The Six Fingers #1

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I have said over and over that Guided Reading changed the way I was able to interact with visual media. If it wasn’t for Guided Reading I would never read comics.

I have a really hard time with too much visual information in front of me. I get overwhelmed and distracted and have a hard time reading. I was unable to really enjoy comics and graphic novels because of this limitation until Guided Reading came along.

The key with Guided Reading is the “at your own pace” part which I think is a lot of what makes it difficult for my brain to take it a ton of information at once … the pacing of how my brain processes a lot of information is, at the same time, too fast and too slow. I need time to break everything down first visually and then comprehensively. The more time I have to take in ONE PANEL at a time, the more I can really get into what is being expressed, feel it, and enjoy that experience.

Guided Reading works best for me because I can focus on one panel at a time for a much more cinematic experience and trust me when I say this can make all the difference in how something makes you feel.

The opening pages of The Six Fingers are absolutely astonishing and took my breath away. The words, the direction, and the visual build up are brilliant and I was hooked within two pages just as I would be at the opening of a film or television episode.

I don’t look up information about comics or films or books. I am usually drawn to comics based on the cover art or if I’m already familiar with the writer or artist. I usually glance “inside” to see the art style because some art styles are difficult for me to follow and since the cover art is usually by a different artist, I have to check a page or two to get a feel for whether I’ll be able to really dive in and enjoy the experience.

There have been some comics I have read where the art style is just impossible for me to comprehend and the framing is unique and really wild and it takes me forever to get through those. If the story is really, really amazing sometimes I will deal with a style that is very distracting and difficult.

Jeff Lemire’s Gideon Falls comes to mind. Guided view was NOT going to work in something as unique as Gideon Falls. You really needed to be able to take in entire 2-page spreads often. This series took a lot for me to get through but it was absolutely worth the struggle. Andrea Sorrentino’s artwork was so epic and so brilliant. You could FEEL everything as intended once you wrapped your mind around it fully. I’ve yet to come across something that was this … visually visceral.

That said …

The art style of The Six Fingers is not difficult for me and the framing is well suited for guided view. I really love how the story plays out panel to panel. It is clear and easy to follow. It feels like a television series and I love that. I have always viewed comics like visual screenplays … they feel like you’re reading a play and look like reading moving picture frames at the same time. The best of both worlds for me.

Appeal is subjective. So is taste. What I like, what speaks to me, what resonates with me and why are specific to me. I am sure there are some amazing comics out there … but what you may think is amazing doesn’t necessarily translate the same way to someone else, especially if they are seeking to get different experiences from the media they engage with.

I haven’t been “into” comics for very long, the first one I bought and read completely and intentionally was Michael Alan Nelson’s Hexed in 2015. (Guided view was in beta access around 2010) Since then I have only read a handful and I am not expert on them at all. I don’t follow comics or comic news. I don’t know much about individual writers or artists. Every now and then I check to see what’s new and if something appeals to me, I buy the first issue and go from there. My tastes aren’t complicated or refined in any kind of way … I just enjoy what I enjoy and if something doesn’t appeal to me I probably will not continue to spend money on it.

Continuing forward with any story is as simple as … at the end of the issue do I want to know what happens next? Whether it’s a book series, a comic, an anime … the question of do I even care? is the most important factor. When it comes to something episodic – especially that I have to pay for every time I consume it – as soon as I lose interest in the story or decide none of the characters are interesting enough to even care about, I will stop. Being hooked at the beginning isn’t enough … I have to care.

When I first read Paul Tobin’s Colder in 2018 (the second comic I ever read), I was of course drawn in by the cover, but discovered a plethora of characters that I thought were so well fleshed out and so interesting that it really didn’t matter so much the story – which was fascinating – but I just wanted to see these particular people IN the story. Similarly to the plethora of UK crime novels out there … the cases don’t interest me sometimes but the team does and I am interested in THEM solving the cases.

The Six Fingers has a great opening. The character isn’t interesting to me, but the story itself kinda is. The ending of issue 1 was predictable, but how it was done was really cinematically satisfying and made me really excited for the next issue.