3D Back Again?

Anecdotally, I seem to have noticed an increase in comics done in 3D recently. It could totally be some kind of attention bias thing on my part, but I don't think I'm totally off-base either since even Marvel seems to be getting in on the deal, as evidenced by the recent release of Fantastic Four #51 redone in the 3D format.

It's a trend that ebbs and flows periodically, but the first anaglyph 3D image (i.e. the first 3D image created using the 'standard' red/blue filtering technique) dates back to 1853. Because of production costs, it wasn't really developed as a media form unto itself until the 1890s and it wouldn't be until the 1950s that it became cheap enough to make it into the pop culture zeitgeist. While the popular form it has historically taken has been though those squared off cardboard glasses, in more recent years further production cost reductions has meant you can get readily obtain sturdier, 'permanent' glasses that can used over a longer timeframe.

Speaking personally, the 3D technique was always a form that frustrated me because I wore prescription glasses and the cheap cardboard stereoscopic glasses never fit well over or under my 'real' glasses. I could get them to work, but it often involved having to physically hold the cardboard glasses over my regular ones leaving only one hand for holding the comic in question AND turning the pages. It was only a couple years ago that I happened across a pair of lens that, instead of having their own frames, could clip on to an existing pair of glasses and finally make reading 3D comics a practical option for me.

I think, though, the bigger "problem" with 3D comics is that it's largely a novelty gimmick. This recent i> Fantastic Four #51 book for example. It reprints the original Jack Kirby/Stan Lee comic from 1966; it's frequently used as one of the best single-issue examples of their work from that period. The 3D effect has obviously been done retroactively here, but thanks in large part to Kirby's dynamic drawing style to begin with, it works well. Kirby naturally drew with a very strong sense of depth to his comic panels, so applying a 3D effect to his work is relatively easy. But here's the thing... it's the exact same story. Whether the 3D effect is there or not, it reads exactly the same in terms of the storytelling and the emotional beats.

Don't get me wrong, the 3D effect is generally done well here, but it doesn't really add anything to the story. Some of the characters do pop out visually a bit more in some panels, but they don't really need to thanks already to Kirby's drawing style. The one page where I think it might have been really interesting to see a heavy 3D effect applied -- the big collage splash page shown here -- has the weakest 3D effect, realy only visible in having the figure and word balloon floating on top of the collage. The collage itself looks pretty flat. I don't know how much could really be done with this since, again, they're applying the 3D effect retroactively and the page was very much NOT designed for it, but it would have been the page with the largest potential impact if it could have been done really well.

All of which is to say that when people see a story like this, they look at it and say, "Hey, neat!" And they look at the next one and say, "Hey, neat!" And for the third one, they say, "Hey, neat!" And there's never anything more than that. So after the third or fifth or twentieth story where they see the same effect done in the same way for the same impact, they eventually get to the realization that the extra effort of wearing 3D glasses isn't worth it for just one more "Hey, neat!" and they move on.

I suspect there's some way the effect can be legitimately designed into the story to provide something truly additive. Something beyond just adding the illusion of depth. Maybe where the reader is given a perspective unavailable to the characters. Or maybe some kind of faux animation that results from the red/blue dichotomy. Something that takes advantage of the unique aspects of anaglyph stereography to do something with the story that simply is not possible without it. I certainly haven't played with the form enough to know what all is possible. But what we see here today is pretty much the exact same implementation that people might've seen back in 1853. And until someone comes up with a new use for it, every time it circles around to pop culture again, it will continue to remain a short-lived "Hey, neat!" gimmick.

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