USPUNX

May 26, 2012 4:49 pm About a month ago I remember Hickman tweeted something along the lines of "Have you ever turned something in and immediately realized everything about it was wrong?" I wonder if this is what he was talking about...

May 26, 2012 4:47 pm I agree. The freaking cover made it obvious this was inside a human body. I love Hickman but I dislike issues like this; trying to hide something that is obvious BEFORE page one.

May 23, 2012 6:42 pm @wally: That's true about sci fi but what's to say The Road is set in the future? There are no references to how the world ended or WHEN it ended. It could be set in 1998 for all we know. I think post-apocalyptic fiction is definitely a sub genre of sci fi but I also don't think every post-apocalyptic story is automatically sci fi purely because of its setting. For example, I was watching Born on the Fourth of July earlier today. The main character is a Marine and there are some limited combat scenes when he is in Vietnam, but I wouldn't consider it a war movie purely because of those superficial things. Also what about something like Book of the New Sun? It is set in a post-apocalyptic far future but other than that it is pure fantasy. No technology no references to it being set in the future other than that the reader knows it to be the future. Its all swords and medieval tropes. So is it sci fi purely because it is set in the future or is it fantasy because the rest of the story is clearly a fantasy setting? I don't think its fair to blanket all post-apocalyptic stuff as sci fi. Of course the vast majority clearly is sci fi, but I don't think its an automatic connection.

May 23, 2012 4:07 pm Just thought of a couple more! For film try Sleep Dealer. For comics maybe Brian Wood's early stuff. Jenny One, Supermarket, and The Couriers are all vaguely sci fi if I am remembering them right. Also Paul Pope is good for pseudo sci fi, try 100% or Heavy Liquid. On a somewhat side note, is The Road really sci fi? Other than being set in a post-apocalyptic world I don't recall it having any sci fi elements. I guess I don't personally consider something being post-apocalyptic to be automatically science fiction.

May 23, 2012 3:57 pm I'd check out anything by William Gibson. His stuff tends to be pretty near future so its not as sci fiy as a things like Saga and Dune. I read The Postmortal a few months ago and it was okay, not great, but I think it fits what you are talking about. Also Blueprints of the Afterlife sounds like what you're looking for as well. I haven' read it but its gotten some pretty good reviews. Also I'd recommend some Philip K. Dick. Maybe either A Scanner Darkly or some of his short stories.

May 21, 2012 4:48 pm @treeofthestoneage: I have been a member of Goodreads for many years now. Citing personal opinions from one website is not really proof of anything. Is there an article somewhere you know of I could check out on the subject of people not being able to follow sequential art? I'm twenty-nine years old and have been reading print newspapers on a fairly regular basis (several times a week) for over fifteen years now. I made the switch to digital newspapers about a year ago when I bought an iPad and have to say I see very little difference between the digital papers I read now and the print papers I read back in the mid 90's. I am assuming from you comments you are several years older than me and have been reading newspapers for well over 15 years. If we are talking about papers from decades ago, the reason why local papers printed longer columns is that they covered only local stories. As information became easier to obtain, local papers began printing more national news. The size of the paper remained the same but the total amount of articles increased. Therefore the overall length of individual articles was shortened in order to allow more total articles to be printed in the same paper. This change happened years if not decades before the ubiquitous availability of computers and is therefore rather impossible to blame on digital media. Also, in regards to music being dumbed down could you be more specific than "forget about it?"

May 21, 2012 2:52 pm I've actually never heard someone say they can't follow the pattern of sequential art. Is this an ongoing concern for new comics readers? I'd love to read an article about it if you could link me to one. Also, the digitization of music, television, film, books, newspapers, and magazines doesn't seem to have "dumbed down" the overall content of these mediums. Just wondering why you think comics will be different.

May 21, 2012 2:23 pm I agree about liking to walk into my LCS. I know the entire staff by name and we talk about everything from comics to books we are reading to events of the day. No exaggeration. It seems that most people complaining about having to go to their LCS have stores near them that are not very fun to be in. The more I read this thread the luckier I feel to have such a great comic store in my town!

May 21, 2012 2:20 pm Why would digital printing lead to dumbed down content?

May 21, 2012 12:41 pm The site is called iFanboy. They clearly talk about the things they personally enjoy. Did you really come to a site named iFanboy looking for completely objective information?