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ASOIAF should be a comics series


Nathan Stark

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17 minutes ago, Hugorfonics said:

Like bazooka?

Like the Incal.

I wouldn't mind getting a piece of gum with every page though (if you meant Bazooka Joe).

 

20 hours ago, Nathan Stark said:

Thoughts?

It's a different medium though and a lot of the things that Martin describes would be left in the hands of the illustrator which is fine, but right now he's using that space himself.  I think of his initial description of the Vale when we enter it how he subtly likens it to a woman's woamanly bits and then we encounter the Tears of Alyssa cascading from the giant's lance but never reaching the floor of the Vale and we have this great metaphor for sterility. I think it would be harder to convey visually (without getting too direct or distracting). 

A 30 page monthly publication schedule would have a positive effect on things, especially if there was an illustrator to collaborate with who Martin couldn't leave in the lurch. Martin would have to make his decisions and then publish them, there would be little time for revision or the sort of soul sucking indecision which seems to have derailed the novels at various points along the way. I think the schedule would be the biggest advantage of the comic book medium. Sure we might lose a little depth, but he could make up for it with an ending. Currently we have no promise of an ending

 

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17 hours ago, Nathan Stark said:

I know. I meant the series should have been written as comics from the start, not written as traditional novels.

The TV show would have been a Marvel production on Disney+. Couldn't have started as strong, but might have ended stronger. Disney+ probably would have deprived us of the mummer's cockwart closeup and the show may have lost some of its meaning and depth.

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3 hours ago, Aejohn the Conqueroo said:

The TV show would have been a Marvel production on Disney+. Couldn't have started as strong, but might have ended stronger. Disney+ probably would have deprived us of the mummer's cockwart closeup and the show may have lost some of its meaning and depth.

I mean, there are other alternatives to Marvel Comics and the MCU. I kinda doubt George would want the Disney version of his stories out there.

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On 9/18/2022 at 4:07 PM, Nathan Stark said:

I know. I meant the series should have been written as comics from the start, not written as traditional novels.

Why do you think that?  Are you just tired of waiting for the next episode?

I don't read comics much (any more; I read plenty in my younger days, and on into my 30s and 40s).  But my impression has been that the pressure of deadlines forces the writers to be constantly focused on the next episode.  They don't have much time or freedom to think about the big picture.  As a result, the story lines often end up being just "kill another bad guy" every month.  New characters and subplots are introduced, but then they vanish without resolutions.  Or maybe they come back later; but again, it's just from the need to meet a deadline.  The writers don't get to do the kind of worldbuilding and complex plotting that an author can do when he writes the entire story before he starts publishing it.

Of course, when a story stretches across several books, and the first ones are published before the later ones are written, then to some extent, it has become an episodic story.  And when the writing process stretches across many years, it's possible for the author to make significant changes in midstream, such as the removal of the infamous 5-year gap.  So ASOIAF is already something of a hybrid between a conventional novel and a comic series.

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  • 2 weeks later...

For me, a big appeal to the novels is the way GRRM writes, he is great with both description and dialogue, and also completely changes what kind of language he is using based on whose chapter it is. I love graphic novels, but the first impressions I get in my head of some things could never be as detailed or vivid in a comic-style format. 

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