Sunday, December 23, 2012

Sunday Comics: Bronx Angel--Politics By Another Method (Page 10)

Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method: Page 10.
Click here to see the page at full size.
Well, if the last section was one of my favorites, this next piece is probably the worst piece in the book.  Not only does it set up a pair of Straw Man arguments, it also bogs us down in a three-page classroom scene in the middle of what was becoming a tense piece about gang life in the Bronx.  As Randy Lander said from the comics review site The Fourth Rail, "People yelling at each other in a classroom might be realistic, but it's not the way to tell an exciting story in a comic book."

On the flipside, this scene sets up the title of the book, and from a screenwriter's point of view, it's the piece that's going to set up whatever sense of closure exists when this story is over.  So I put it in as a kind of "stupid screenwriter's trick" in order to add in ideas I could turn around and reference later in the story.  If you think about it, you'll realize that you've seen this done before--in practically every middling TV show ever, especially whenever they have a Very Special Episode.  This is the scene that sets up the story thematically, eventually giving us what TV People call The Golden Moment (or Moment of Shit) later on.

No comments:

Post a Comment