Grant Morrison on continuity
Sep. 26th, 2003 12:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexsarllhttp://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=2815
"'Continuity' is trying not to screw too much with people's memories of things they once read.
"With Shaw [an X-villain who seemingly demonstrated telepathy] it was my mistake and I apologize. I'd prefer to get it right, but it's the sort of thing I expect my editors to catch if I mess up and if they don't then I guess we're all to blame for being lazy or preoccupied. Monthly comic books are written by mere mortals on a rapid turnover of ideas and deadlines. We all try our best to get everything to hang together, but the Marvel Universe now has forty years worth of heavy continuity - hundreds of thousands of comics dreamed up by dozens of writers and artists, some much better than others. Sometimes a mistake slips through the net, sometimes an old piece of 'crap' continuity gets quietly dumped in favor of a better idea, sometimes it's just not possible to read everything that went before.
"My advice is just to white out the offending dialogue in your comics with correcting fluid and then, using a fine-nibbed lettering pen, write in your own, more pleasing and continuity-appropriate version of the character's words. It will make your comic collection more individual, more continuity-conscious and much more creative and it will also allow you to edit and collaborate with your favorite writers."
"'Continuity' is trying not to screw too much with people's memories of things they once read.
"With Shaw [an X-villain who seemingly demonstrated telepathy] it was my mistake and I apologize. I'd prefer to get it right, but it's the sort of thing I expect my editors to catch if I mess up and if they don't then I guess we're all to blame for being lazy or preoccupied. Monthly comic books are written by mere mortals on a rapid turnover of ideas and deadlines. We all try our best to get everything to hang together, but the Marvel Universe now has forty years worth of heavy continuity - hundreds of thousands of comics dreamed up by dozens of writers and artists, some much better than others. Sometimes a mistake slips through the net, sometimes an old piece of 'crap' continuity gets quietly dumped in favor of a better idea, sometimes it's just not possible to read everything that went before.
"My advice is just to white out the offending dialogue in your comics with correcting fluid and then, using a fine-nibbed lettering pen, write in your own, more pleasing and continuity-appropriate version of the character's words. It will make your comic collection more individual, more continuity-conscious and much more creative and it will also allow you to edit and collaborate with your favorite writers."
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no subject
Date: 2003-09-26 04:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-26 04:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-26 04:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-26 04:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-26 04:33 am (UTC)(I had to look up Marty's answer in a Cockney dictionary. Thanks for helping out my higher education, there, Marty).
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Date: 2003-09-26 04:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-26 04:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-26 04:53 am (UTC)Hammeroids? You can't top that.
Date: 2003-09-26 04:57 am (UTC)I think my new Efil avatar is going to be a hit with the laydeez, what do you think?
Re: Hammeroids? You can't top that.
Date: 2003-09-26 04:58 am (UTC)I wouldn't have thought so, no.
Re: Hammeroids? You can't top that.
Date: 2003-09-26 05:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-26 05:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-26 06:13 am (UTC)Shaw "read" that Cyclops had been involved in some way with Frost. Shaw hasn't got psychic powers, cue x-fandom uproar.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-26 06:30 am (UTC)Besides, if you run a psychic strip club I imagine you'd start picking up on these things by intuition anyway!