My question is: Why do we, as a culture, clearly need more straight-ahead storytelling? I didn't think there was a lack of this. Maybe my question arises out of the use of the word "clearly," since something that seems to be plainly obvious to one person, isn't (or hasn't been) obvious to me.scott mccloud wrote:I'm a strong supporter of experimental comics, so much so that I've often been blamed for a lot of the more artsy incomprehensable fringe works that have come out in the last decade. But as a culture, we clearly need more straight ahead storytelling. Yet another reason Blankets will prove a pivotal work for the generation just emerging?and why I'm really looking forward to Flight.
Secondly, I'm not sure that Blankets is the best example of straight-ahead storytelling. It seems to me to be one of the best recent examples of a triumph of form over substance. It's a beautiful comic- no doubts there- and is a very easy read (which, I suppose, puts it under the banner of straight-ahead storytelling), but where it succeeds in visual beauty, comic craft and layered metaphors, really only masks the fact that the story isn't all that involving. The pleasure of Blankets comes from reading a comic that is well done as a comic, not from the story it has to tell.