Comic Book Dictionary
Comic Book Dictionary – Idea Repertoire
Idea Repertoire describes the stock amount of ideas certain writers continually fall back upon, no matter what type of comic they’re writing.
Comic Book Dictionary – Formatitis
Formatitis is when a comic book story suffers from being forced to commit to a specific format. Notable examples of Formatitis include:
Comic Dictionary – Easy Writing
Today’s term is “Easy Writing,” (for the pun value, I wanted to go with Easy Writer, but it just didn’t make as much sense as Easy Writing) which is defined as “When a writer has certain events occur in a comic, not because they make sense, but because the writer needs certain things to happen [...]
Comic Dictionary – The Progressive X-Men Era
Joe Rice came up with this term recently, and I really liked it, so I am offering it up to you folks here now. Rather than saying “Morrison’s X-Men,” the Progressive X-Men Era is expanded to include all the titles from the X-Line of the time, which marked a specific tendency to try new, progressive [...]
Comic Dictionary – The Ron Frenz Rule of Costume Design
I thought I had this up here, but apparently, I only had it posted on Snark Free Waters, so I figured I might as well post it here, too. The Ron Frenz Rule of Costume Design is a simple one. Don’t design a comic book costume too ornately. With every costume you design, always do [...]
Comic Dictionary – Mary Sue
I did not come up with this term, but it is such a useful term in comic critiquing, I think that it is worthwhile to post it. Here is a good definition that I found of “Mary Sue”: MARY SUE (n.): 1. A variety of story, first identified in the fan fiction community, but quickly [...]
Comic Dictionary – Uncolored
“Uncolored” is a phrase used to distinguish between books that use black & white as an artistic expression and those books that use black & white just because they cannot afford to color the book. For instance, Kane is a black & white book. Worldwatch #1 is an uncolored book. It seems silly to me [...]
Comic Dictionary – Paternalistic Continuity
Paternalistic continuity is what you call it when a writer/editor gets protective (or paternalistic) of the continuity of a particular character, and goes out of his/her way to control the history of said character. The first notable example of this that I can think of is when John Byrne decided that Dr. Doom (“his” character, [...]
Comic Dictionary – Snowball Idea
A snowball idea is based on the premise of a snowball, rolling down the hill. It starts off as a tiny little snowball, but as it keeps rolling and rolling, it keeps adding more and more snow, until it is one gigantic snowball, and when it hits, it is a big mess. It applies to [...]
Comic Dictionary – Cousin Larry Trick
If you ever watched the show “Perfect Strangers,” it involved two cousins, one a urban man named Larry, and the other, a foreigner named Balki. Larry was the kind of guy who was always trying to take the easy way out, to say stuff like “but EVERYbody does it, so it’s okay!” and always trying [...]
Comic Dictionary – Nepotistic Continuity
This is when a writer uses strong continuity in his or her comics, but frequently when it is in reference to something (a work or a creation) that THAT writer did in the past. Chuck Dixon was big on this, having minor characters from one of his four Bat-books show up constantly in his other [...]
Comic Dictionary – Outside Writing
Outside writing is what you call it when outside influences, like editors, influence the way a story is written, not the natural flow of the story. For instance, in the Superman titles awhile back. “Lois and Clark need to break up!” Then, a few issues later, “No wait, they have to get married tomorrow!” See? [...]
