WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.839 Imagine you're holding a standard, you know, 00:00:04.019 --> 00:00:06.799 boxy comic book from the 1980s. Okay, yeah. A 00:00:06.799 --> 00:00:09.080 classic issue. Right, a classic issue. You open 00:00:09.080 --> 00:00:12.380 it up and you're looking at like... Nine tiny 00:00:12.380 --> 00:00:14.759 squares just crammed onto a single page. It's 00:00:14.759 --> 00:00:16.719 almost like a like a tic -tac -toe board Oh totally 00:00:16.719 --> 00:00:20.399 very rigid exactly But now turn the page and 00:00:20.399 --> 00:00:22.640 suddenly those rigid little boxes are completely 00:00:22.640 --> 00:00:26.760 gone in their place Is this single wide horizontal 00:00:26.760 --> 00:00:29.399 image stretching all the way across the paper, 00:00:29.460 --> 00:00:31.850 right? It seems like a simple you know, almost 00:00:31.850 --> 00:00:34.609 invisible stylistic choice, just a structural 00:00:34.609 --> 00:00:36.929 change in how an artist decided to draw some 00:00:36.929 --> 00:00:39.929 borders. But today we're looking at a tiny Wikipedia 00:00:39.929 --> 00:00:43.009 stub that reveals how that exact layout change 00:00:43.009 --> 00:00:46.329 actually became the secret instruction manual 00:00:46.329 --> 00:00:49.009 for Hollywood's multi -billion dollar superhero 00:00:49.009 --> 00:00:51.929 era. So welcome to today's deep dive. I am so 00:00:51.929 --> 00:00:53.929 excited for this one because it really is the 00:00:53.929 --> 00:00:56.570 ultimate example of like a micro source hiding 00:00:56.570 --> 00:00:58.609 a macro revelation. Absolutely. We're essentially 00:00:58.609 --> 00:01:01.579 looking at just a few sentences. defining a very 00:01:01.579 --> 00:01:05.099 specific artistic movement, a single revealing 00:01:05.099 --> 00:01:08.120 bibliography link, and a massive taxonomy chart. 00:01:08.659 --> 00:01:11.560 But within those few elements, I mean, that is 00:01:11.560 --> 00:01:14.359 the blueprint for modern pop culture. Yeah, and 00:01:14.359 --> 00:01:16.920 our mission today with you, the listener, is 00:01:16.920 --> 00:01:19.640 to unpack this specific movement which the source 00:01:19.640 --> 00:01:22.840 identifies as widescreen comics. We're going 00:01:22.840 --> 00:01:25.159 to explore how shifting the physical dimensions 00:01:25.159 --> 00:01:28.299 of, well, drawn boxes on a page fundamentally 00:01:28.299 --> 00:01:31.200 altered the DNA of two entirely different entertainment 00:01:31.200 --> 00:01:33.739 industries. Yeah. And to really understand that 00:01:33.739 --> 00:01:35.900 cultural impact, we first have to understand 00:01:35.900 --> 00:01:38.379 the literal architecture of the page itself. 00:01:38.659 --> 00:01:40.780 Physical space. Exactly. The physical space that 00:01:40.780 --> 00:01:42.879 these stories occupy. So looking at our source 00:01:42.879 --> 00:01:45.439 text, it defines widescreen comics very plainly. 00:01:45.819 --> 00:01:47.640 It says it is a movement named for its tendency 00:01:47.640 --> 00:01:50.780 to use panels of, and I'm quoting here, greater 00:01:50.780 --> 00:01:53.400 width relative to their height. Right. And the 00:01:53.400 --> 00:01:56.829 explicit goal. according to the entry, is mimicking 00:01:56.829 --> 00:01:59.790 the aspect ratio of widescreen cinematic presentation. 00:02:00.810 --> 00:02:03.349 And, you know, that mechanical definition, the 00:02:03.349 --> 00:02:06.750 whole greater width relative to height thing, 00:02:06.750 --> 00:02:08.870 it might sound kind of dry on paper. A little 00:02:08.870 --> 00:02:11.490 bit, yeah. But it represents a massive, just 00:02:11.490 --> 00:02:14.229 a seismic shift in visual storytelling. Well, 00:02:14.330 --> 00:02:16.849 let's expand on that visual for the listener, 00:02:17.250 --> 00:02:20.069 because historically, the traditional comic book 00:02:20.069 --> 00:02:23.650 page was built on that standard boxy grid I mentioned 00:02:23.650 --> 00:02:26.729 earlier. Nine little squares, maybe six. Very 00:02:26.729 --> 00:02:29.250 contained. Highly contained. Yeah. If you think 00:02:29.250 --> 00:02:31.370 about like an old television set from the mid 00:02:31.370 --> 00:02:34.270 20th century, you had that 4 .3 square ratio. 00:02:34.889 --> 00:02:37.590 The traditional comic panel basically mirrored 00:02:37.590 --> 00:02:40.449 that claustrophobic boxy framing. And that rigid 00:02:40.449 --> 00:02:42.550 segmentation, I mean, it served a purpose. It 00:02:42.550 --> 00:02:44.969 really did. It allowed creators to cram a massive 00:02:44.969 --> 00:02:47.849 amount of plot into, what, 20 pages? Right. But 00:02:47.849 --> 00:02:50.789 a square forces the reader's eye to look at one 00:02:50.789 --> 00:02:53.669 specific isolated thing. It operates much more 00:02:53.669 --> 00:02:55.250 like a portrait painting. Well, that's a good 00:02:55.250 --> 00:02:57.509 way to put it. Yeah, a traditional boxy panel 00:02:57.509 --> 00:02:59.710 usually zeroed in on a single character or a 00:02:59.710 --> 00:03:02.449 highly specific action, like a fist connecting 00:03:02.449 --> 00:03:04.969 with a jaw or a character looking surprised. 00:03:04.990 --> 00:03:08.289 As a floating head sometimes. Exactly. The character 00:03:08.289 --> 00:03:10.550 literally is the same. the entire story in that 00:03:10.550 --> 00:03:12.610 moment. But when you knock down those borders 00:03:12.610 --> 00:03:15.870 and introduce wide horizontal panels that stretch 00:03:15.870 --> 00:03:19.469 completely across the page, it immediately mimics 00:03:19.469 --> 00:03:23.550 a modern 16 .9 movie theater screen. Which fundamentally 00:03:23.550 --> 00:03:25.990 changes the psychological experience for the 00:03:25.990 --> 00:03:28.509 reader. I mean, this isn't just an artist deciding 00:03:28.509 --> 00:03:30.870 to draw outside the lines just for the sake of 00:03:30.870 --> 00:03:32.770 looking rebellious. It's not just a gimmick. 00:03:32.889 --> 00:03:36.110 No, not at all. When you stretch a panel to mimic 00:03:36.110 --> 00:03:39.870 a cinematic aspect ratio, the artist stops functioning 00:03:39.870 --> 00:03:42.750 purely as an illustrator and actually takes on 00:03:42.750 --> 00:03:44.770 the role of a cinematographer. That makes a ton 00:03:44.770 --> 00:03:47.229 of sense, actually, because you can't just draw 00:03:47.229 --> 00:03:49.889 a really wide face. Right. You have to, like, 00:03:50.050 --> 00:03:51.930 fill that new horizontal space with something 00:03:51.930 --> 00:03:53.750 else. Precisely. You have to fill it with the 00:03:53.750 --> 00:03:55.650 environment. Think about what a wide screenshot 00:03:55.650 --> 00:03:58.370 actually does in a film. It establishes scale. 00:03:58.509 --> 00:04:01.719 Oh, wow. Yeah. It forces your brain to process 00:04:01.719 --> 00:04:03.840 the character and their surrounding world at 00:04:03.840 --> 00:04:06.599 the exact same time. So instead of just seeing 00:04:06.599 --> 00:04:08.979 a superhero looking angry in a tiny box, you 00:04:08.979 --> 00:04:12.199 see that hero standing amidst the sprawling ruins 00:04:12.199 --> 00:04:14.860 of a destroyed city. You get the horizon line. 00:04:15.120 --> 00:04:17.360 The aspect ratio basically dictates the stakes. 00:04:17.600 --> 00:04:21.360 Yes, exactly. When a comic book adopts that exact 00:04:21.360 --> 00:04:25.279 16 .9 ratio, it automatically triggers the visual 00:04:25.279 --> 00:04:27.660 vocabulary of the cinema in the reader's brain. 00:04:27.779 --> 00:04:31.050 So a square feels like a comic. And a wide rectangle 00:04:31.050 --> 00:04:34.449 establishes environmental scale and stakes. In 00:04:34.449 --> 00:04:37.970 a way, a tiny square physically cannot. The reader 00:04:37.970 --> 00:04:40.810 isn't just processing text in ink anymore. Their 00:04:40.810 --> 00:04:42.889 brain is interpreting the imagery as if they 00:04:42.889 --> 00:04:45.550 are sitting in a dark theater looking up at a 00:04:45.550 --> 00:04:48.290 massive screen. It's basically a brilliant psychological 00:04:48.290 --> 00:04:50.449 trick. I mean, you are holding the exact same 00:04:50.449 --> 00:04:52.509 standard size piece of paper you always have, 00:04:52.509 --> 00:04:55.029 but because the ink borders are drawn horizontally, 00:04:55.430 --> 00:04:57.629 your brain subconsciously shifts into movie watching 00:04:57.629 --> 00:05:00.730 mode. But changing that physical shape creates 00:05:00.730 --> 00:05:03.769 an unavoidable chain reaction. How so? Because 00:05:03.769 --> 00:05:06.209 you cannot manipulate the physical space on the 00:05:06.209 --> 00:05:09.189 page without also manipulating the reader's perception 00:05:09.189 --> 00:05:11.509 of time. Which brings us to a really specific 00:05:11.509 --> 00:05:14.449 term the source uses for this shift. The stub 00:05:14.449 --> 00:05:16.589 notes that the widescreen movement is famous 00:05:16.589 --> 00:05:20.529 for its quote, very cinematic decompression style. 00:05:20.829 --> 00:05:24.000 Right, decompression. Yeah. And if you cross 00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:26.500 -reference that with the massive glossary of 00:05:26.500 --> 00:05:28.920 comics terminology provided in our source data, 00:05:29.379 --> 00:05:31.860 decompression is actually classified under its 00:05:31.860 --> 00:05:34.720 own distinct category. It's a major concept. 00:05:34.899 --> 00:05:37.360 It's listed as a trope sitting right alongside 00:05:37.360 --> 00:05:40.180 other, like... foundational concepts like anti 00:05:40.180 --> 00:05:43.259 -hero, talking animals, and masking. And classifying 00:05:43.259 --> 00:05:45.680 it as a trope means decompression isn't just 00:05:45.680 --> 00:05:48.899 an accident of drawing wider boxes. It is a highly 00:05:48.899 --> 00:05:51.540 intentional storytelling device. OK, wait. Let 00:05:51.540 --> 00:05:53.319 me push back on this for a second on behalf of 00:05:53.319 --> 00:05:55.560 the listener. Sure. If I'm the reader, I might 00:05:55.560 --> 00:05:57.120 be looking at this and thinking I'm getting ripped 00:05:57.120 --> 00:06:00.519 off. Really? Yeah. Because if decompression literally 00:06:00.519 --> 00:06:02.620 means spreading the narrative out across these 00:06:02.620 --> 00:06:06.439 wider horizontal panels, aren't I paying the 00:06:06.439 --> 00:06:09.069 same amount of money for less story? Ah, I see 00:06:09.069 --> 00:06:11.569 what you mean. Like if I used to get nine distinct 00:06:11.569 --> 00:06:14.870 actions on a page, dialogue, movement, a whole 00:06:14.870 --> 00:06:17.089 fight scene, and I'm only getting three wide 00:06:17.089 --> 00:06:19.529 panels of a guy walking down a hallway, I'm getting 00:06:19.529 --> 00:06:22.850 way less plot for my $4, right? That is a very 00:06:22.850 --> 00:06:25.149 common and completely understandable initial 00:06:25.149 --> 00:06:27.189 reaction from a consumer standpoint. It really 00:06:27.189 --> 00:06:29.269 does feel like the story is being artificially 00:06:29.269 --> 00:06:31.569 stretched out. Right, padding. Yeah, padding. 00:06:31.850 --> 00:06:34.490 But it's actually a huge misconception to think 00:06:34.490 --> 00:06:37.370 of decompression as simply delivering less story. 00:06:37.800 --> 00:06:41.339 It is a highly calculated mechanism for altering 00:06:41.339 --> 00:06:44.360 human eye tracking, and by extension, altering 00:06:44.360 --> 00:06:46.860 how the reader experiences the passage of time. 00:06:47.060 --> 00:06:49.199 Okay, break that mechanism down for us, because 00:06:49.199 --> 00:06:52.500 how does drawing a wider box actually change 00:06:52.500 --> 00:06:55.240 how I experience time? Well, it comes down to 00:06:55.240 --> 00:06:57.779 the physical act of reading itself. Think about 00:06:57.779 --> 00:07:00.279 the pacing of a traditional, highly compressed 00:07:00.279 --> 00:07:03.500 comic page with a nine -panel grid. Time moves 00:07:03.500 --> 00:07:05.579 incredibly fast. Oh yeah, because there's so 00:07:05.579 --> 00:07:07.560 much happening. Right. A character might wake 00:07:07.560 --> 00:07:10.300 up, eat breakfast, commute to work, and get into 00:07:10.300 --> 00:07:13.560 a fistfight, all on a single page. It's very 00:07:13.560 --> 00:07:16.500 staccato. You read a tiny speech bubble, glance 00:07:16.500 --> 00:07:19.100 at the art, and your eye snaps to the next box. 00:07:19.420 --> 00:07:22.250 Snap, snap, snap. Exactly. Decades of comics 00:07:22.250 --> 00:07:25.410 trained readers to process time in these rapid 00:07:25.410 --> 00:07:28.790 disjointed leaps. Your brain just fills in the 00:07:28.790 --> 00:07:31.009 massive chronological gaps between the panels. 00:07:31.250 --> 00:07:34.550 We do the work for them. Yes. But cinematic decompression 00:07:34.550 --> 00:07:36.949 actively works against that snapping motion. 00:07:37.750 --> 00:07:40.410 By spreading a single moment across widescreen 00:07:40.410 --> 00:07:43.069 panels, the artist physically slows the reader's 00:07:43.069 --> 00:07:45.449 eye down. Because my eye literally has to travel 00:07:45.449 --> 00:07:48.850 further across the page. Yes. If your pupil has 00:07:48.850 --> 00:07:51.189 to literally track four or five inches from left 00:07:51.189 --> 00:07:54.250 to right across a single highly detailed image 00:07:54.250 --> 00:07:56.149 taking in the character on the left, the environment 00:07:56.149 --> 00:07:57.629 in the middle, and the looming thread on the 00:07:57.629 --> 00:08:00.490 right, your brain processes that physical eye 00:08:00.490 --> 00:08:02.990 movement as time passing within the story. Oh, 00:08:03.089 --> 00:08:06.069 that is fascinating. So the wider the physical 00:08:06.069 --> 00:08:08.269 space the eye has to travel, the more the brain 00:08:08.269 --> 00:08:11.540 perceives elapsed time. It dictates the speed 00:08:11.540 --> 00:08:14.699 of consumption. If you have a character simply 00:08:14.699 --> 00:08:18.220 walking into a room and that single mundane action 00:08:18.220 --> 00:08:21.639 is spread across three massive wide panels stacked 00:08:21.639 --> 00:08:24.639 on top of each other, the eye tracking forces 00:08:24.639 --> 00:08:27.199 the reader to experience that moment in real 00:08:27.199 --> 00:08:30.360 time. You're not jumping forward hours. No. You're 00:08:30.360 --> 00:08:32.679 living in that specific second. Or even slowing 00:08:32.679 --> 00:08:35.500 it down further to create slow motion pacing. 00:08:35.879 --> 00:08:39.120 Wait, really? Yeah. Imagine an action sequence 00:08:39.120 --> 00:08:42.230 in a traditional comic. One panel shows a bomb, 00:08:42.690 --> 00:08:45.169 and the very next panel shows a hero flying backward. 00:08:45.210 --> 00:08:48.789 Done. Exactly. But using decompressed widescreen 00:08:48.789 --> 00:08:51.409 panels, an artist can stretch that exact same 00:08:51.409 --> 00:08:54.370 moment out. Panel one is just the initial spark 00:08:54.370 --> 00:08:57.210 on the fuse. Panel two is the expanding fireball 00:08:57.210 --> 00:08:59.549 starting to consume the room. Panel three is 00:08:59.549 --> 00:09:01.669 the shockwave visibly rippling through the air 00:09:01.669 --> 00:09:03.769 and hitting the hero's cape. Oh, man. It's like 00:09:03.769 --> 00:09:06.450 bullet time on paper. It really is. By forcing 00:09:06.450 --> 00:09:08.809 the eye to sweep across those wide horizons, 00:09:09.149 --> 00:09:11.169 the decompression allows the emotional weight 00:09:11.169 --> 00:09:13.149 and the physical physics of a moment to actually 00:09:13.149 --> 00:09:15.850 breathe. You aren't reading a summary of an explosion. 00:09:16.230 --> 00:09:19.129 You are experiencing it frame by slow motion 00:09:19.129 --> 00:09:21.490 frame. So if these creators are successfully 00:09:21.490 --> 00:09:24.690 manipulating time and space on the page, essentially 00:09:24.690 --> 00:09:27.330 building these slow motion action sequences out 00:09:27.330 --> 00:09:30.029 of paper and ink, it starts to make sense why 00:09:30.029 --> 00:09:32.370 the film industry suddenly took notice. Oh, definitely. 00:09:32.750 --> 00:09:34.830 Which brings us to the one and only reference 00:09:34.830 --> 00:09:37.590 link at the bottom of this entire Wikipedia stub. 00:09:37.970 --> 00:09:41.490 The Peter Suderman article. Yes. It's a 2016 00:09:41.490 --> 00:09:45.309 piece from Vox, and the title alone makes a monumental 00:09:45.309 --> 00:09:48.210 claim. It's called, get this, the comic book 00:09:48.210 --> 00:09:51.090 movement that gave us the era of the superhero 00:09:51.090 --> 00:09:54.490 movie. Hanging the entire modern era of superhero 00:09:54.490 --> 00:09:57.830 films on a single formatting choice is a massive 00:09:57.830 --> 00:10:00.549 proposition. It is. But synthesizing what we've 00:10:00.549 --> 00:10:02.190 learned about the mechanics of these panels, 00:10:02.629 --> 00:10:05.129 the causality actually becomes incredibly clear. 00:10:05.389 --> 00:10:08.250 By adopting cinematic presentation and real -time 00:10:08.250 --> 00:10:11.769 pacing, the widescreen comic movement built a 00:10:11.769 --> 00:10:14.769 crucial structural bridge between two entirely 00:10:14.769 --> 00:10:16.710 different mediums. Because before this shift, 00:10:17.090 --> 00:10:19.090 I imagine the visual languages just didn't match. 00:10:19.490 --> 00:10:21.149 A comic book looked like a comic book and a movie 00:10:21.149 --> 00:10:23.629 looked like a movie. Translating the 4 .3 grid 00:10:23.629 --> 00:10:25.809 to the silver screen was an absolute nightmare 00:10:25.809 --> 00:10:28.269 for filmmakers. I can see that. If you handed 00:10:28.269 --> 00:10:31.190 a Hollywood executive a classic tightly gridded 00:10:31.190 --> 00:10:34.750 comic book from the mid -20th century, they saw 00:10:34.750 --> 00:10:38.309 a children's medium. They saw rapid disjointed 00:10:38.309 --> 00:10:40.889 pacing that would be incredibly difficult to 00:10:40.889 --> 00:10:42.649 translate to a screen without making it look 00:10:42.649 --> 00:10:45.210 chaotic, cheap, or just really campy. Yeah, you 00:10:45.210 --> 00:10:47.190 can't just film a tic -tac -toe board. Yeah. 00:10:47.399 --> 00:10:49.559 The pacing wouldn't make any sense to a film 00:10:49.559 --> 00:10:51.480 director trying to build a cohesive two -hour 00:10:51.480 --> 00:10:54.399 narrative. But then the widescreen movement happens. 00:10:54.580 --> 00:10:56.779 The comic artists start mimicking film. They 00:10:56.779 --> 00:10:59.340 introduce establishing wide shots. They slow 00:10:59.340 --> 00:11:01.919 down the pacing to match real -time action. Right. 00:11:02.480 --> 00:11:04.960 Suddenly, if you hand that same executive or 00:11:04.960 --> 00:11:07.700 director a widescreen decompressed comic book 00:11:07.700 --> 00:11:10.700 maiming, they don't have to use any imagination 00:11:10.700 --> 00:11:12.600 whatsoever. The translation work is already done 00:11:12.600 --> 00:11:15.100 for them. The comic page literally becomes an 00:11:15.100 --> 00:11:17.500 IMAX storyboard. Oh, that's such a great visual. 00:11:17.769 --> 00:11:19.730 The director can look at the page and see the 00:11:19.730 --> 00:11:21.909 exact camera angles. They see the lighting, the 00:11:21.909 --> 00:11:24.070 environmental framing, the slow motion action 00:11:24.070 --> 00:11:26.830 sequences, paste out frame by literal frame. 00:11:27.049 --> 00:11:29.009 So the comic creators essentially did all the 00:11:29.009 --> 00:11:30.850 pre -visualization work for Hollywood for free. 00:11:31.129 --> 00:11:33.669 Pretty much. They provided the visual grammar 00:11:33.669 --> 00:11:36.740 for the modern blockbuster. The film industry 00:11:36.740 --> 00:11:39.360 looked at these pages and finally understood 00:11:39.360 --> 00:11:42.039 how to film superheroes in a way that felt epic 00:11:42.039 --> 00:11:44.559 and grounded rather than silly and disjointed. 00:11:45.019 --> 00:11:48.179 That is wild. The creators of widescreen comics 00:11:48.179 --> 00:11:50.320 weren't just writing comic big stories. They 00:11:50.320 --> 00:11:53.200 were accidentally writing the secret instruction 00:11:53.200 --> 00:11:55.960 manual for the next two decades of global cinema. 00:11:56.159 --> 00:11:58.940 You know to really grasp how bizarre it is that 00:11:58.940 --> 00:12:01.899 this one specific formatting choice reshaped 00:12:01.899 --> 00:12:04.620 Hollywood. You have to look at the taxonomy chart 00:12:04.620 --> 00:12:06.230 attached to the bottom of the slide. Oh, the 00:12:06.230 --> 00:12:08.990 glossary section. Yeah. It maps out the entire 00:12:08.990 --> 00:12:12.730 global ecosystem of comics, and it is overwhelmingly 00:12:12.730 --> 00:12:15.169 massive. It's a medium that spans almost every 00:12:15.169 --> 00:12:17.929 culture, demographic, and format imaginable. 00:12:17.990 --> 00:12:20.809 It really does. Just scanning the regional breakdown, 00:12:20.970 --> 00:12:23.289 you have these distinct international powerhouses. 00:12:23.309 --> 00:12:26.330 Yeah. You've got manga in Japan, obviously, but 00:12:26.330 --> 00:12:28.590 you also have Bandes Désinés, which is the massive 00:12:28.590 --> 00:12:31.090 French -Belgian market known for those beautifully 00:12:31.090 --> 00:12:34.009 detailed large -format albums. Right, and Manwa. 00:12:34.029 --> 00:12:36.889 in Korea. Yet the structural diversity is just 00:12:36.889 --> 00:12:39.529 as vast as the geographic diversity. And look 00:12:39.529 --> 00:12:42.470 at the genres. The source outlines a medium that 00:12:42.470 --> 00:12:45.230 includes everything from graphic medicine, which 00:12:45.230 --> 00:12:47.529 explores health care and illness through comics 00:12:47.529 --> 00:12:50.330 and educational comics, all the way over to historical 00:12:50.330 --> 00:12:53.909 oddities like Tijuana Bibles, alongside romance, 00:12:54.309 --> 00:12:56.870 wrestling, and abstract comics. It's huge. It's 00:12:56.870 --> 00:13:01.309 an endlessly diverse, sprawling, worldwide ecosystem. 00:13:01.629 --> 00:13:04.090 And yet... Out of all of that artistic output 00:13:04.090 --> 00:13:06.370 across a century of global publishing. Out of 00:13:06.370 --> 00:13:09.230 all of it. This one highly specific formatting 00:13:09.230 --> 00:13:12.429 trope, widescreen comics, was way down in the 00:13:12.429 --> 00:13:14.870 trope section next to Talking Animals. That is 00:13:14.870 --> 00:13:17.250 the one that provided the Rosetta Stone for Hollywood. 00:13:17.490 --> 00:13:19.830 It proves how a structural innovation in one 00:13:19.830 --> 00:13:22.710 tiny corner of an incredibly diverse medium can 00:13:22.710 --> 00:13:25.350 ripple out and entirely redefine a completely 00:13:25.350 --> 00:13:28.090 different multi -billion dollar industry. It's 00:13:28.090 --> 00:13:30.179 mind blowing. Widescreen comics were essentially 00:13:30.179 --> 00:13:32.620 a niche experiment in physical formatting. An 00:13:32.620 --> 00:13:34.399 artist just decided to change the width of a 00:13:34.399 --> 00:13:36.759 box on a piece of paper. And in doing so, they 00:13:36.759 --> 00:13:38.580 accidentally unlocked the formula for the most 00:13:38.580 --> 00:13:41.240 lucrative era in film history. Well, let's recap 00:13:41.240 --> 00:13:43.539 the incredible journey this tiny source document 00:13:43.539 --> 00:13:46.799 just took us on. Because we started with a physical 00:13:46.799 --> 00:13:49.500 change in the dimensions of comic book panels, 00:13:50.299 --> 00:13:52.240 literally just stretching them out horizontally 00:13:52.240 --> 00:13:56.360 to mimic a 16 .9 movie screen. which physically 00:13:56.360 --> 00:13:58.899 altered how the reader's eye tracked across the 00:13:58.899 --> 00:14:01.639 page, forcing a change in the perception of time. 00:14:01.980 --> 00:14:04.940 Creating that decompressed, slow motion cinematic 00:14:04.940 --> 00:14:09.559 pacing. And finally, we saw how that exact combination 00:14:09.559 --> 00:14:13.019 of expansive space and slow down time provided 00:14:13.019 --> 00:14:15.820 the ready -made storyboards that trained directors 00:14:15.820 --> 00:14:18.580 on how to shoot the modern superhero movie. It 00:14:18.580 --> 00:14:20.740 really demonstrates that sometimes the most revolutionary 00:14:20.740 --> 00:14:22.740 changes aren't about the content of the story 00:14:22.740 --> 00:14:25.460 itself, but the literal architecture of how the 00:14:25.460 --> 00:14:27.679 story is delivered to the audience. Absolutely. 00:14:27.940 --> 00:14:29.960 Which leaves us with a final lingering thought 00:14:29.960 --> 00:14:32.779 for you to explore on your own. Ooh, okay. If 00:14:32.779 --> 00:14:35.000 comic books mimicking the horizontal dimensions 00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:37.440 and pacing of movie screens is what eventually 00:14:37.440 --> 00:14:40.179 allowed them to conquer the film industry, what 00:14:40.179 --> 00:14:42.879 medium today is currently altering its shape 00:14:42.879 --> 00:14:45.559 to mimic something else? It's definitely an important 00:14:45.559 --> 00:14:47.980 pattern to watch for. I mean, look at our sources 00:14:47.980 --> 00:14:51.480 mention of webtoons and digital comics. We are 00:14:51.480 --> 00:14:54.320 currently seeing a massive shift in entertainment 00:14:54.320 --> 00:14:57.720 to the vertical, rapid -fire, endless scrolling 00:14:57.720 --> 00:15:00.039 dimensions of the mobile phone screen. Oh, wow. 00:15:00.299 --> 00:15:02.779 Yeah. So if the horizontal widescreen built the 00:15:02.779 --> 00:15:06.000 cinematic superhero era, a completely new era 00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:08.320 of entertainment is being secretly built inside 00:15:08.320 --> 00:15:10.919 those new vertical borders right now, think about 00:15:10.919 --> 00:15:11.720 it. See you next time.