I'm still pondering the whole MYSA-AS thing, but I don't have any startling conclusions. I've looked at most of the new books I bought, even though I haven't had time to read all of them thoroughly.

Seems to be like almost any genre of fiction. There are things being sold that surprise you.

There are people whose story-telling ability doesn't rise much above that of the average (and not in a good way) fanfic story.

There are people whose drawing ability seems to vary wildly from one panel to the next. (I understand from the author's notes that there's sometimes a "team" of people working on the graphics, but surely that can't explain why some panels look remarkably like the drawings that I, with a dozen hours of "practice" under my belt, am producing.)

There's too much non-con (okay, that's my squick, but this is my blog) or borderline non-con stuff and when it is consensual, it's not always clearly laid out that way.

Avoiding complete titles to stay below the radar of fandom, let me mention that the "Gravit___n" series was mentioned to me. I looked at it in the bookstore and decided it did look like something I'd like to read.

Upon getting into it, I find borderline non-con, actual non-con in the form of a gang-bang r*pe scene (from which the victim recovers instantly with no aftereffects), a storyline that tears along like an out-of-control freight train for no sensible reason, very uneven drawing, and an almost inconceivable lack of depth and nuance in the primary protagonist. At one point his lover advises the guy to get some ritalin. Me, I would have suggested prozac. And maybe some heavy-duty therapy. (Even before the gang-bang.)

Also? The thing about drawing a character looking like a two year-old, to indicate he/she is acting immature? Such a squick when they're in a sexual relationship with another character. Just gross. When, in the series under discussion, the "hero" was suddenly pictured as a toddler, hanging desperately from his lover's arm? So. Grossed. Out.

Don't get me wrong. The series is very compelling, but not for the character of the "hero" of the story. It's actually the lover and his familial/business/etc. ramifications that make the story work.

Oddly, the whole half-morphing into an animal thing doesn't bother me half as much. It's also used to illustrate emotion (or to hint at motives), but it doesn't squick me.

And I find the reading back-to-front, right-to-left fun and interesting, although that could be my dyslexia kicking in. One series I bought turned out to be laid out like a "regular" book and that annoyed me.

I get lost in "action" scenes sometimes. Remember how Batman (60s era) filled the screen with POW! SOCK! WHAM! sometimes? Some MYSA-AS books offer a panel like that with no indicator of precisely what happened or who done what to who. While I'm irrationally entertained to see, in the next panel, a character with a bandaged X on his head, to indicate he got smacked, sometimes these "action" scenes go on for three or four panels. You never know quite what's happening or who is involved. I don't quite see the point. I've studied a few of those panels and it's not like the visual being presented is particularly creative or important. Why bother? Without even the corner of a face or the shadow of a fist, what am I supposed to understand from these?

But there's a lovely freedom in the graphics. Sometimes things are "boxed" the way I'm used to seeing them from the funnies in the daily paper. Sometimes a panel is laid over a larger, unframed drawing. Sometimes there are bits of drawings at the bottoms or sides of panels.

There's a confusing freedom in the text. How am I supposed to read text placed outside of any graphic? What about text that falls outside the "speech balloons"? Am I supposed to understand when I'm reading a character's thoughts and when they're speaking aloud? Because I don't. And sometimes there's an exchange of sentences between two characters (in a different lettering style) that doesn't seem to belong to the story at all. Do I assume the characters are muttering these things at each other or do I assume the author/artist was just having a little fun?

Possibly I'm over-thinking the whole thing. I tend to do that.

Especially when I have too much time on my hands. I finished my beta-testing two hours ago. Now I'm back to Nothing To Do.

Oh, well. Count your blessings. I could be going on and on and one about RayK and Fraser again, and we've all already been through all of that. At least this is a new topic. (Anyone complains and I really will start posting endlessly on the wonderful rectangles I'm learning to draw.)