Robin will get fed up with being forced to wear bright primary colors and run off with Poison Ivy to a Vegas wedding chapel. The draw is the sequential nature of the stories; once you’ve become familiar with the characters, you want to keep checking in on them and see what’s happened to them, much as soap fans don’t want to miss a day, lest this be the one where Pauline catches Jerry cheating on her with her sister Sherry, who’s been an amnesiac since Roger put that powder in her drink, because he thought she knew about his mob connections, even though it was really Francis who knew…
Now, when I say that comics are like soap operas, understand I’m not trying to insult either one. I also have long compared Charles Dickens’s books to soap operas, also. They have the same complex relationships and the same serial nature. I think that the common characteristics of comic books, soap operas, and Dickens novels have an attraction for people, and the differences simply reflect tailoring for the intended audience. When I say comic books are soap operas for young males, I don’t mean that only young males can enjoy them, or that they’re an immature pastime, or anything of that sort. I mean they’re serialized, character-driven stories with trapping of large-scale conflict, and action, and seasoned with sci-fi, fantasy, and escapist elements. Anyone who likes that sort of thing will be likely to appreciate comic books. I fall into that category, certainly. By the same token, soap operas are serialized, character-driven stories with trappings of romance and interpersonal conflict.
What all of this proves, I don’t know. But I find it interesting.