Comments on: All mediums are equal – an end to science fiction tribalism

By: Jason Stoddard

Jason Stoddard — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 22:45:16 +0000

All you need to do is look at ComicCon versus WorldCon:

ComicCon: embraces comics, film, games, books, whatever . . . attendance grows every year–now at 125K people.

WorldCon: insular science fiction audience, deeply skeptical of anything that isn’t on paper–unstable attendance, 5-7k people.

By: Tom Marcinko

Tom Marcinko — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 17:20:42 +0000

Theater and the novel were disreputable for long stretches of history. Film only (relatively) recently became respectable (whatever that means) as an art form. I can still remember a grade-school teacher telling us that the book is ALWAYS better than the movie. I know she was just trying to encourage us to read, but come on… (Same future-shocked teacher assured us that rock music was worthless.)

The idea that TV and comics are inherently lower forms strikes me as a holdover from the 50s. What Jerry Seinfeld said of comedy also strikes me as true of sf: Movies are not necessarily a step up.

Recently I said on another site that the collected WATCHMEN is as good as it gets in any medium, and I’m stickin’ to that.

By: ShaunCG

ShaunCG — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:26:02 +0000

Mmm, you’re right. There is some crossover here and there (the last issue of Foundation I read, which I think was 101, had an interesting article that discussed Lost as a TV show that is based around videogame narrative conceits – and actually got me watching a few episodes, which nothing else has managed) but it’s fairly limited. I think it does tend to get shouted down a lot of the time, the most famous example I can think of being games journalist Kieron Gillen’s “new school journalism”.

Games can be very interesting but it’s tricky to really do something different. Today it’s almost impossible commercially – BioShock had some interesting ideas but failed to follow through on them – as videogames have ossified into fairly strict genres. There’s a lot of interesting stuff in independent gaming (Braid being a recent and fantastic example) but that tends to be limited by the resources available, not to mention potential inexperience.

Still… it should be talked about more, and critics especially should at the very least be familiar with the differences between and possibilities of different mediums. As Charlie Brooker said in response to “a game will never move you like a film can”, “well maybe it’s not supposed to, you fucking thicksicle!”

By: Jonathan M

Jonathan M — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:41:11 +0000

Yup, I think that most people do now flit between the different media BUT I also think that the different media have their own distinct scenes where most of the discussion goes on.

Similarly, if you compare a genre film or book to a videogame, it’s generally intended in a pejorative fashion but I think that games can frequently (because of the differences in the nature of the different media) have interesting things to say when they adapt material from other forms and make it their own.

The same goes for film where discussions frequently revolve around whether or not an adaptation “got it right”. That assumes the primacy of books over film and I don’t think that that is in the least bit correct.

By: ShaunCG

ShaunCG — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:20:47 +0000

Grindcore fans may not be the best example, actually, as it’s gone from a bedroom in-joke between extreme metallers to yet another thing the trendy haircuts have started doing badly. But you get my point: there are no big movements and scenes any more, just hundreds of small ones with a large amount of overlap.