Comments

1. Keith81658 says:

   December 4, 2012 at 11:25 pm

   I really enjoyed the first issue. Looking forward to this.

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2. Baykid says:

   December 5, 2012 at 1:01 pm

   In some ways I like this comic, and I know lots of folks probably don’t care but it kind of bugs me that the great pacific garbage patch is such a centerpiece to this series, but it seems like there was almost no research into the phenomenon. Specifically, it isn’t something you could walk on, it’s not a garbage dump floating on the ocean surface.

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D41rO7mL6zM This is a documentary I watched a while back, not too great but the whole point is that these hipster documentarians go to take a look at the patch and discover that it is very serious but largely invisible to the naked eye, and definitely not a giant “island” the size of Texas.

   Even one of the stats in the beginning of this comic is kind of a giveaway “50,000 pieces of plastic debris per square mile.” That’s a lot, it’s insane that there’s that density of trash in the middle of the ocean but considering a square mile is 27,878,400 square feet, that’s one piece of plastic for every 557 square feet, and that is very very far from being a surface you could walk or build on.

   The comic seems to be in the near future, not 1000 years from now when maybe the island will be walkable. Some explanation at least would be nice. Like I said, I know many wouldn’t mind the basic inaccuracy underlying the premise to the series, but it gets under my skin a bit.

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   • USPUNX says:

     December 5, 2012 at 4:12 pm

     I’ve not read any interviews with the creators or anything like that but I’d like to hazard a response to your post.

     I would assume, again I’m not sure of this, that the creators fully know what the real Great Pacific Garbage Patch looks like and chose to exaggerate it for this series in order to make a point. Even 1000 years from now it is unlikely that the Patch would contain enough debris to be walkable. However, it is a VERY serious and ever growing problem that is hardly ever reported on by the media and one most people are not even aware exists. So my guess is that they chose to depict it in this manner in order to draw attention to it and let people know that even though we can’t see it, the problem really is this large. Again, just my guess.

     I mean this type of thing is done all the time in fiction. It’s like when Tolkein turned Stalin into the Dark Lord Saron and communists into orcs. Now can Stalin really live forever, wield a giant badass mace, and control all the forces of evil through The One Ring? Of course not, but it sure makes the writers point.
   • Suicidalkangarooz says:

     December 6, 2012 at 12:14 am

     The writer has acknowledged that it isn’t an actual land mass, even in the Ifanboy’s Dont Miss podcast about the first issue. Of course he would research the Patch, he’s just exaggerating it to tell this story.
   • Baykid says:

     December 6, 2012 at 3:58 am

     For me, it would’ve been better to rename it if you want to make a version of the patch this exaggerated. It could help avoid confusion. What confusion you ask? Let’s talk about those statistics in the front of the book again. Normally I would expect material like this to be describing the fictional setting of the story, but the math showed this can’t be a representation of the fictional garbage patch in the comic. So are they real statistics about the actual garbage patch? I guessed so but there’s no reason to assume that they are. If the stats in the front are real, is it surprising some readers might read these staggering numbers and get the impression that the pictures on the following pages are some kind of illustration of that reality. As USPUNX pointed out a lot of people don’t know about this phenomenon, but I can imagine if you read this comic you might wonder if the Great Pacific Garbage Patch was real, and if your basic google searches confirm that it is real, is the size of Texas, does contain 4 trillion garbage bags, or reinforces other stuff about the patch from the comic, people could easily get the wrong impression. And thus to the extent that it creates awareness on the subject, it may largely be false awareness.

     I think The Massive avoids these kinds of problems. It is still based on an exaggerated environmental disaster, allowing some similar themes to be explored, but is at no risk of misinforming the public (ballistics and east Asian skylines notwithstanding. haha). Tolkien wasn’t really risking any kind of confusion about the reality of his setting or his basic premises either.

     But I also want to say what should go without saying: Comic writers are artists and they’re entitled to their own creative vision and choices.

     And maybe I’ll listen to that podcast, get his perspective on this choice and feel differently about it.
3. USPUNX says:

   December 6, 2012 at 12:02 pm

   All good points and really this just boils down to personal opinion. I have no problem with the exaggeration but I can also understand why it bugs you. Artists certainly do need to walk a fine line between artistic license to make a point and accurate interpretation when their idea is based on a real thing/event/problem. I find this comic walks that line well, and beyond all that I find it is simply well written, well drawn, and fun to read; so I enjoy it.

   In regard to The Massive I will just say that comic has an entire host of problems of its own. Mainly its central premise is a (hehe) massive, and entirely unbelievable, environmental meltdown that the book has yet to even attempt to explain and I am guessing never really will. One of the guys at my LCS described Great Pacific as “The Massive but actually fun to read.” I bought the book based on that description and I have to say I agree. I haven’t given up on The Massive yet because I am a HUGE Brian Wood fan but this next story arc is make or break for me.

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