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Shown Their Work/Comic Books: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
* ''American Flagg'' included a recipe for each story that showed Reuben Flagg's cooking Italian food.
* ''[[
** The best thing is walking through the Art/History Museum in Brussels and discovering e.g. the fetish statue from the "[[Tintin
** Herge's drive for realism probably culminated in ''[[Tintin
*** In the same story, the fire truck shown after the house explodes was the exact reproduction of the actual fire truck of the town, down to the NUMBER PLATE.
*** Probably inspired by Herge's example, anal-retentive amounts of research and detail has become a defining trait of the ''ligne claire'' comic artists.
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* Many [[Batman]] stories written by Doug Moench, especially from the ''Batman'' flagship title, take unexpected sidesteps from the actual plot to allow for lengthy monologues or discussions of scientific, religious or philosophical nature. Unsurprisingly, even the discussions between two characters come across like the writer talking down to the audience.
** Examples include: a museum security guard explaining the infamous Brontosaurus/Apatosaurus revision in ''Showcase '93'' # 7, police lieutenant "Hardback" Bock giving a lengthy discussion about the origins and details of real-life alchemy in ''Batman'' # 546, and a detailed description of photosynthesis as utilized by algae in ''Batman'' # 367.
* Brian K. Vaughan has a tendency to throw random factoids into his comics writing. While this is reasonable for [[Y:
** In fact, they've been doing this in Marvel comics for a while. ''[[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]]'', for example, often has tidbits about this or that, mostly about spider biology.
** In one X-Men story involving the space shuttle nearly everything was correct - and this comic was written before the first time a shuttle actually went into space. Props to [[Chris Claremont]]!
* [[Disney]] comics are not usually known for their accuracy, with one notable exception: Stories by the renowned comic book writer and illustrator [[Don Rosa]] often present surprisingly accurate and well-researched history, geography and even science (for example, if you see some mathematical formula in some comic of his, you can be pretty certain the formula is, in fact, real and accurate). Rosa is known for the amount of research he makes for some of his stories.
** ''[[
** In the collected edition of ''[[The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck]]'', Rosa notes out that he found specific points in time where certain historical figures would be in the same place. He also mentions when he has to "bend" the facts at certain points to make a better story, but it's fairly rare.
* Just about every [[Silver Age]] ''[[Flash]]'' story is solved using a random law of physics, expressed by Barry Allen (a forensic scientist) as a "Flash Fact". Wally West, thankfully, remembers the lessons from his days as Kid Flash, though now he has the Speed Force to help him with all the stuff that can't be done by physics (like breathing while running at near-lightspeed).
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* [[Neil Gaiman]] does this a lot with mythology. He also has a tendency, though, to come up with things that ''sound'' like they came from actual myth or history, but he really just pulled out of his ass to fit the plot. Finding out which is which is part of the fun.
** Gaiman pretended at the end of ''Dream Hunters'' that the story was adapted from the tale "''The Fox, the Monk, and the Mikado of All Night's Dreaming''", a traditional Japanese tale he had found in the book ''Fairy Tales of All Japan'' by Rev. B. W. Ashton while doing research for ''[[Princess Mononoke]]''. This information was mentioned in almost every critics of the book. A few years later, Gaiman admitted in the preface of ''Endless Nights'' that he had completely made it up.
** A similar example exists, though not based in mythology when he did research for ''[[
*** [[Catch Me If You Can|Frank Abagale Jr.]] did that in [[Real Life]] decades before Gaiman put it on paper, though it's unclear if he knew about it while writing the book.
** His ''[[Marvel 1602]]'' really shows how much research he did into Marvel history, or just knew off the top of his head. For example, Nicholas Fury describes his organization as England's "shield", a reference to his "S.H.I.E.L.D." organization in the regular comics. However, he also mentions that [[Spider-Man|Peter Parquagh]]'s parents used to work for him. Most people ''don't'' know that Richard and May Parker were SHIELD agents.
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* [[Garth Nix]] does something similar to the above, but it largely amounts to him throwing in every bit of cool-sounding mythology he can find. [[Rule of Cool|No one minds]]. In one of his books, he says how surprised he was when his editor informed him he couldn't use Aboriginal elements in his story [[Unfortunate Implications|because he was a white Australian]].
* ''Wolverine First Class'' had an issue about Wolverine helping a team of Canadian superheroes rescue the Governor-General of Canada, who was being held hostage in ''La Citadelle'' in Quebec City. It had accurate descriptions of Canada's government, fairly spot-on drawings of Canadian military uniforms, and a few nice [[Bilingual Bonus|bilingual bonuses]].
* [[Larry Niven]] did the prestige format "Ganthet's Tale" for ''[[Green Lantern]]'', and inserted his own hard science twist to Hal Jordan's known abilities. Hal has to defeat a rogue green lantern, but they are too evenly matched. So Hal uses his ring to fly at near-lightspeed - backwards, away from the target. He then lets loose with a green energy beam of power. But because Hal is moving away at near-light, the beam is red-shifted, and transforms into a YELLOW beam, which bypasses the other lantern's defenses. This was used [[It Only Works Once|little if it all afterwards]]. Bizarrely enough, one of the few other places this turns up in was ''[[
* ''Clan Apis''. Is a educational work that happens to also tell an interesting story. Jay Hosler is an entomologist/biologist and writes his works with education as the main point... though that's not to say that his works don't have a good narrative push. Another example of this is Optical Allusions and... well... you can tell by the title that he's done the research.
* In ''[[Ex Machina]]'', everyone slips statistics or historical factoids into their dialogue without missing a beat. Then again the main cast is the Mayor of [[New York City]] and his staff. Politicians are usually pretty good at spewing out statistics. This is lampshaded when [[Brian K. Vaughan]] and Tony Harris meet by a statue (yes, inside the comic) and Brian starts to say something about the statue, until Tony interrupts him and pleads him not to say random factoids.
* ''[[Kingdom Come]]'' couldn't possibly have been made without the most intimate understanding of every facet of the [[DCU]].
** [[Mark Waid]], the man who wrote it, is known as "the living, breathing DC encyclopedia" due to the insane amount of knowledge he has on [[The DCU]]; to the point where DC sometimes holds "stump Mark Waid" contests at conventions just to find out what he ''doesn't'' know.
* George Woodbridge was a ''[[Mad Magazine]]'' artist for over forty years. He was also one of the world's foremost experts on historical military uniforms. Every time he drew military personnel, their uniforms were accurate down to the right kind of buttons for the time period.
* ''[[Y:
* When it comes to adding random (albeit often relevant) factoids into the dialogue, [[Peter David]] can outdo [[Brian K. Vaughan]] any day.
* In ''[[Fifty Two]]'' the writers intended to have [[Gotham Central|Renee]] [[The Question|Montoya]] be an actual alcoholic, not a light-hearted [[Bottle Fairy]]. To help illustrate this, in one scene she takes a pair of aspirin while on a stakeout. The panel where she puts the pills in her mouth was specifically drawn to give the impression that she was chewing the pills and not just swallowing them; this is, apparently, "an old drunks trick."
* [[Greg Rucka]] did a shocking amount of research on the geography, history, weather and politics of Antarctica for his first comic, ''[[Whiteout]]''. The portrayal of the continent itself and the behavior of research stations and governments on its territory has been heralded as one of the most accurate depictions of Antarctica in American media.
* Anything Pat Mills has written.
* [[Larry Hama]] is a Vietnam veteran, military expert, and Japanophile. This is apparent in the level of detail that appears whenever he writes a comic book dealing with those topics, such as ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' and ''[[Nth Man:
* Early on in ''[[The Losers]]'', some random criminals are ambushed while doing a deal at a dock, near their car. One advises his colleague to hide near the wheel well of the car, since bodywork won't stop their attackers' bullets, while the engine probably would. There are not many people who know this. [[Writer
* Many of Mike Mignolia's ''[[Hellboy (
* Before writing the ''[[Mega Man (
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