Level of Language

[Ranko]

When I look at older comics, like the Golden Age ones, and the newer comics, it seems to me that the older ones had much more dialogue in them. Did they, and if so, why did they and why comparatively less dialogue today?

[jfglade]

 Golden age, atomic age, and silver age comics did, generally, have more text than today's comics. I think the "National Lampoon," a satire magazine which is now defunct hit the nail on the head when it said, in part, in its editorial to an issue devoted entirely to comic strip features back in the early seventies, "Today's readers aren't."

 The typical comics holds dialogue down to a minimum apparently because writers and/or editors think current readers don't want any more verbiage than absolutely needed to convey points the artwork doesn't. There are fewer panels in current comics than golden age ones as well, and current comics look more like poster books than they do like traditional comic books.

 For a good twenty years now, there is a feeling in academic circles that students are become more sophisticated about visual literacy but are becoming "aliterate" in regard to text. The feeling is that modern students can read, but they don't want to and won't if they don't have to. Most current comics seem designed to support that theory.

[Yoc]

If you look at a Lev Gleason comic you sure get that feeling.
Many things change.  Today stories that would take one issue, heck one story of say 16pgs or so, now are being spread out over four issue arcs so they can later be collected into trade paperback collections.
It's all about money.

[boox909]

When I look at older comics, like the Golden Age ones, and the newer comics, it seems to me that the older ones had much more dialogue in them. Did they, and if so, why did they and why comparatively less dialogue today?

There is no clear cut answer to this question. Part of it depends on who the writer is...a writer such as Roy Thomas is prone to a lot of dialogue. Another factor might be the particular 'house style' of the Comics Shop producing the story/book in question. Recently DC Comics announced that they were going to cease the six issue story arcs, citing that a survey of readers complained that these arcs were overly wordy.

As a kid, I would write my own Captain Marvel stories for fun, and I would model these on the style of E. Nelson Bridwell who tended to write 100 words per page.

100 words seemed to fit.  

[philcom55]

It's worth noting that a lot of early scripters had a background in text features and really didn't 'get' that comics were a different medium. As a result there was a tendency to produce endless captions filled with redundant descriptions of what the reader could already see for himself in the artwork. A simple example would be a panel in which Superman is shown hitting Luthor with the dialogue balloons "Take that!" and "Owww!", beneath a caption saying "Superman hits Luthor!"

 - Phil Rushton

[John C]

Last year, I read through all the THUNDER Agents books for the first time, and there's a letter in one complaining that the stories read too quickly because the writing is so limited.  The response explains that this had been intentional because they were assuming that most customers were buying comics for the art, not the stories.

So that's at least one industry opinion.  And the modern books with full-page (and double-page) spreads of disjointed art suggests to me that it's still the way they think.

(Relevant to another thread, Don Markstein also has a letter defending the originality of the line.)

I'm surprised at the "wordy" accusation at DC.  In the last ten or so years, every time I've looked at a DC book, it's been (stupidly) staged like a movie, with many instances of consecutive near-identical panels with nothing to support it, plus the full- and double-page splashes that fail to carry the story.  Some words would help, as would cutting the length of the stories (so, thumbs up) so that these extended "luxuries" don't take up so much space.

[narfstar]

Harry Potter proved that "some" kids will read. Now if you take the large number of copies a HP novel sales and divide it by the number of kids in the reading age range the percentage would still be small. Even when I kid does decide to check out one of my comics they seldom do more than look at the pictures. I will say that I can not enjoy a comic book without "enough" words. Many current comics are designed so that they can be "read" word free. I am unlikely to buy a new title without at least reading the first issue and am glad for that practice.
I have discarded many a book, without wasting money on it, because it had too few words.

[Roygbiv666]

It's worth noting that a lot of early scripters had a background in text features and really didn't 'get' that comics were a different medium. As a result there was a tendency to produce endless captions filled with redundant descriptions of what the reader could already see for himself in the artwork. A simple example would be a panel in which Superman is shown hitting Luthor with the dialogue balloons "Take that!" and "Owww!", beneath a caption saying "Superman hits Luthor!"

 - Phil Rushton

And let's not forget that back in the day, a writer and penciller wouldn't even necessarily meet in person. The writer might not even know who would be drawing the book, so they wrote it with a lot of redundancy as you say.

It's interesting that people are complaining on either side - too many words, not enough. In the medium of film, after talkies came around, people like Hitchcock always said that sound shoudl be used sparingly, that the images should carry the story.

I prefer to get my money's worth - the more words, the longer it takes to read!

[philcom55]

...Of course it's entirely possible to go too far the other way - as this classic panel from Weird Fantasy shows:

http://i54.tinypic.com/2pt6icg.jpg

...Definitely not one of EC's proudest moments!

While I find unnecessary and/or confusing visuals as annoying as anyone I'd have to say that some of the most impressive comic strips I've ever seen were those rare occasions when someone like Alex Toth succeeded in telling a story without any words at all.

 - Phil Rushton

[John C]

I think the problem is that too many creators (and readers, most likely) think that one extreme or the other MUST be the right one.  But the reality is that, in the best comics I've seen, both the text and the art carried the load.  Same with movies, dialogue and action need to support each other if you've got both.  Restrictive experiments to one extreme or the other are interesting, but not a viable norm when you have greater capabilities.

It'd be like saying that owning a car means that you should cut off your legs, since driving should be able to replace walking.  Yes, but...

[Roygbiv666]

It'd be like saying that owning a car means that you should cut off your legs, since driving should be able to replace walking.  Yes, but...

Done and done. Wait ...

[paw broon]

"I prefer to get my money's worth - the more words, the longer it takes to read!"  Roygbiv666.
Bang on.
And as Phil points out about word free Toth pages, can I also remind you of the excellent Ragman story (#3?) by Joe Kubert?  A lovely wee gem of a story.  Didn't Eisner do the same on The Spirit? Because there is a Corto Maltese wordless by Hugo Pratt in the Les Celtiques collection with the most amazing action and atmosphere panels.  If you want to find this, be aware that the recent, coloured, Italian hardback omits this story)
All those full/double page illos. which seem to do nothing to advance the story, leave me cold.  In our Thriller Picture Libraries from all those years ago, there was a lot of dialogue, occasionally overwhelming the panel, as we see in the E.C. above, but on the whole those TPL's and Detective Picture Libraries, were a great, long read and good value - much as older American comics were.  You couldn't plough through them in 10 - 15 mins. as you can with much of todays offerings.

[josemas]

I tend to think that manga- especially by its influence on Frank Miller, who introduced a number of its storytelling techniques to American comics, has played an part in the way American comic story-lines tend to run longer now and have fewer words per page.

Best

Joe

[narfstar]

Manga has surely affected US comics. Manga can make a story drag on forever. I started reading Love Hina and stopped around volume 3 because it was so little story and so much repetition. 14 two hundred page volumes for one little love story is unreasonable. It is all about the art.

[paw broon]

Despite not liking the look of a lot of manga, I felt I had to try it and I did read a few vols of a couple of the popular titles.  But to no avail. Apart from Mai the Psychic Girl, I've found nothing to get enthusiastic about.  My wife and I holiday in Europe a lot and I always find comic shops to visit and even in the most eurocomic dedicated stores, you find manga, quite a lot of it too. The shop in Hoorn, Netherlands is a prime example with a lovely, big choice of g.n.'s, collectors item old Dutch comics, lots of translated American collections and a whole manga section.  Kids seem to love it.