Thursday, December 4, 2008

Numerous things plus review of Aeon of the Dead

1. I like to watch Eli Stone a lot.

2. The Macy's parade was Rick-Roll'd and it took me until today to find out about it? Damn.

3. I'm never gonna give it up.
Complaining about narrated Zuda entries that is.
Understand this. Introducing a narrator isn't just an easy way to solve story telling problems. It creates NEW problems.
For example: Who is narrating? Why are they narrating?
Reference this wiki.

Consider this an addendum to my first review.

The narrator in 'A Single Soul' is speaking in the first person as indicated by her use of the words 'our' and 'us'.
So pay attention to this passage from the wiki - 'It is a character in the work, who must follow all of the rules of being a character, even during its duties as narrator. For it to know anything, it must experience it with its senses, or be told about it. It can interject its own thoughts and opinions, but not those of any other character, unless clearly told about those thoughts.'

So the first few pages are fine but it gets to be bad starting at page 4. The narrator starts talking about things that she didn't experience and couldn't have known. So unless you want to try to make a ridiculous case that these reborn warrior women spent a night discussing mundane details like whether she choked when she started to breathe again, that's a break in narrative mode and there's really no excuse for that. Shoddy storytelling.

4. Aeon of the Dead
Plot-O-Matic suggests a quest, pursuit, perhaps revenge, possibly underdog or sacrifice.
I guess I'd say that the strength of the entry is that an easy to understand premise has been established and there are many directions that Dean can go to from here.
But on the other hand it's hard to get excited about a post-apocalyptic zombie tale. Not that there's anything wrong with that but the setting and the characters have been explored so often that there has to be a character 'edge' to involve us in the story.

Ya know what would've been bitchin' cool actually?
If the horse had been seen glaring at the girl's back, hatred apparent in his eyes.
Yes I know that's not the story you're writing here (and I don't say this to be mean) but what I'm reading is pretty fucking boring.

In all other regards I think it's a solid entry. I like the art, the storytelling is clear, no problem with the lettering.
There IS a hell of a lot of narration again but at least it's utilized in a relatively unobtrusive manner. A dry lead-in that is over quickly and then a pure first person narrative that never breaks character or tells us something that could easily have been expressed in the art, but the narration still managed to deaden the action. If I may make a slightly more reasonable suggestion to Dean; I think it would've been in your best interests to have her speak out loud a few of the thought lines.
"What big teeth you have..."
and
"Just a weak, half-starved stray."

It would've brought the reader closer to the action and made it more fun.

So I'm giving Aeon a 3 out of 5.

5 comments:

RKB said...

Yes, a kindred spirit over speaking out on the over use, miss use, God help us all just stop it use, of narration. It's too passive a read when you only have 8 screens. i think in the Zuda format I would have been more drawn in if Aeon, and a single soul too, had been silent screens, I would have known less about what was going on but, that mystery (a woman riding a horse down a highway; why???), would have made me more interested in the story. I liked the evil eye look the horse gave her, the horse should have showed more personality it was a high-light in this there we go again zombie story. I think everyone on Zuda (this doesn't just apply to zombies or vampire stories), has plans to put their own twist on things so it's not another stereotypical story. In only 8 screens if you can't give us your twist on the genre story, you need to at least give us some good hints your going to get off on the road less traveled pretty quick. I just kept thinking of the chick from The walking Dead, who kills the zombies with katanna's. It's a comic, not real just once I wish they would go with a tough gal killing the baddies with a bastard sword or something. Just a change of pace. Having your hero not playing samurai with a kitanna would be a nice twist on a genre stereotype come to think of it.

caanantheartboy said...

I will be sad to see Eli Stone go. :o(

Paul said...

what? do you know something about eli? they can't have pulled the plug already!>!?

caanantheartboy said...

There was a joint announcement about non-renewals. Most people focused on the demise of Pushing Daisies and Bryan Fuller's return to Heroes, but Eli Stone was sadly among the bunch.

I wasn't sure if Eli could top its first season, but it absolutely did.

Another one bites the dust. )o|

Paul said...

oh my god. they're dropping their best new shows. Fuck.
Oh and Private Practice fucking blows which you didn't mention and I'm bringing totally out of the blue but it sucks SO bad.

And it's not that I just hate the show. I also hate Grays Anatomy but I'm willing to admit that it's well written and reasonably well acted.

Well that's bullshit.