Monthly (Comic) Book Club - Post-Mortem13988
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dielinfinite private msg quote post Address this user | |
| So while the first month of the book club winds down I wanted to make this separate thread to discuss the functioning of the format; what worked, what didn’t and how to improve things going forward. I think the first month was a great success filled with good discussion and a lot of revealing insights. I liked how the current format where we tackle a few issues each week allows us to really tear each issue apart and discuss issues that might be overlooked if we were to jump into the entire reading selection all at once. For those that did want to take the all-at-once approach, that option was available as well as they could simply jump into the conversation as we discuss the last portion of the book as we try to avoid jumping ahead in the reading but are encouraged to refer and connect to previous issues. So when we reach the end, the entire story is free game. I think par of the format’s success is due in part to the selection of the first month, Watchmen, which is densely packed with foreshadowing, references, archetypical characters representing broad strokes of the the super hero genre, and really tried to develop an entire universe in 12 issues which really lent itself to deep discussion. Next month’s reading is several Spider-Man stories so it will be a very different reading experience. Where Watchmen is essentially a self-contained universe, the Spider-Man stories next month are built on and across decades of continuity. The Spider-Man stories are also much shorter than Watchmen. In some cases we will be completing an entire story in one week and the fifth week even includes some standalone stories so it will be interesting to see how the discussion unfolds next month. Where I definitely see room for improvement is in choosing the next month’s selection. This month we tried to do nominations and voting in the first week. One issue was in encouraging variation in nominees. It think it could be a bit easy, after discussing a work for a month that our minds naturally move to similar titles. In the month we read Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns and Squadron Supreme both came up, both which came out within a year or two of Watchmen and touched on similar themes and could be considered part of the same overall movement in comics history. I think moving to either one after Watchmen might've felt a bit exhausting and would not have promoted one of the major goals of this whole endeavor, which is to encourage reading of a variety of comics across various decades, themes and characters. I’m not sure yet if this should be where the I should step in as the moderator and limit certain nominations or just let the voting decide. However that leads into another issue and that is in the actual voting process. I kind of felt stopping to nominate and cote kind of threw a wrench in the discussion so maybe that whole process should take place in a separate thread in the way the Weekly Cover Contest has a separate discussion thread. Another thing was the actual voting. I noticed that people actually participating in the conversation didn’t really vote. It is not necessarily an issue. I definitely support that some people may not necessarily want to join in but may still read along and read the discussion. Maybe this will change as we get more people involved |
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Redmisty4me private msg quote post Address this user | |
| My only beef (as a non-Moore fan) is that I experienced it as a bit too fanboy-ish; maybe if something like Killing Joke or 300 or a similarly controversial work were discussed we could get more of a debate going in terms of merit or the lack thereof rather than a series of posts which assume the work's a masterpiece worthy only of praise. | ||
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 If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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xkonk private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I'm pretty easy as far as format goes. I'm a reader so I'm happy to read whatever. I do think the critical part is spreading out the reading though. If people read it all at once, especially early in the month, I think there will be a) spoilers for people who haven't, and b) discussion will exhaust itself more quickly and/or get disjointed by the different reading paces. But otherwise, if a bunch of comic fans can't discuss a few issues for a week, that's a sad story. | ||
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If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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xkonk private msg quote post Address this user | |
| @Redmisty4me were the fanboying posts back when we were deciding what to read next? I don't remember. I feel like people have been noting crappy things, like Sally and the Comedian's relationship, when they come up. You're probably right that something a bit more plot-driven and less thematic would make those issues more obvious, or at least offer fewer alternatives for discussion. But either way, I think the point of the club is to talk about the book, so you should come and share your thoughts. | ||
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