# Talk:Comics

Are the Lascaux cave paintings a common pre-history to the Asian tradition also?
Huh? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:21, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
It reads now as if it may have had some influence on the development of comics on each continent by juxtaposing the different cultures with that common statement. "The history of comics has followed different paths in different cultures. Scholars have posited a pre-history as far back as the Lascaux cave paintings."Bod (talk) 01:40, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
The question makes no sense: the article in no way implies that any tradition grew out of the Lascaux cave paintings. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 08:02, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
The Adventures of Tintin seems to only be a serialized comic in the 1930s. Do you have evidence that it was a "strip or book"?
You don't have to try hard to find an answer to this question—the history of Tintin is extremely well documented.  More evidence that you simply can't be bothered to research. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:21, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
You are right. I am not a big fan of Tintin. I took "serialized comic" to mean something different.Bod (talk) 01:40, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
Is there a source for this: "but towards the end of the 20th century [comics] began to find greater acceptance with the public and in academia"?
Yes, sourced in the body, as is everything else in the article. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:21, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing that out. I've tried to remedy the lack of citations in the lede.Bod (talk) 01:40, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
Don't.  Inline cites are to be avoided in the lead except in excpetional cases. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 08:02, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
Bod (talk) 08:30, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
So you're at it again.  You're recent edits, once again, do not improve the article, but muff it up.  What does Batman represent in the context of the development of the form?  This intorduced a bunch of gibberish like "The history of comics is unique to different cultures".  This hardly clarifies anything with its talk of "vaguely" whatever.  Superman represents the comic book format's leap into becoming a mass medium.  Batman's just another name, and mentioning that name tells us nothing about how that format or the medium in general developed.
Why are you so opposed to looking at any of the many sources out there and educating yourself?  Why are you so intent on doing something, anything to the article?  It doesn't seem to stem from a desire to improve its content at all.
Please stop making clean-up work for others. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:21, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
I know that you know that the layman (or comics fan) coming to visit this article might be confused by the use of terminology, specifically "comics" in the abstract. A commonsense solution is to clarify this by explaining the use of "comics" as in, "Which comics do you like?" or, "Did you read the comics today?". I wrote a sentence on this after the primary definition, but rather than working to fix it, you chose to simply remove it. Bod (talk) 01:46, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
The sentence wasn't based on what could be found in sources and made little sense.  There are sources that address it, but they often get basic facts wrong, like this one that talks about "a comics page (plural name for a singular element of a book)"—it's not a plural noun, but an uncountable noun used as an adjunct.  Comics "scholarship" is particularly lacking in rigour, and sources contradict each other (and themselves) with startling regularity, so particular care has to be taken in sorting through them.  Of course, it helps if you take a look at the sources in the first place, which you refuse to do no matter how many times I bring it up. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 08:02, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
Well, at least grateful for the acknowledgement and inclusion of "comics" singular vs. plural. Bod (talk) 21:21, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
What is "but really" supposed to mean?  Is it supported by any source?  Does it properly summarize what's in the body? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:41, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
People have always told stories through art, so the fact that the cave paintings may have had some chronological imagery does not surprise me in the least. If there was someone who said that any of the originators of modern comics took influence from those paintings, then I would keep it in the lead. Otherwise, it appears to say "Each cultural history of comics had a different path, but academics have somehow posited all comics have a pre-history dating back to these cave paintings. I think this is undue weight and the reference to the cave paintings should be stricken from the lede. Bod (talk) 03:33, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
The article in no way implies that "academics have somehow posited all comics have a pre-history dating back to these cave paintings", and your "all" is a head-scratcher, given the the positers make no claim that the cave paintings mark the beginning of any tradition.  If you think it's undue weight, then the burden is on you to demonstrate it, given the preponderance of sources that draw attention to it.  Again, this would require you to examine the sources, which you steadfastly refuse to attempt. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 10:10, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
It may be perfectly clear to you what "prehistory" means in this context, but for many it implies some sort of connection to the development of comics. This is handled with better wording in the body, calling it a "precedent", so simply changing it a little might work. Bod (talk) 08:27, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
If that's what the sources said.  It's not. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 09:38, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

How can you possibly justify this?  Unsourced, widly undue, and total WP:RECENTISM.  I don't know how you can justify putting distribution in the article in the first place, but even if it were included, you've restricted it to the American comic-book industry in 2016 (ignoring non-American comic books, comic strips, graphic novels, webcomics, etc etc etc, as well as the history of the direct market and the system that preceded it).
Can you please explain why you are so desperate to fiddle with the article?  It doesn't seem your motivation is to improve it, or to find out even the basics of what you're adding. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 10:47, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Frankly, you seem intent upon limiting the article to certain topics. You have approached the article from a very dry, academic point of view, that does not bestow all the necessary facts about comics in reality. If anything, you add UNDUE influence to things like cave paintings and the early history of comics. Most people would be interested in learning about the production and distribution of comics, quite necessary to understanding the industry. I do not know the distribution methods of all countries, so of course that could be added, it doesn't have to all be done at the same time. Of course, you could have added a sentence or two about the history of the "direct market" instead of reverting. If you want to believe the conspiracy that most people come to your article with malcontent, be my guest, I guess. I had no idea until I was older that there was a near-monopoly on the distribution of comic books in America, quite an interesting factoid, and I only wish you could see that. All the sources can be found in the "American comic book" article of course, for which this subsection reflects. Bod (talk) 11:15, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
You are in a world of such near-impenetrable ignorance that I feel little hope of getting through to you.  If "production and distribution of comics" were an appropriate topic, you've dealt with it in the most indefensibly ludricous way possible.
You know, of course, that production and distribution depend on the format (strip, comic book, graphic novel, album, tankōbon, etc etc), nation, time period, etc etc etc.  Thus they are apporpriately handled in the appropriate sub-articles, not—repeat not—by adding a bizarre factlet about one tiny corner of the worldwide comics industries seemingly out of nowhere.
Again, what is driving you to such leaps of desperate fiddling with the article?  You entirely lack the competence and show not the least concern in gaining it.  You are damaging the article.  If you keep it up I'll have no choice but to report it and have you blocked. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 11:34, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
A 20 year monopoly on the American comic book industry is nothing to sneeze at. Mentioning the direct market and Diamond is like mentioning Marvel and DC Comics. You can have it your way, I'm done with that dry, old article and your ANTI-RECENTISM. You can fill it up with all the pictures you want of old American and European comics. Have it all, along with your broken cite errors that I fixed and you reintroduced in your haste to revert me. Steer clear of all the interesting bits on drawing or producing or distributing comics, and maybe you can fill it with such a list of names, arcane facts, and dry terminology that know one will take enough interest to bother you or try to dethrone you from such a pivotal and representative article for all the other comics articles. Enjoy the tumbleweeds blowing through, because you certainly won't be getting people interested in comics or reading about comics with the way your going about things. Bod (talk) 13:11, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
 A 20 year monopoly on the American comic book industry is nothing to sneeze at.—yes, it is.  The focus of the article is on the comics medium, not on one tiny timespan of one tiny corner of the comics world.  The American comic book industry in the last twenty years is a tiny speck—in American comic books there's a whole long history that predates that, much of which is far more significant; the American comic strip industry has always been economically and historically larger; graphic novels have been taking over, and they've been growing outside the direct market and Diamond; and the American comics industry as a whole is dwarfed by those of Europe and Japan.  The Diamond monopoly is significant only to the American comic book industry of the last twenty years, and therefore merits mention in American comic book.  Outside of that article, it is unbalanced and irrelevant fluff.  It astounds me how you can't understand how ridiculously out of scope this is. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:59, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
Okay, I'll reason with you. I do understand that I wrote in too much detail about the Diamond monopoly in North America. I don't actually care about Diamond. The fact is that I was trying to add a little information about how comics are distributed. Do you have something interesting to say about newspaper comic strips and how they are distributed? Print newspapers are in decline, most of the distribution information is relevant to the newspaper... Do you or do you not think the direct market should be mentioned in this article? Do you not want the article to grow at all from now on? Bod (talk) 00:36, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
To be cooperative, although I've tried to say I won't try to contribute to this article anymore, why don't you make a little bulleted list here for all future editor hopefuls to see what areas YOU think are needing improvement in this article.
There are many interesting things to say about distribution.  It's a broad topic, and this article must take a global and historical view of it over the various formats.  In American comics alone, this would mean for comic strips, gag strips, comic books, graphic novels, and webcomics, each of whose distribution has virtually no crossover.  For American comic books alone, this would mean going over newstand distribution (which was how it was ditributed almost exclusively until 1975) and then going over the rise of the comic book shop and the direct market until Diamond became a monopoly in the 1990s.  None of which has any impact on the comic strip, gag strip, or webcomics markets, and only minimal impact on the graphic novel market (Diamond's monopoly does not extend outside the comic book shop ecosystem).  The American comic book is a format that never ccaught on in the far larger European or Japanese markets, and thus is irrelevant—the Japanese market dwarfs the American, yet comic shops are fringe outlets there: most comics are sold in book retailers, convenience stores, etc, using a distribution system nothing like the direct market.  How much space do you propose giving to this stuff, which is, after all, highly tangential?  They're details best left to the more specialized articles (for the direct market, we already have American comic book and Direct market).
Bottom line: if distribution is going to be mentioned at all (which I think is way out of scope), then it has to be done from a global, historical, and cross-format perspective, and be fully sourced. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:31, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
It is hard to source a lot of this "contemporary wisdom", but it probably can be done. If the comic book shop is uniquely American than it is worth mentioning. I'm sure many people have a fondness for comic shops from the memories they have as a kid. I hope you add that information to the article. Bod (talk) 06:52, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
Well, yes, I do have such fond memories, but that has little bearing on its appropriateness to this article.  We're talking scope and weight, not sourceability. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 08:28, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

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Is this usage peculiar to the US? In the UK "The Beano" is a childrens' comic; "The Dandy" and "The Beano" are childrens' comics. I have never seen "Comics" used as a singular form for this class of publication - and neither have any of my dictionaries. FredV (talk) 15:46, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

You may study art, you may study literature, you may study film... do you study "comic" or "comics"? I would say the latter, and if so, then this page is at the right title. The page title here is not about what is the name for an individual object, but for a field, an art form... (for art or literature, this is clearer as you have book/books as the objects, and literature as the field; here the name is the same, hence the confusion). Fram (talk) 16:06, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
It's like "ethics", "economics", "physics", or "gymnastics". -Jason A. Quest (talk) 19:01, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

It is probably a minority interest best detailed in another article, but does anybody have any information about how the colour printing techniques used for comics developed over the years? The article currently has just a sentence on wood-block printing for early Japanese works. The article Color printing is too generalised. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:20, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

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