Is the amount of Thrill Power in comics declining?

I know, right? So it was a Marvel art-comic, sort of. I guess I'm just saying that maybe DV is manufacturing categories where none are needed for the purposes of threading.

Categories aside, I agree that the sci-fi closet needs to be opened!

I guess I'm just saying that maybe DV is manufacturing categories where none are needed for the purposes of threading.

I'm not manufacturing categories! I read them in a book, by an ILC poster. The art-comics / mainstream split seems to be a big thing there.

Thrill Power - a somewhat harder to define thing, but there is a piece on Freaky Trigger where Tom Ewing talks about it. Basically, people hoping they drown before the giant scorpion get them = thrill power, while an autobiographical comic about people sitting around being depressed = no thrill power.

I reckon Watchmen has thrill power... I'm thinking bits like when Rorshach tries to fight his way out of Moloch's house, and so on. Whether it is art comic or mainstream I am not so sure, but that is partly because I am not entirely convinced by the dichotomy.

I think there's an archness about action scenes in some mainstream comic books today (anything by Bendis or Judd Winick, say) that is kind of antithetical to thrill-power values. I mean, 2000AD was always pretty arch, but it was never so winkingly meta about it.

These days? Batman #666 was pretty thrill-powered, I'd say. And Mark Millar's Fantastic Four might be if tones down the smugness. But I can't think of any other current examples right now. (I'd say Matt Fraction's comics, but I can't get into his stuff as much as the rest of you guys.)

... and I think that's reflected a lot in movies and television today also (Life on Mars and Grindhouse, say) where thrill-power has become "thrill-power".

Brave & Bold is exceptionally thrill-powered. The place where Bendis really delivers the thrlpwr goods is Ultimate Spider-Man, I think, although it reads better in trades. Also, Death Note was nonstop OMG WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN NEXT?!?! WHAT'S KIRA DOING???? AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!

Yeah, Fraction is pretty thorough with the Thrill Power. Iron Fist and Casanova were the first two books I thought of. And the last few issues of Blue Beetle, too.

artiness & thrill power can co-exist, like old morrison stuff for ex. (animal man, invisibles, etc.).

i can't think of anything i'm reading right now that's especially thrill-powered.

I'd highly recommend METAL MEN if yr. looking for sci-fi closet/thrllpwr thrills. Stunderful to gaze at as well, even if you don't bother with those pesky word balloons.

the batman vs. superman story in that new frontier special was powered by thrills, even if the point of NF is to be self-consciously retro.

PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL is, well, very problematic (in that every third issue resides in sombertown) but when it aspires for the thrillpower, it's pure giddiness. I'm thinking in particular of the WORLD WAR HULK tie-in which featured Frank in a makeshift venom outfit and the use of a GUN THAT SHOOTS SWORDS.

Actually, one book that's got some cerebral thrillpowa (if it's defined by cliffhangers and twists and turns) that I'm not sure anyone's reading is WASTELAND (by Antony Johnson and Christopher Mitten (and occasional guest artists, including Carla Speed McNeil). #1 for free (and a better explanation of the series than anything I could offer) right here.

wasteland seems cool, very 2000AD. The art reminds me of both Ezquerra and Cam Kennedy.

In a post-The Postman world, I'm pretty sick of post-apocalypse stories. But in a post-having-read-the-first-one world, I could see reading some more.

There doesn't seem to be anything that special about the setting judging from the first one, but it's done with enough style to overcome that.

I like the trend of using a monthly comic to tell an extended sci-fi story, rather than as a vehicle for more episodic superhero stuff.

Death Note seconded. Mentalness.

Scott Pilgrim has more than enough thrill power for this entire decade of comics.

Yeah, yeah: Blue Beetle (as much as there's a definite throughline for the whole series, there's a lot of weirdy-ass weirdo stuff that feels thrown in as it's conceived), Scott Pilgrim (enough shit comes out of the blue to qualify as T.P., eg, Experience Points).
ALSO: ASSBATS is pure thrill-power. Miller is clearly making shit up and cranking it up as he goes, responding to reader-reaction and pointedly pushing as many tittilation buttons as he can find. One can only imagine how freaky it would be w/ a faster artist.

Comics, at least in the US are not selling above mid-90s levels, unless you're talking the worst of the crash, and even then the loss of newsstand distribution (which really happened by the early 90s) decimated readership far more than the crash itself.

As for thrill power? I dunno, it's a hard thing to find these days. There's a lot of service to the fanbase that's supposed to be thrill-powered on its surface, but doesn't often actually deliver. Moments of it in stuff like WORLD WAR HULK, but it just couldn't close the deal. Some fun in TEKKONKINKREET, or however it's spelled, but it got awful emo at moments as well.

Oh, ALL-STAR SUPERMAN usually packs a punch, but it's a different flavor of thrill, to be sure.

How come art comics doesn't want to thrill?

How is it people are enjoying ASSBATS non-ironically?

"One can only imagine how freaky it would be w/ a faster artist."

Actually, Jim Lee isn't the reason why it's always late.

is it still ironic enjoyment if miller is in on the joke?

What is the reason? I always just assume if a books like its the guy who draws it's fault. Does that make me an artist?

Wait, that doesn't work.

It's everyone's fault -- for example, most of Warren Ellis' books are often late because of WE's storied script lateness. Same w/ GM's work on the WildStorm books.

This just means that creative talent is more hassle than it's worth, and every spandex book should be helmed by the Countdown crew.

Yep. Tardiness is often a group effort. If the script starts late, then woah nelly, things get out of hand very quickly.

Is he talking about Thrill Power?

I think he's talking about something that gets lumped in with thrill power, but not Thrill Power in and of itself.

For instance, FINAL CRISIS might have been thrill-powered, but its storytelling style kinda robbed the works of its Thrill Power. Does that make sense? I realize I'm probably just one in a small handful of people who didn't embrace the FINAL CRISIS experience fully (particularly given the Morrison love often showed at ILC, even often by myself.)

Personally, I love the mad ideas, but there has to be something to hang them on. Maybe it's just me.

There are enough comics that really belabor their plot points and overexplain their points and themes that I'm glad to have SOME Mad Ideas/Thrill Power/Gimmick-driven-plot comics now and then. Especially with a baby in the house, I got no time for prose-heavy mags. Last week's Legion of 3 Worlds, for eg, is busting my hump with all its words and shit.

that I'm glad to have SOME Mad Ideas/Thrill Power/Gimmick-driven-plot comics now and then that err in the other direction, I meant to add

http://canvaspaint.org/a82a.png

The little dude is supposed to be jimmy corrigan.

I LOLd IRL.

For instance, FINAL CRISIS might have been thrill-powered, but its storytelling style kinda robbed the works of its Thrill Power.

Final Crisis is the very antithesis of thrill power. You are right on the storytelling style, but worse is its tiresome continuity rockism. And general lack of thrill power.

Legion of 3 Worlds was pretty thrill-powered, I thought! Yeah, there's too much cumbersome talky talky, but there's a lot of forward momentum in it. Maybe there's an, um, American-style thrill power that's different from the UK version? The Chaykin-Miller brutalist school, perhaps, rather than the goofball-psychedelic-kitchen-sink British style of Mills, Morrison etc.

I must admit, I didn't get a lot of pleasure out of reading Final Crisis (at least in the middle issues 4-6) -- by design its meant to feel doomy and oppressive. So I don't think thrill power's the appropriate measure here...

continuity rockism ftw!

I have to admit, I'd been away long enough to forget all about continuity rockism.

And it's weird that Morrison went that route in making an ur-text for the DCU, since previously, he'd done a great job just dealing with the essential components of the characters (I'm thinking his JLA and X-MEN runs here, but prolly DOOM PATROL as well, maybe) and running with that.

the powar has gone to his head

absolute thrill power corrupts absolutely