up vote -13 down vote favorite

The content of comic books is almost entirely Sci-Fi or Fantasy (with a few exceptions), so the sites would drain on each other at least a little.

But Sci-Fi or Fantasy doesn't cover the act of collecting comic books, or creating them.

What do members of the community think about this conundrum?

Proposal: Comic Books

link
@Mark - good find. But what about humor / children comics, eg Disney, etc? – Wikis Mar 11 '11 at 15:46
1  
@Wikis - Good point, I tried to cover that in "(with a few exceptions)", but I was only thinking of Comic Books, which is the title of the proposal. The description of the proposal, however extends beyond Comic Books to all comics. That further complicates matters, and I have no easy solution. – Mark Rogers Mar 11 '11 at 15:51
@Mark - also they talk about "making" comic books, which I guess is also off topic for Sci-Fi? – Wikis Mar 11 '11 at 15:52
@Mark - I think it would make more sense to merge if their proposal was called "Graphic Novels", but it isn't so perhaps it is best to leave it. – Wikis Mar 11 '11 at 15:53
1  
@Wikis - if this proposal launches though does that mean Sci-Fi can no longer accept comic book questions or has to migrate the existing ones? There is a huge drain effect here that I think can't be ignored. – Mark Rogers Mar 11 '11 at 16:00
1  
@Mark - eek, yeah, good point. It's not like sci-fi is overwhelmed with traffic at the moment. We would need clear rules to avoid ping-ponging questions between the sites! – Wikis Mar 11 '11 at 16:02
1  
You mean all those Disney stories aren't Fantasy but regular fiction stories? ;-) – Ivo Flipse Mar 11 '11 at 22:02
@Ivo - darn, yeah. And the Mickey Mouse house has sci-fi elements... :) – Wikis Mar 11 '11 at 22:04
I think I posed this question badly. IMHO, people seem to me primarily concerned with defending Comic Books from being closed, rather than focusing on the very real problem that the proposals have a larger overlap than I've seen exist in previous sites. – Mark Rogers Mar 16 '11 at 21:20
Sci-fi and fantasy are too generic. You could say they cover super heroes but really do they? What about horror (all those E.C. comics). I think Sci-Fi has a place but one that's targeted to comics is needed. – Bil Jun 9 '11 at 14:43
@Bil: Yes, of course, I never disputed that. The problem is that we are going to have to make judgement calls on each question. All comic book questions that involve plot are on-topic for Sci-Fi. That sounds like a cluster-f*ck to me, but most users like yourself, missed the larger issue that I was trying to address. I probably should have phrased it so that the pro-comic book lovers didn't feel the need to give their knee-jerk response. – Mark Rogers Jun 9 '11 at 14:46
@Mark I agree but I think this is the crux of SE/SO in general. Why bother having a Programming exchange and a Games Programming one? You know that people are asking game programming questions in the programming one (yup, just checked) so this is going to happen. I think having the comic book exchange can be the catch all for any comic book genre (see the answer below where there are all kinds of comics out there) and let the Sci-Fi and specific exchanges handle generic questions about those topics. Sorry if I sound like a knee-jerk comic book lover. Maybe I am? ;) – Bil Jun 9 '11 at 14:57
This is my least popular post ever! Popular only in infamy. There's no points involved, lets see how low it can go.:) – Mark Rogers Jul 29 '11 at 18:58
I disagree. Most well known comics are indeed sci-fi and fantasy. But if this were to include plolitical or real-life drama comic books, then they don't fall under fantasy or Sci-fy at all. Comic books are a genre of book, not specific to a few categories of writing. Who said a comic can't be based on real like. IMHO I think most are started and dramatized based on some real life situation. I am basing my opinion of this definition of comic book en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_book – b01 Sep 19 '11 at 16:35
feedback

2 Answers

up vote 16 down vote

No.

 
First and foremost: It's likely that many of the questions on a comic book SE would be about art and artists. These wouldn't fit well into a SFF-focused site.

Comic book genres: There are many genres that comic books can fit into, and it's a drastic over-simplification to limit the field to only SFF.

Using Wikipedia's breakdown, here are some of the genres covered:

Related to SFF

Unrelated to SFF

As you can see, the first list is a fraction of the second. And when you combine that with the art-related questions I mentioned previously, it becomes apparent that the two groups have few overlapping interests.

link
Also while, you are of course correct that not all genres of comics books are Sci-Fi/Fantasy (as I implied in the question), it does seem like the vast majority of comic products are Sci-Fi/Fantasy based, with the exception of newspaper-based and political comics. – Mark Rogers Mar 13 '11 at 16:25
1  
@Dori - Also I wholeheartedly disagree with your assertion that: "it becomes apparent that the two groups have few overlapping interests." For example say someone asks: What makes Superman's alter ego different from other superheroes?, which site is that more on-topic for? Which site should this question be migrated to and from, or at all? What are the implications? – Mark Rogers Mar 13 '11 at 16:43
2  
@Mark: Unless the Comic Books proposal is specifically about mainstream American comic books, and not about comics in general, SF is only a small part. Even in mainstream US comic books, the SF aspects are not predominant, and comic book communities and SF communities don't overlap that much. Franco-belgian comics don't lean much towards SF. – Gilles Mar 15 '11 at 23:02
1  
@Mark: I was shocked by your proposal, and I agree with Dori and Gilles. See my question about limiting the SE site to American comics (answers are: no). Hey, you have manga about making bread or even just plain love stories. Even American comics are not all SF: see The Spirit (hero, not super one), Peanuts, Archie, Calvin & Hobbes, Maus, Prince Vaillant, lot of strips (I feel they belong there too), and so on. – PhiLho Jul 27 '11 at 11:34
feedback
up vote 1 down vote

But Sci-Fi or Fantasy doesn't cover the act of collecting comic books, or creating them.

At present, I think most questions about creating comics can be asked on either the Writers beta (cf. http://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/834/good-books-on-writing-for-comics) and maybe also Graphic Design (I couldn't find a good example question there, though). I'm pretty sure that nearly all questions about publishing comics would be welcome on Writers, though.

This isn't ideal, though.

link
2  
So oddly enough, almost every aspect of comic books is covered by another proposal. But there is so many comic book lovers, I can't see how there won't be a comic book proposal. – Mark Rogers Mar 14 '11 at 14:29
@Mark: I agree. But it may be that comic book creators are not interested in a site that is dominated by fan discussion. I think getting followers/committers to ask their questions where they can is the best way to get a sense of this. – Charles Stewart Mar 15 '11 at 10:43
feedback

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged