Decompressed Comic: Difference between revisions

[[File:Killy_crunch_crunchKilly crunch crunch.jpg|link=Blame|rightframe|Six panels to show a guy eating shortbread.]]

{{quote|''"And then what happened?"<br />

''"Uhhh... about 30 pages of explosions and tidal waves."''|[[Scott Pilgrim]] & Ramona Flowers on ''[[Akira (Manga)|Akira]]''.}}

A trend that flourished in the late 90s and early 00s in the wake of [[Trope Codifier]] ''[[The Authority]]'' written by [[Warren Ellis]] and drawn by Bryan Hitch. Heavily inspired by long-form [[Manga]] series, [[Decompressed Comic|'''Decompressed Comics]]''' rely heavily on [[Splash Panel|Splash Panels]]s, [[Aspect Montage|Aspect Montages]]s and minimal dialogue to maximize the visual effect of a story. ''[[The Authority]]'' aimed to mimic the widescreen action of a Hollywood movie by creating images that were as big and as striking as possible.

When used well, decompression is a useful tool that can not only give artists a chance to stretch their wings but also alter the pace of the issue in order to tell the story more successfully. Of course, like any tool it can be used poorly. Some writers (including, arguably, Ellis himself in later years) used it to pad out thin plots or to blindly mimic then-fashionable trends. Such writers were often accused of [[Writing for Thethe Trade]].

{{examples|Examples}}

* ''[[Akira (Manga)|Akira]]''. That's 6 manga volumes and over 2000 pages. All of them are painstakingly detailed with so many [[Scenery Porn]], [[Scenery Gorn]] and action sequences you know [[Katsuhiro Otomo]] was [[Doing It for Thethe Art]].

* ''[[Cerebus]]'' did this as long ago as the 1980's, minus the big splash pages. Many, many issues have had no "plot" other conversations. The final volume ''The Last Day" ([[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|which shows]] the last day of Cerebus' life) is several hundred pages long. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

** [[Lampshaded]] in the intro for the second issue of the ''[[Ultimate Spider -Man]]'' story where [[Freaky Friday Flip|Spider-Man and Wolverine switchesswitch bodies]]. Bendis appears on the first page and says "This is the last part of the story, I promise. I mean, even '''I''' couldn't milk three issues out of '''this'''."

* The ''[[Star Wars Expanded Universe]]'' comics about the [[Dark Empire|Emperor's rebirth]], written in the nineties, are infamously disliked because they ''aren't'' decompressed, and many, ''many'' important events happen off-panel or else happen very, very quickly.

* Paul Pope is fond of this technique and while his comics so far have have made use of it to a certain extent his current project Battling Boy has according to [[Word of God]] 40 page fight scenes. Apparently the graphic novel is taking so long because it is going to be a truly epic [[Door StopperDoorstopper]].

* Ironically enough [[Geoff Johns]], who supposedly left Marvel so he wouldn't be forced to write like this, has started to adeptadopt this writing style into more and more of his works. The most notable examples as of late has been ''Legion of 3 Worlds'' and '"Flash Rebirth.''

* Ever since ''[[Transformers: All Hail Megatron]]'', most of IDW's "main" ''[[Transformers]]'' comics have suffered from the negative aspect of this trope, with issues feeling more like half or even a third of an issue than a full issue. Needless to say, "Speed up the pace!" has become an increasingly common post to be seen on the IDW Transformers forum. This has also been parodied extensively, most notably by [[Walkyverse|David Willis]] [http://www.shortpacked.com/blog/comic/book-11/03-vote-chopperface/costa-2/ here].

* '''365 Samurai and a Few Bowls of Rice''' consist of a panelspanel taking up each page entirely and story tellingstorytelling focused on mood and atmosphere.

* While not too bad, ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20190717190935/http://www.tnemrot.com/ Tnemrot]'' is quite decompressed.

* Lately ''[[Misfile]]'' has been including more and more establishing panels. Thankfully it updates five pages a week, but it still gets annoying.

* ''[[Copper]]'' ([https://web.archive.org/web/20131020212405/http://www.boltcity.com/copper/\ here]) is made of this, though pages are self-contained and some are wordier than most of these.

* [[Osamu Tezuka]] is arguably the [[Trope Maker]] (as with much else in manga). For instance, ''[[Astro Boy (Mangamanga)|Astro Boy]]'''s origin story contains a few pages of Tobio driving around before he crashes his car, to build up tension and give the audience the feel of the speed of the vehicle.

* ''[[Vattu]]'' is incredibly decompressed; the first couple of pages are just a baby being tossed over a fire.

* [[Deadpool]] plays this for laughs once, having Deadpool take a leak for one and a half pages. Overlaps with [[Overly Long Gag|overly long gag]] here.

* The Manga version of ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'' does this a few times to emphasise the [[Buffy -Speak|over-the-top-ness]] of the goings-on. For example, one Giga Drill Breaker (the standard [[Finishing Move]] of the series) once took ''11 pages''.