On Books vs Comics/Manga

[redfiona99]

Thanks to nwhyte I do the Librarything and Goodreads thing (I'm this name over on Librarything and my rl name over on Goodreads) and there's one thing I don't get, not in the "it's a bad thing" way, just in the "huh?" way.

I don't get how you (plural you) can compare books and comics using the same rating scale and system. Because with books you just have to like or dislike the writing, whereas with a comic the pictures matter almost as much.

For example, I am sure that Code Geass is fantastically interesting, but I can't tell two of the characters apart so I didn't carry on after the first volume. Meanwhile, I like the art in Trigun, and I've been told the story is interesting, but it didn't go anywhere within the first three volumes so I dropped that too.

When it's a comic adaptation of a book, I have the same problem. For instance, the 2000AD adaptation of a couple of the Stainless Steel Rat books do a reasonably good summary of the stories in terms of the text and the dialogue, but much though I love Carlos Ezquerra's art, I know what Jim Di Griz looks like and that's not it and it throws me out of stories something chronic, although I doubt it would be a problem if I hadn't read the books first (all hail my high school library). I bought myself the adaptation with my ill-gotten birthdaymas gains and I was thinking of reviewing it but I realised all I was talking about was the art and not the story and I felt weird putting that up on Librarything which is about books.

To me, they're just two too different media to be compared.

Comments

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

I don't know either. I like quite different things in different media and while I'm definitely more of a words person than a pictures person, the art of comics is (or should be!) part of the story, not an afterthought.

[nwhyte]

It's all very confusing. I used to use LibraryThing also for audios, but again it's comparing chalk and cheese. Also my close reading of the Goodreads scale suggests that it is meant to be less generous than LibraryThing - 3 stars on LT equals 2 on GR, but GR doesn't let you do half stars. In the end I have just accepted that it's not an exact science.

[redfiona99.livejournal.com]

I end up having to try to decide whether my "and a halfs" feel more like the next one down or the next one up. I do wish GR would have half stars, I know it'd take more server space but it makes it much easier to rate things.