Introduction
Are you aware Master of Kung Fu was, for some time, the third best-selling series of all Marvel titles? During that time, only Amazing Spider-Man and Ghost Rider sold more copies per month! While the kung fu craze of the seventies and eighties was certainly a contributing factor, it was not the primary impetus driving that success.
The secret recipe was quite simple. A talented author provided relatively high-quality stories and a talented artist provided relatively high-quality art at a relatively inexpensive price! The secret to success in comic book sales is all about quality story, quality art, and price point.
With that in mind, it's painfully clear that Marvel's comic book division currently lacks a clear vision and direction for Shang-Chi. Recent authors lack a profound understanding of the character, his personality, and his history. Neither management nor creators seem to understand what made the character or the award-winning, critically acclaimed, series great. They don't seem to understand why the character and that original series worked or why they were successful.
Recent appearances of the character are less than impressive and leave much to be desired. They are "Shang-Chi" in name only. They're not the genuine article. Proper characterization, personality, and utilization is lacking, at best, or incorrect, at worst.
I understand the motives and inclination to update or modernize the character. I certainly understand an author's desire to write and tell new stories. However, such things can be accomplished without fundamentally changing Shang-Chi's personality or characterization.
In an attempt to address these and other issues, I've composed this missive and an example script of a Shang-Chi story done correctly! Perhaps, creators or editors will take notice and remedy such shortcomings in the future. One can only hope.
Shang-Chi's History
Honan province is not the same as Hunan province! Honan is the old Wade-Giles translation of the modern Pinyin Henan. Honan is the province in which Shang-Chi was raised. Honan is also the province in which the famous Shaolin Monastery is located. While foreign devils commonly confuse these two provinces, any self-respecting student of the martial arts or Master of Kung Fu fan should know the difference!
Shang-Chi's father is a medical doctor, a hypnotist, a mad scientist, a chemist, perhaps even an alchemist. He's an assassin, a criminal mastermind, a vice lord, a cult leader, a drug dealer, and an extortionist. He's many things, but he definitely is not a sorcerer, wizard, magician, or anything of that sort!
Shang-Chi's Character and Personality
Shang-Chi is an introvert. The archetypal strong silent type, he's introspective and philosophical. His personality, thoughts, and emotions are primarily revealed through inner-monologue, not dialogue. A man of few words, he allows his actions to speak for themselves. After all, actions speak louder than words. Frequently, so does silence.
Shang-Chi tends to be a bit of a loner, moving outside the pale of whatever social order there may be. He values independence and is self-reliant. Even in a group or as a team member, he frequently separates from the others and does his own thing in his own way. Comfortable in his self-knowledge, he's rather indifferent to how others may perceive him.
Shang-Chi is a man of honor and integrity. He lives by his own code of moral conduct, deciding for himself what is good and what is evil. He does what he knows to be right, fair, and just, regardless of convention, tradition, social custom, or law. In every situation there is an opposing force, a rebel who stands for what he believes is right. Such a man is he.
Shang-Chi is an archetypal reluctant hero. He's a man seeking peaceful justice in a world of violent solutions. He's an inadvertent symbol, the unsought-for (on his part) champion of the underdog, with whom he can empathize only too well. He doesn't seek action, adventure, or violence. Yet, he attracts it. Frequently, people come to him seeking aid. Being a man who can not endure injustice, he must take action against it.
Shang-Chi is quite humble. He possesses supreme confidence in his ability and skill. He is not prideful, cocky, arrogant, or boastful. Yet, his legend precedes him. Tales are told of his prodigious feats and skill. However, such fame brings its own attrition. For there are always men who must challenge the legend, test themselves against it, aggrandize themselves at its expense. Still, others are drawn to him by his air of mystery and aura of gentle strength.
Shang-Chi is a hero, not a superhero. He possesses knowledge, training, skill, and ability, not super-powers. He's a street-level hero like Captain America, Daredevil, Punisher, Black Panther, Black Widow, and Elektra. One of the characteristics making Shang-Chi such a great hero is that he has no super-powers. He's only human, a mere mortal, like everybody else in his world, but through study, discipline, dedication, training, conditioning, and practice has achieved extraordinary skill.
For this is the mystique of a man known as the Master of Kung Fu, but whom we all call "Shang-Chi".
The Marvel Universe Versus Shang-Chi's World
While the Marvel Universe has ties to Shang-Chi, his ties to it are a bit more tenuous. In the original MOKF series, Shang-Chi's world is more prosaic and nearly isolated, as it should be, from the larger Marvel Universe. Shang-Chi's world is closer kindred to the worlds of Sax Rohmer, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Ian Fleming than to other, shall we say, more imaginative environments.
This commonplace world, nearly isolated from the larger Marvel Universe and its other characters, is one of the great qualities of the original MOKF series. It reflects the "world outside your window" more accurately than a world filled with sorcerers, mutants, and teams of super-powered heroes. Shang-Chi's world is far more grounded, down to Earth, realistic, and requires far less suspension of disbelief.
Although expanding and integrating the Marvel Universe is currently in fashion, placing Shang-Chi in any environment with super-powered individuals constitutes imprudent use. In fact, that's an abusive and tragic misuse of the character. It's silly, illogical, inappropriate, simply doesn't fit well, and should be avoided.
Integrating Shang-Chi with the larger Marvel Universe, in his own title or series, might be acceptable so long as it's done only with other street-level characters. Integrating Shang-Chi with the larger Marvel Universe and super-powered characters might be acceptable so long as it's only done in other titles, but not his own. Even then, it would require a rather skilled writer and careful use to make the character function effectively in such a setting.
For example, giving Shang-Chi repulsor nunchakus, the ability to clone himself, the ability to grow to a giant size, or some such rubbish in order to function effectively within a story is either the result of laziness or incompetence and demonstrates a ridiculous failure of creativity and skill. It's essentially an embarrassing admission the character has been carelessly misused and placed in a situation, environment, or story that he had no business being in the first place. Not to mention, it's completely disrespectful to the character, his creators, Doug Moench's legacy, and to fans of the character.
Understanding the Fans
Fans of the character aren't necessarily interested in other Marvel characters or superheroes. They aren't necessarily interested in the larger Marvel Universe. They certainly don't want to see Shang-Chi overshadowed, upstaged, emasculated, neutered, or sidelined by other characters.
A person who purchases a comic book or graphic novel, featuring the character in his own series or title, desires a pulp style action-adventure, noir style detective mystery, or espionage-thriller story focused on Shang-Chi. Imagine a Bond film with less humor, less gun play, more kung fu, and Bruce Lee cast as James Bond. That's the type of story fans of the character long for. That is the framework in which Shang-Chi operates.
Kung fu action is the gimmick. Combine martial arts with adventure, mystery, intrigue, suspense, espionage, or betrayal. That's the magic formula!
Make no mistake about it. There is indeed a literal formula! Follow this link to learn more about The Quintessential "Hero versus Villain" Action-Adventure Formula!
Marketability and Sales
Perhaps, one might suspect that pulp adventures, noir style detective mysteries, or espionage stories are too old-fashion, aren't very popular, and won't sell. However, I would argue otherwise. Consider the successful James Bond, Jason Bourne, Mission Impossible, and Indiana Jones franchises. For specific comic book examples, consider Ed Brubaker's Batman: Gotham Noir, Incognito, Sleeper, Criminal, Velvet, Frank Miller's Sin City, or Grayson by Tim Seeley and Tom King.
Understanding the Audience, Customers, and Demographics
Like it or not, most comic book and graphic novel consumers are adults. That is a fact. The primary audience ranges from eighteen to eighty years of age. It's been my experience, the majority of existing Shang-Chi fans are adults age forty or older.
One great aspect of the original MOKF series is that, while it was written primarily for adult readers, it had broad appeal to both adults and youngsters. The quality of story and dialogue interested adult readers, while the art and action sequences attracted younger customers. Interestingly, this reveals a secret insight to our next topic of discussion, which is how to expand the market and attract that elusive young adult demographic.
Attracting the Young Adult Demographic
Have you noticed that children and teens do not respond well, if they're spoken to or treated like children? It's an interesting psychological phenomenon. They respond far more favorably when spoken to and treated as an adult.
Watch children play. Typically, they pretend to be adults, mimicking what they perceive to be adult behavior. Kids enjoy what they perceive to be adult activities, because they want to be adults. Youngsters desire the respect, freedom, and autonomy they perceive adults to possess.
So what does this have to do with comics and graphic novels? It's really quite simple. Do not write simplistic stories or dialogue specifically geared toward young audiences!
Give them a little credit. Write for adult readers. Youngsters are not imbeciles. They tend to be quite literate. Any book is a children's book, if the kid can read!
Regardless, chasing that young adult market is probably an exercise in futility over the long-term. There's simply no way that comics or graphic novels can compete with the plethora and current forms of modern entertainment. That's a losing battle, my friend.
Word Count and Read Time
The original MOKF series, like most of the comic books from that era, was rather heavy on textual content. They require an average of twenty minutes to read at a leisurely pace. Would it surprise you to know that's a good thing? Well, it is!
Modern Marvel comics are, by comparison, quite light on textual content, dialogue, and story. They only require an average of five minutes or less to read at a leisurely pace. This is not a good thing!
Remember that bit, in the introduction section, about the secret to success in comic book sales being all about quality story, quality art, and price point? More text and longer read times equal more entertainment bang for the buck. Higher word counts, longer read times, and more entertainment justifies price!
Artistic Concepts, Direction, and Style
Why was MOKF, at one time, the third highest selling Marvel title? Unarguably, the quality and style of art was a major factor driving that success. So let's take a closer examination of some specific attributes.
Panel Layout
The original MOKF series was known and loved for its smooth, flowing, cinematic, sequential panel layouts and fight scenes. The reading experience was more like watching a film than reading a book. Ideally, one would hope to reproduce that experience.
Inked Linework
Preferably, linework should resemble the iconic 1970s-1980s Marvel style. Think Paul Gulacy, Justin Murphy, Mike Zeck, Gene Day, David Day, Dan Day, Michael Golden, Brian Bolland. At minimum, linework must be relatively realistic, tight, clean, bold, confident, and finished, not cartoonish, busy, thready, loose, sketchy, unfinished, messy, or scribbly!
Mood and Tone
The original MOKF series was known and loved for its noir-esque mood, tone, atmosphere, and ambiance. Noir style is a naturally perfect fit for comic book art. It can be easily achieved by employing generous use of black ink and shadows. Doing this makes the artist's/inker's job a little easier because shadow and darkness covers space that might otherwise require detailed linework or texture. Additionally, darkness and shadow compliments and enhances any sense of mystery, intrigue, suspense, danger, fear, uncertainty, or tension created by the plot.
Color
The use of saturated, bright, vivid, primary colors provide strikingly interesting contrast to the generous use black ink for darkness and shadow. Some of those digitally re-colored pages, in the multi-volume MOKF Omnibus and Epic Collection, are breathtakingly stunning! Generally, one should avoid unsaturated, dirty, muddy, washed out, faded, pale, pastel colors.
Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule. Unsaturated, dirty, muddy, washed out, faded, pale, pastel colors work well, if you are going for a dull, dreary, dingy mood or tone. Often, they're quite suitable as background colors, particularly for panels, caption boxes, and such.
Martial Arts
Martial arts style fight scenes are tricky and challenging to successfully illustrate in comics or graphic novels. Kung fu is far better suited to motion pictures than to still art forms. Nevertheless, martial arts style fight scenes can be accomplished in a visually impressive and pleasing manner.
In a perfect world, the artist would be an expert in multiple martial arts styles and a fan of kung fu flicks. At minimum, the artist should be able and willing to research iconic poses and choreographed fight scenes, then replicate them. Fight scenes should exhibit particularly smooth, flowing, cinematic motion and sequential panel layouts. They should resemble time lapse photos, step by step instructions, or select, sequential, single frames of 8mm projector film.
(NOTE: For examples, see the sequential photos in "Part IV - Self-Defense Techniques" from this book.)
Advertisements
I'm all for ad-free entertainment, but those old comic books featured plenty of advertisements. All that ad space was sold by Marvel, to paying customers, and the revenue, basically, subsidized the cost of producing, publishing, and distributing those comic books. That, in part, is why comic book prices were so low!
Do the powers that be understand selling ad space is currently the most popular monetization method? It's utilized by successful internet technology companies and nearly all websites old or new. It's used by magazines and newspapers. Why isn't Marvel taking advantage of publishing's oldest monetization model?
"Nuff Said!
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