Real time storytelling

By RazzaTazz February 1, 2012 2 Comments

One of the interesting things about comics is the time scale which they operate in.  Some take pains to stick to a realistic timeline where the heroes age exactly one month by the time that the month has turned in real life, thus keeping characters in real time.  Others play with time as they will, running through weeks or even years in some panels, and then minutes in others.  A further kind is another version of real time, and that is real time as it applies to the individiual reader and their comic book reading experience as though these are connected together.  That is to say that if it takes on average 7-10 minutes to read a single issue that the action in three issues would take place in 20-30 minutes real time.  Of course it is understandable to mix back and forth between the different timelines as the plot dictates, but it has struck me as odd that thus far in the new 52 that two series have more or less stuck to this compacted storytelling method.  The first is Justice League, which after the first issue has all seemed to happen in a time even shorter than what the reader can read, and also in Supergirl, which can be broken into about two or three blocks, although the first three issues happened essentially in this compacted real time.   
 
I personally find this story telling style pretty intensive and I do like it, but the form is much more conducive to an action style storyline thus in a sense restricting any deeper meanings for the series.  This is just what I feel though, any one likes or dislikes a specific style?

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