Do you miss Valiant time coding?

Zaphod · Post by **Zaphod** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 12:33 pm

I was re-reading X-0 Birth last night, after I'd re-read X-O #1&2 (2012) and the missing time codes at the start of scene's made me a little disappointed. That was one of the coolest aspects of Valiant, that you could map out the events of Valiant sequentially from book to book to know where every character was in a shared universe.

Yanno, if you were a big enough nerd and lets face it...there are a good number of us who were.

Is this something you miss in the new Valiant?
Do you miss it enough to start a petition?

BugsySig · Post by **BugsySig** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 12:40 pm

It was very cool, but I am not such a nerd (though it's close) that I need to track every character in a universe. Plus, that has to be an editorial nightmare that a start up just doesn't need right now.

tchalla8 · Post by **tchalla8** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 12:47 pm

It was a cool little addition, but truthfully its wasn't like I could keep all those time codes chronologically straight in my head where I knew what Aric was doing one hour prior to what Jack Boniface was doing as I was reading. My memory isn't nearly photographic enough

Zaphod · Post by **Zaphod** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 12:54 pm

BugsySig wrote:It was very cool, but I am not such a nerd (though it's close) that I need to track every character in a universe. Plus, that has to be an editorial nightmare that a start up just doesn't need right now.

Brings up a subquestion that I don't know the answer to: did Valiant start off the coding from the start of VH1.

This seems like a Shooter thing that he forced on each title so not having a megalomaniac involved is probably a good thing.

Heath · Post by **Heath** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 12:57 pm

I do miss it! It showed how much thought was put into the universe and the stories. It was something unique to Valiant that made it just a little bit more special. The lack of those date/time stamps is the only thing that has disappointed me so far.

BugsySig · Post by **BugsySig** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 12:58 pm

Zaphod wrote:
BugsySig wrote:It was very cool, but I am not such a nerd (though it's close) that I need to track every character in a universe. Plus, that has to be an editorial nightmare that a start up just doesn't need right now.
Brings up a subquestion that I don't know the answer to: did Valiant start off the coding from the start of VH1.

This seems like a Shooter thing that he forced on each title so not having a megalomaniac involved is probably a good thing.

I don't know for sure because I haven't read the Early Solar or Magnus, but Harbinger, Rai, XO, Shadowman and A&A all had it.

Also, though I don't mind not having it, I was half-expecting to see it in the books and was slighltly disappointed not to.

ckb · Post by **ckb** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 2:51 pm

This is a very "Shooter" thing to do.

Aram · Post by **Aram** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 4:20 pm

ckb wrote:This is a very "Shooter" thing to do.

Yeah, classic Shooter. Though I loved that little feature.. It does rather date the stories. Whereas with the new way the stories could possibly hold up much longer with the great art so far. I could see new readers reading these for the first time a decade or so from now and not feeling that they are dated like the art and storys from the original that certainly feel like comics from writers and artists of the 80's and 90's.

400yrs · Post by **400yrs** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 5:38 pm

etos45 · Post by **etos45** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 6:06 pm

It's funny that you mention this because I was thinking about it last night. I do wish that they still dated the stories for the same reasons everyone is mentioning, but I'm okay with them leaving it out because if they aren't very diligent with it there could be continuity mess ups and that irks me to no end.

Spagg · Post by **Spagg** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 7:21 pm

I do miss it, but I am so thrilled to be reading new stories I don't care too much!!

Dr. Solar · Post by **Dr. Solar** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 9:07 pm

I like when time stamps are included when they add something to the story, like when you can see how events shown in different scenes, or different books, happen at the same time, or the order of events.

I don't like the year stamp, it makes reading older issues feel dated unnecessarily.

jmatt · Post by **jmatt** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 9:13 pm

I always thought the dating was a nice touch, but I'm not really missing it in the new books.

betterthanezra · Post by **betterthanezra** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 9:14 pm

Dr. Solar wrote:I don't like the year stamp, it makes reading older issues feel dated unnecessarily.

I agree with that...

I really don't miss them.

-Brian

Phoenix8008 · Post by **Phoenix8008** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 11:46 pm

I hadn't thought about it until you brought it up, but now that you mention it, I do miss it. That was a very neat feature that I used heavily when I was putting together my Magnus, Rai, and Psi-Lords titles into one continuous list. I went from title to title marking down the date stamps in order to put them together chronologically.

So personally, I'd like to see the time stamps back. But I'd be able to live without them I guess.

jmatt · Post by **jmatt** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 11:59 am

Ya know where time coding would be useful and pretty neat? In the digital version of these books.

What if your collection could be organized along a visual timeline of panel dates, so that if you chose to you could read the universe chronologically, page by page, panel by panel?

Or as you added a new book to your collection, it could break down the book to show you where events fit into the surrounding events of your existing collection, before sliding them down into the timeline.

It would be a pretty cool visual effect.

geocarr · Post by **geocarr** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 12:35 pm

I liked it because:

Heath wrote:It showed how much thought was put into the universe and the stories.

Dr. Solar wrote:I like when time stamps are included when they add something to the story, like when you can see how events shown in different scenes, or different books, happen at the same time, or the order of events.

Phoenix8008 wrote:I went from title to title marking down the date stamps in order to put them together chronologically.

I wouldn't like it because:

etos45 wrote:If they aren't very diligent with it there could be continuity mess ups and that irks me to no end.

Dr. Solar wrote:I don't like the year stamp, it makes reading older issues feel dated unnecessarily.

grendeljd · Post by **grendeljd** » Tue Jun 19, 2012 9:03 am

I wouldn't want to see it in the new books.

I liked it fine the first time around, but I seem to recall it fading out after awhile? Dunno, I'd have to check. Seems to me it was one of Shooters ideas to keep everything flowing together that may have become too difficult to keep up with. Like with his previous New Universe for Marvel, where I think they were trying to stick to the idea that a month of real time passed between issues, making it a bit tougher to do a multi-issue story arc.

buff-beardo · Post by **buff-beardo** » Tue Jun 19, 2012 2:43 pm

I miss it, but I bet it is a PITA for the creators involved.

hulk181man · Post by **hulk181man** » Tue Jun 19, 2012 4:17 pm

buff-beardo wrote:I miss it, but I bet it is a PITA for the creators involved.

Agreed

IanAlexavier · Post by **IanAlexavier** » Tue Jun 19, 2012 9:04 pm

I miss it.. yes, I but it is a big pain for editors or whoever checks it. I like it for several reasons:

It dates the comics. I know some will see this as a bad thing, but I see it as a good thing. The ads do it anyways, and so does the real world technology presented in the panels.

It holds the company to a tight continuity. I LOVED this about VH1. I hope DNV falls into this pattern.

Im with Matt: It would be awesome to read these via time line panels for whatever books you might have in your digital collect.

Thats INNOVATION!

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