personally, i’d love to see other series which you’re familiar with that you don’t necessarily own in a particular format. Two that i’d love to see would be Suicide Squad and New Mutants (vol 1). I think both changed substantially over time and would be interested to hear your thoughts. Otherwise, you might open this up for other people to do some of their favorite sections with you as editor.

I agree with Danar that I’d like to see your disection of other series that you’re familiar with.

I would also like to see your review of non-comics related material.

Also, if you do go along with one of Danar’s other suggestions, that you edit other people’s Storytelling Engine analysis, I’d like to contribute.

Theno

I think you should do other series such as Suicide Squad or Birds of Prey. But I also agree that you should do DVD series like BSG, Firefly, Doctor Who, Buffy, Angel…etc. That would be pretty cool.

I’d like you to continue with it as a purely comics-related column (if only because I don’t think it should run on CSBG if it’s not) but I understand your dilemma. Perhaps maybe it should shut down and then appear as an irregular column as and when you have stuff.

I also can’t think what you’d get out of the Shazam! showcase since it’s a reprint of the 70s stuff which is not very good and only a dim reflection on the storytelling engine that made the Marvel Family work so brilliantly in the 1940s– unless it’s a reflection on how some things might be better left in the past.

Yeah, I’d be all about seeing you TV shows or movie series or whatever. I love the column, and there’s no reason to limit it to comics (except the format of this blog, of course).

I would love to see it expanded. I enjoy the peices not for the comic content itself, but for the examination of the evelution of story and subject matter. This could be really interesting when looking at a TV series where writers often have no idea how long they will be writing for these characters.

Theoretically you can go back and mine some of the already used comics for more columns. I’m sure that some of the longer running characters have multiple story telling engines to discuss.

The Critic was released on DVD?!?!

i would love it if the feature was continued. If you want to do DVD’s that are not strictly comic book related, that’s fine, especially if everyone else wants that. But i should think that as DC and Marvel release new Essentials and Showcases, you could review their story telling engines, in additon to doing Buffy, Dr. Who, Angel and other shows.

This is my favorite feature on this website and I’d hate to see it come to an end. I’d be interested in reading your take on the story-telling engines of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Doctor Who, The Critic (which I think was criminally under-rated) and the Simpsons (I think you could do two story-telling engines for the Simpsons, one with Bart as the lead character and another with Homer as the lead).

I’d prefer you continued with strictly comic-related material, but if it’s a choice between that and having the column continue as a weekly, than by all means expand your focus.. this really is one of the best and most insightful columns out there and I’d hate to lose it completely. I’d actually really enjoy to see what you’d do for some of the series you’ve mentioned (Futurama and the Critic especially)… but I do hope you’ll return to comics as frequently as possible.

I’d love to see you continue by venturing into TV territory. Hatcher’s ‘Friday’ columns have a great tendency to delve into other areas of pop culture than comics, so there’s definitely precedent.

Great idea!
I like your column very much and I’d love to see its principle applied to other media, be it TV series, book series or movies.
You can always write a comics one when new material becomes available to you.

I’d keep it comic related, put in on the back burner for a while and bring it back whenever you have something new to write about.

I wouldn’t mind seeing TV-based ones in there; I’m no purist.

Also, according to Amazon in January there’ll be Showcases for Doom Patrol and Ambush Bug (along with a few non-v1s), so that’s a couple more columns…

I love reading this column so whatever it is about would be fine. Use TV to fill in weeks between new Essentials or Showcases. Or go bi-weekly to slow it down a bit. As for the Human Torch, I got that Essential trade and it was pretty fascinating how villains we know and love as FF foes were given trial runs in that title (the Wizard, Paste Pot Pete, etc.). Also, as the series wore on, Stan started putting the Thing into more stories so it was essentially a Thing/Human Torch team-up book for the last year or so featured in the trade. I’m sure you could mine something out of that.

I don’t really have a preference one way or the other, but I personally wouldn’t mind seeing, for example, a general recap of what we’ve learned so far– what makes for a good storytelling engine and what makes for a bad one, citing specific examples– what elements most often show up in good ones or bad ones, etc.

I wouldn’t mind seeing a piece recapping which characters you feel have the Best storytelling engines or the Worst, or citing instances of modern-day comics that have shucked age-old storytelling engines, not always for the best.

I’d also be stoked to see some “what if” pieces– some thoughts on what storytelling engine changes could take current less-than-stellar series and make them more-than-stellar or at least workable.

But that’s me.

I think you should stop doing it if you want, but don’t close the door on whatever future entries in the series may occur to you.

A series on Doctor Who’s storytelling engine(s) could make a great ten or so part series. Heh.

Are there a few series that change their storytelling engine over the course of time?

X-Men and Spiderman have both had a few changes, and quite a few Essential volumes – perhaps you could look at those.

This column is something I always look forward to, so I’m all for continuing it in some form or another.

Go forth, and blog something else.

Experiment. and Test.

You can always revive this blog whenever you have an itch to scratch.

I say start looking at webcomics. Sure, they’re usually by only a single person, but they still have their own engines.

Hatcher’s ‘Friday’ columns have a great tendency to delve into other areas of pop culture than comics, so there’s definitely precedent.

That’s absolutely true. There have been lots of times I’ve wandered off into one area or another — paperback covers, exploitation films, etc. — and people have been very forgiving. Though there usually is some connection to comics, however tenuous.

More to the point, though, I wouldn’t feel constrained to keep going if I haven’t got anything new to say. The easy solution, it seems to me, would be to think of the engine or the idea you want to talk about for a column, and then think of a series example that FITS, rather than arbitrarily assign yourself an Essential or a Showcase and figure out what its engine is. How does Jimmy Olsen’s function change from Superman to Jimmy Olsen to Lois Lane? How does the engine itself morph over the course of a long-running title– Jimmy Olsen, again, changed a LOT from its beginnings as a Weisinger title to the Kirby years on through to the “Mr. Action!” era. Is there such a thing as an extinct engine, that you just plain don’t see any more?

….and so on. But the basic advice from me is: If your current formula’s not working, try something else.

I was waiting to hear Greg’s thoughts, to see if they matched my own, and they do, because that’s what I think about his columns – that no matter how much they may veer into different territories, they’re all vaguely connected to comics, which I like.

So yeah, I’d prefer it remain comics-oriented, and really, what Greg mentions is spot on – once you’ve established what the storytelling engine is for the various comics, you still have a whole mountain of material left out of applying those engines to comics, via comparing and contrasting and stuff like that.

I’d love to see the column continue in one form or another. Not all of the subject matter appeals to me — not a big fan of a lot of the silver age DC stuff — but it’s interesting seeing it broken down all the same.

Have a good day.
John Cage

I vote for continuing with comics, but maybe see if you can get a run of comics you’ve never read before. I’ve heard eldritch rumors of places you can download runs of comics for very little money…

Or, do a volume 2 of certain characters/titles! Iron Man isn’t about stopping the yellow menace anyone, and certianly the X-Men have at times done more than sit around and wait to be attacked.

I wouldn’t read non-comics related material, and would actually find it a little annoying to have that sort of thing appear on a comics site…

Why can’t you cover series like Doctor Who, Buffy, Angel, BSG, etc…? They have all had spin-offs in comic-book form, and it would be interesting to see how the engines differed to suit the medium… if they did…

Here’s a compromise between the comics-purists and those who want something a little broader: John should continue to post these to his own blog (as he already does), and then Brian would only repost the comics-related ones on CSBG.

So, if John launches into a series of these on Doctor Who, people who are interested can see them on Fraggmented, and people who aren’t won’t see them here.

But, if he does an OMAC storytelling engines post, it would appear on both blogs.

Wouldn’t Dr Who appear on both, depending of course on if he sticks strictly to the various storytelling engines that the BBC has used / is using, or if he also delves into the various comic books / strips that spun off?

Theno

One idea for the Human Torch is to compare it to other Silver Age Marvel series such as Ant Man/Giant Man where the storytelling engine kept changing every few issues . In many ways, these two series illustrate how a comic book can fail if it does not have a strong story-telling engine.

I think Stan Lee originally envision the Human Torch series as having the same potential as Spider-man. But, almost everything that makes Spider-man successful is missing from the Human Torch series: an interesting alter ego, strong supporting cast, tight stories, etc.

Ant Man/Giant Man has similar issues, but at least has the advantage of including the Wasp in the later issues.

Hmmm.. I’m of two minds.

I REALLY like this feature. I like it even when I’m not familiar with the subject matter. To me, that means I like both the concept and the writer. So I’d like to see more from John, and more about storytelling engines.

OTOH, I agree that CSBG is, by virtue of it’s name, a comics site. So while BUFFY or THE SIMPSONS can loosely be tied to that, THE CRITIC can’t.

OTTH, I think that there’s a pretty big chance that anyone reading CSBG is an animation fan, a SF fan, a fantasy fan… basically, we’re geeks.

OK, so I’m of three minds.

So I’ll just ask, “John, what do you want to write?”

Because I want to read it. I think if you expanded outside of comics at this point, you’d still have an audience here. So go ahead and write up that MONTY PYTHON Storytelling Engine (now there’s a walking contradiction!).

And we’ll see what people think.

So, if John launches into a series of these on Doctor Who, people who are interested can see them on Fraggmented, and people who aren’t won’t see them here.

It’d be fine by me, but it would mean that he’d have weeks where his stuff would be a lot less read, ya know?

So that might not be as fine for him.

Honestly, Brian, I consider the co-hosting of this column as a privilege, not a right. If there’s a week where you decide not to host it for being insufficiently comics-related, I’d consider it quite fair on your part (especially if you serve fair warning that you’ll hold off some weeks if I don’t stick to the comics medium, which would pretty much make it my own fault if I write something that doesn’t fit.)

Oh yeah, John, I gotcha – I didn’t mean to suggest anything negative – just that it would seem to be a shame for the columns to fluctuate dramatically in readership, for your sake.

But if you’re fine with the “when applicable” thing, then sure, that sounds like a fair approach that would allow you to keep doing the column without any real changes to your format!

Brian, I’d still encourage you to err on the side of leniency! See if there’s negative feedback, then make future decisions based on response/traffic.

But that’s just my two cents…

i agree. since all of the television series’ that John mentioned, except for Monty Python, have had comic book spinoffs, then it should be fine, in my opinion. That would be a comic book connection, right?

You could probably find a Monty Python comic too if you looked hard enough!! At the very least, influenced by them…
.. I suppose “Superman: True Brit” or “The Beefeater” in “Justice League Europe” are probably just a teeny bit tenuous though…