Day: April 8, 2007

Shooter was exactly what I expected last night. Nothing more, nothing less…so I was entertained. Metacritic shows a 53. I suppose your standard “lone hero against the conspiracy” movie doesn’t excite anyone any more. But telling a genre tale well isn’t a terrible thing. Shooter felt like a mix of a Tom Clancy movie (pretty much any of them!), Day of the Jackal, and maybe Total Recall for body count.

My mother suggested I would enjoy Harry Turtledove, so when I was wandering an airport bookstore and came across In High Places, I bit.

I finished this slim novel on the brief flight to Phoenix. This was a reasonable tale, though nothing special. Certainly an imaginative premise, though. I learned just now that the Crosstime Traffic series is aimed at young adults, so I suppose the length is deliberate.

I’ll have to try the re-imagined American Civil War series instead.

Writing of comics, I finally got to see 300 last Tuesday. Another Frank Miller comic book made into a movie, 300 feels like a great graphic novel. Not having read the graphic novel, I don’t know if it’s great or not, but Frank Miller is a sign of quality.

The movie’s story isn’t fantastic, but it’s clear, with few complications, so it runs faster than the blood which fills it. This movie was almost exactly what I expected… and I enjoyed it for just that reason. Seeing it on the IMAX was a great call (thanks, Sean).

I had heard that critics were not fond of the movie, and a Metacritic score of 51 underlines that point. But given the $200M and counting the film is making, we can expect more of these stories. We can only hope that the visual style doesn’t become old hat too soon.

I have no artistic talent, and no plans to start drawing or writing comics — even if I were to call them graphic novels. So, why did I just read Making Comics? This broad how-to about how to, yes, make comics caught my eye because the more I do in business, the more I realize that telling a story is an essential skill.

Scott McCloud has made a name for himself over the last decade. Less for his actual art, though, and more for his examination and popularization of comics as an art form in English. Word has spread to the usability community, perhaps because he’s been a digital artist for some time. I came across McCloud’s work a few years ago, but Making Comics is his first book I’ve bought and read.

It’s done as a comic book, and the visual pointers are critical. Lead by example, and all that. It’s a quick read, at least for me, since I didn’t pore over the images and try any of the exercises suggested at the end of each chapter. I simply wanted to think differently about how stories are told, and perhaps find ways to apply the ideas to my work.

I’m personally stuck with words as my outlet. But the more I do online, the greater appreciation I have for images which tell a story well. A picture is worth far more than 1000 words, since few people want to read that much!