*Waves from the other mountaintop*

For communicating with your fellow chronologists with off-topic stuff.

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zilch
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*Waves from the other mountaintop*

Post by zilch »

Howdy all!

My name's Jim (Doty!) and i'm not a current Marvel reader/collector (but have been in the past, more on that later), but love indexing and chronology-building and Who's Who writing on another website (Unofficial Guide to the DC Universe) and just thought i would just throw out a few random thoughts to like minded folk.

How do you deal with working with series that you really don't care to be reading? I know that's not too much of a problem here, with so many people contributing to the workload, but i've been working on indexing books between 1986 (Crisis) and 2011 (Flashpoint) and occasionally have to grin and bear it. I've actually found that some series that i would not given a second thought to i started to enjoy and really poured into after a while, others just don't cut it.

What writers (and editors) just grind your gears when it comes to building chronologies? Do character appearances (or maybe overuse?) add or detract from the story at hand? Who uses the "greater fictional universe" to good effect in their stories and who just finds keeping track of this stuff just too much work?

I was a (mainly) Marvel reader from the mid-1970s to about Secret Wars I and was in on the first wave of George O's indices, and i was in heaven! My copies of his indices have LOTS of hand written notes by me, and his work on the largely forgotten Collector's Dream magazine (anybody else love the big Marvel Genealogy article? Lots of story ideas could have grown out of that!) were read until they were nearly tattered. I created a huge chronology/calendar on those large green accounting sheets (before Excel kids!) and thought that Secret Wars was a good place to end it. I wish i had kept up with it. With Crisis, the DC universe was calling me back and i taught myself word processing so i could write out a large Earth-Two (later on a DCU) chronology and my own Who's Who entries. I had always wished that the DC series was as detailed as the Official Handbooks.

Hope to hear from some of you great folks here and keep the discussions going!

Onward and Upwards!

-z
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Russ Chappell
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Re: *Waves from the other mountaintop*

Post by Russ Chappell »

zilch wrote:How do you deal with working with series that you really don't care to be reading?
I won't name names, because sometimes, I have to work with people, but I'm in the unique position of maintaining an obligation to the Project. So, yeah, there are plenty of times that I find myself reading a book, when there are other things I'd rather do, and if not for the Project, I'd never read those books. On those occasions, it becomes a clerical process. Look at the picture to determine who appears in the panel. Read the words to determine if there are any placement clues. Then move on to the next panel. Just get to the end of the book. Eventually, I'll get to a book that I enjoy.

That's probably not the answer you were looking for. You were probably seeking some inspirational advice about turning lemons into...something sweet to drink. Sorry.

Oh, here's one way. Try reading the book out loud, but whenever you get to the villain, use a voice from Elmer Fudd, Sylvester the Cat, Yosemite Sam, or Foghorn Leghorn.

That usually works.
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I can promise you that they won't improve, if we don't.

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zilch
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Re: *Waves from the other mountaintop*

Post by zilch »

I won't name names, because sometimes, I have to work with people, but I'm in the unique position of maintaining an obligation to the Project. So, yeah, there are plenty of times that I find myself reading a book, when there are other things I'd rather do, and if not for the Project, I'd never read those books. On those occasions, it becomes a clerical process. Look at the picture to determine who appears in the panel. Read the words to determine if there are any placement clues. Then move on to the next panel. Just get to the end of the book. Eventually, I'll get to a book that I enjoy.
That's pretty much my tale of woe also. Artistic styling also has a lot to do with it, unfortunately. The more "impressionistic" styles, for example, some "Image Style" work (not to single them out) really drags out the process for me. I'm to the age now where the more artsy stuff turns me off since it's harder to ID characters at times, and often, aren't named in every story (bad editing). I sometimes have to go back and re-read, tracking characters that appear occasionally and have a bigger role later on, B or C level characters also can vary in renderings easier than on-model primary characters and art team switches can also be a big pain.
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Col_Fury
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Re: *Waves from the other mountaintop*

Post by Col_Fury »

Yeah, if I don't care for something I usually just try to grin and bear it so I can move on to something "better."

BUT!

There have been a few times when I was expecting something to be terrible and it turned out to be pretty good. I like when that happens, and the most recent example of that for me would be Steeltown Rockers. Heck, I think I know more about those characters in six issues than I do of some current characters after six years.

Sometimes I'm surprised by how enjoyable or not something is, but if whatever I'm in the middle of isn't so great there's always something new coming up! :)
-Daron Jensen
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