Stavrogin: no, it's not in my nature. I like and very much respect Jordan, and I've felt bad about that exchange and have been turning it over in my mind, wondering what's behind my negative attitude towards graphic novels and other mixed media, and I think I've figured it out well enough to explain myself a little better. This will sound odd and perhaps self-absorbed, but I get a sort of sensory overload wherein I can't "read" visual material. I can physically see it, but if too much is going on, I take away no content, no meaning. Something Jordan said rang a bell with me: "...making this claim, or approaching the medium in this way, is like saying you dislike movies, because you prefer photographs that are still - that your "imagination works better" when the pictures aren't moving so goddamn fast..." -- Yes, exactly! I first noticed this problem while watching the Star Wars films. The action scenes were too fast for me. I couldn't tell what was happening. It was worse with the Lord of the Rings films. I literally could not tell what happened, who killed who. As a result, I preferred the talking scenes. I don't know if there's a term for this in psychology, but I can't easily read visual information, especially if it's fast, as in modern films, or if it's all black and white, as in graphic novels. When I open a graphic novel, all I see is a meaningless jumble of shapes. If I focus in carefully and study it, I'll see that it's a guy holding a gun, and there's a woman in a tight dress showing a lot of leg, etc., but it's a chore to get that far. And the words are pretty much lost in that jumble of shapes. I have to hunt them out, isolate them mentally, and then transform them into a narrative stream, and try to relate that to the images. It's work. This, I recognize, is my own limitation, and not the medium's fault. I seldom think about it, but I gravitate away from mixed media and towards pure forms. There are other aspects to this: I dislike live music. I'd rather listen to a CD than go see my favorite artists perform. I loath live theater, but like films (except action scenes). I notice very little about my surroundings, even buildings I walk by every day. I tend to see only what's in the foreground, and ignore backgrounds. I think traditional comics work better for me because of the color, which helps me separate the forms. Sorry to be long winded but I felt this might be worth explaining.
