<chortle>

I guess I was missing the thrill of a good old-fashioned Sondersted-defends-Byrne debate, so I posted, and Paul didn't disappoint! Thanks, Paul!

Yes, thanks, Jimbo, this is exactly what I was thinking of as an example of Byrne's nonsensical rule-making. And even by his own criterion, he's wrong about that Teen Titans splash. The heroes are all basically charging forward to engage the enemy, though each in their own distinctive ways. It's all one big action with multiple actors.

But later in the thread, there are several great splash panels, most notably by Kirby, that do contain characters engaged in multiple different actions, some related, some unrelated. And that's part of what makes them so great, the fact that you can wander around the images and find new aspects that maybe you missed or skimmed over the first time. That's one of the magical aspects of comics, the fact that a single panel can contain extended periods of time and multiple actions, as Scott McCloud has pointed out (although his unwillingness to include The Family Circus is a weird blind spot for him).

And Byrne doesn't seem to mind those Kirby panels. So Byrne is wrong about his definition of a panel, wrong about what fits his definition, and willing to ignore examples that don't fit his definition when it suits him.

And this is what I was thinking of as one of Byrne's attacks on another artist's work:



Apparently Byrne didn't read the "Great Darkness Saga" from LSH, since the panel referred to is indeed one of the most thrilling moments from that story.

Besides which, just a few posts earlier in the thread, we see a panel of Byrne knocking over Galactus. So he's a hypocrite.

Rubbing Peter didn't pay off for Paul.

The difference in both cases is a slight shift in tense, not really important in either case. But in one case Byrne feels the difference is worth quibbling about, and in the second case he won't even acknowledge someone else's quibble.

Since I see that you share Byrne's apparent blind spot here, Paul, I will now waste our time by laying this out in detail, in the hope that we can avoid an extended back-and-forth that would waste even more time.

The first quote is from the Hobgoblin, telling Spider-Man, "Oh, I'll tell you everything all right! AFTER I'm standing over your bleeding corpse!"

To which Byrne comments:


Byrne is correct that AFTER implies the future tense, while the clause it modifies is in the present tense. It's clumsy writing. But real spoken dialogue often includes small mismatches of tense, just like this. And Byrne's change doesn't sound like natural speech. Another possibility might be "ONCE I'm standing over your bleeding corpse," although it doesn't sound much better, and loses the emphatic character of AFTER. AFTER is the part we want to keep, while changing the rest of the sentence to match it, if possible.

The real problem with the sentence appears to be that it was originally meant to be "I'll tell you everything all right! AFTER I kill you!" Which would have had a small tense disagreement too, but one of a kind that is used so often in everyday speech that nobody would mind it at all. (For comparison, imagine "I'll tell you AFTER I eat lunch!" versus Byrne's alternative.) But the writer chose a more flowery alternative, making the mismatched tense more obvious.

To belabor the point even more: The sentence could have been "I'll tell you everything all right … AFTER I stand over your bleeding corpse!" Or "I'll tell you everything all right … AFTER I have stood over your bleeding corpse!" That would make the tenses match up exactly, while driving home the point that Hobgoblin won't tell NOW, he will only tell AFTER some future event. But once again, insistence on strict tense agreement results in a clunky, awkward statement that nobody would ever say in real life. The sentence as written isn't quite right for a written essay, but it's fine for spoken dialogue.

So Byrne's quibble is technically correct, but actually wrong.

*****

Now let's look at the second quibble, brought up by Gary Olson:



Olson is probably thinking that the phrase "horrible to contemplate" is a much more common usage than "horrible to comprehend." Which we can confirm using the handy Google Books Ngram Viewer

Ngram Viewer

which also shows that "horrible to comprehend" is almost always used as part of "TOO horrible to comprehend" rather than on its own.

Besides the usage frequency, contemplate carries implications of planning an action for oneself, whereas comprehend may imply understanding of the actions of another. So contemplate would fit better in this context, where Capt. America is planning to chop off Baron Blood's head, not just understanding what such an action means.

But what I think may have influenced writer Roger Stern in this case was again a question of verb tense. He may have thought, you comprehend the present, while you contemplate times more distant, either in the future or the past. Cap was making a split-second decision, right in the moment, so he just had to understand what he had to do. He didn't have time to weigh options about what might be good or bad in the future, even a few seconds from his immediate present. So the use of comprehend is defensible as matching the present tense more exactly, even if it sounds a bit less normal than the alternative.

And so, just as with Byrne's first quibble, we have a choice between present tense and (slightly) future tense. Olson's quibble is just as valid as Byrne's, and it is based on similar reasoning, and it even has a stronger basis in actual common usage. But Byrne chooses not to recognize this at all. Once again, he is a hypocrite who applies arbitrary standards to others, but won't apply those same standards to himself or his buddies.

I apologize to everyone for that interminable mess I have just written, and I perfectly understand if you didn't read it. In summary, Paul, Byrne is an ass. But I do recognize that you don't see it that way, and that's fine.

You're entirely!

So asking "why" is not a legitimate acknowledgment?

And you really see only a slight shift between the words "after" & "while?"



Pebble in the ocean for me.



Wow! These comic books shore is fun readin'!

Seriously, though. I hope you realize that you are quibbling about someone else you consider to be quibbling?

JB's response & opinion may indeed be a quibble, but your over-the-top reaction (via microscope) is much worse than that.

As with most other such occurrences when others bring out their handy-dandy agenda-filled opinions, things get exaggerated.

I'm sure there will be some here (besides yourself, of course) that will appear grateful to you for resurrecting this blatant form of opportunism.

To me, as usual, it just seems petty.



All this based on JB responding with the word "why." Still trying to find the stone face in the post, by the way.



What I do recognize is pandering to a built-in audience of detrimental personalities. What I also recognize is a failed attempt at being patronizing, but that's not unexpected in the least.

In any case, and this is something that I've stated (in more ways than one) a few times in the past...JB CAN certainly be an ass...just not this particular time.

Ah, but Alex, you're being the voice of reason! You cad!

Things we know: Byrne is a nitpicker but nitpicking is only allowed regarding other people's work.

Byrne has rules but he applies them inconsistently and hypocritically.

And Paul is nowhere to be seen for months on end until this thread springs into life, which suggests that he monitors this thread on a daily basis, waiting for his opportunity to defend his lord and master.

And Paul, have you read Cold War yet?