This Is My Web Log That Belongs To Me

brevoortformspring:

Well, any number of things have changed, including the world that we live in.

Mark spent an awful lot of time trying to police continuity errors. Sometimes he’d write whole stories that only existed to spackle some bit of continuity. And those stories didn’t tend to be all that wonderful, or even be understandable by those outside the hardest core readers, of which Mark was one.

It’s been almost two decades since Mark died. That’s two decades more of history that we’re dragging around behind us trying to keep straight.

You hit a point of diminishing returns.

My expectation—and this is based on having known Mark and worked with him—is that, had he lived, his own approach to continuity would have changed as well. It would have had to for him to have remained a vital part of this industry in 2014.

It’s the emotional heart of the stories that are the most important thing. Continuity is a storytelling tool, one that can be used effectively but one that can also strangle a good story in its crib if used poorly. It can certainly be alienating to people.

Even Dan Slott only uses continuity in those instances where he chooses to—and he ignores it in those instances where it gets in the way of the story he’s trying to tell. He’s simply using it more often than maybe some other guys, so you notice it more. But it’s not the reason why AMAZING SPIDER-MAN is selling. The reason that ASM is selling is because readers are invested in the stories that Dan is telling—in Peter Parker’s problems, in his supporting cast and his villains, in the specific struggles he faces and how he copes with them. Continuity is a part of that mix, but it’s not the secret ingredient.

Continuity should inform character, but character should drive story. When continuity drives the story, bad stories are (almost invariably) the result. It’s something I feel like Marvel has done really well in a lot of books lately. Good for them.