Topics and Show Notes

Musicals are a type of entertainment like any other, usually in the form of a film or stage play, they evolved from Operas and operettas. Their characteristic feature is that communication of scenes is at points stylised into the form of a song, often involving a dance with detailed choreography. I personally love musicals, some people don't, which is fare enough.

But one of the silliest complaints about musicals is when people say “I don't get it, why are they suddenly bursting into song and dance”, they tend to say that this isn't “logical”, among other things.
ALL forms of entertainment are highly stylised and mediated, there is no such thing as literal reality in entertainment, nothing even approaching it, no matter how much we fool ourselves. Singing and dancing in musicals is actually no less realistic and no less valid than a super serious crime drama like Breaking Bad or The Wire, these all have heavy stylisation and artificial forms of communication in order to get their point across. You just have to get used to it.

Remember- before we had TV we were limited to comics, books, and silent films. Before that it was operas. Before that it was puppet shows, stage plays, and oral histories told in rhyming verse as epic poems and all those things were easily understood by audiences and able to fully communicate the feelings, emotions, tragedy and the plot for thousands of years- which is something to think about next time a person says they can't get their head around musicals. Taste is one thing, being ignorant is another.

Anyway, do you like musicals? If so, what are some of your faves?

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Gaia Comic - Delightful, mysterious, evocative, and gentle. This is an interesting mix of styles, with a woody percussion, pizzicato on violins and a mournful chorus of cellos.


Topics and shownotes

Links

Musical webcomic - The Black Parade https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Black_Parade/

Featured comic:
Alpacomics - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/oct/17/featured-comic-alpacomics/

Featured music:
Gaia Comic - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Gaia_Comic/. - by Novil, rated T

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/

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