Awesomeness Quotient
On the bus today I came up with a new thing that is VERY IMPORTANT. It is called the Awesomeness Quotient, or A.Q. for short. The awesomeness quotient is the amount of awesome things in a given comic book (a) divided by the number of pages (p), which is to say A.Q. = a/p. Now I have a stack of comic books that were released last week and I'm going to show you the A.Q. of each.
Hellboy: 35/32 = 1.09375. That's a damned respectable A.Q. Let's move on.
Spider-man: House of M: 17/32 = 0.53125. Yikes. I kind of enjoyed this book, but it's clearly not that awesome.
House of M itself: 6/32 = 0.1875. Egad! That comic is totally not awesome.
New Avengers: 2/32 = 0.0625. One of the lowest possible A.Q.'s. It would be hard to be less awesome than this book.
Shaolin Cowboy: 43/32 = 1.4375. HOLY CRAP! That is a really awesome comic.
Ultimate Fantastic Four: 18/32 = 0.5625. That's a pretty healthy awesomeness. I imagine it's helped by Carey's decision to actually have things happen in the book. And the new Mad Thinker is sufficiently creepy to be awesome.
Captain America: 20/32 = 0.625. Considering how sad and bittersweet this comic is, that's pretty amazing. Good job to Brubaker and Leon.
Fantastic Four: Foes: 15/32 = 0.4625. Not Kirkman's best, but it's still better than some of the other stuff.
Livewires: 33/32 = 1.03125 The only big-two book to break the 1 barrier so far.
Girls: 18/32 = 0.5625. Interesting, the same A.Q. as UFF. However, this is a book that doesn't hinge on awesomeness, it hinges on story and art. Nonetheless, the Lunas keep the A.Q. at a decent level. Good on ya.
The Flaming Carrot: 38/32 = 1.1875. Truly awesome.
So let's take a look . . .in the 0.0 to 0.3 "Not Awesome" Range we have House of M and New Avengers. It would appear that Bendis doesn't do "awesome" well. In the 0.3 to 0.5 "still not very awesome" range there's Fantastic Four: Foes. From 0.5 to 0.8 we have "Awesome," which includes Girls, Spider-man House of M, Ultimate Fantastic Four and Captain America. We don't have anything in the 0.8 to 1.0 "Really Awesome," but in the 1.0 to 1.2 "Extreme Awesome" bunch, there's Hellboy, Flaming Carrot, and Livewires. Then we have Shaolin Cowboy, which breaks the barries and becomes "UNBELIEVABLY AWESOME."
I hope this formula and rating system helps you all find awesome comics. I probably liked a few comics more than Shaolin Cowboy, so remember Awesomenocity isn't the only way to judge a comic. BUT IT IS A WAY THAT IS GOOD.
posted by Mr. Rice at 3:21 PM
13 Love Letters:
What if a book has an awesome cover? Does that not weigh into the AQ at all?
4:28 PM
Of course it weighs in. It counts as a single awesome thing. Other miscellaneous bits that count as an awesome thing: an awesome artist, an awesome writer, and awesome title, etc.
4:31 PM
But the cover does not count in the page count. If it doesn't count in the page count, why does it count as an awesome thing?
For that matter, what if you have an amazingly fantastic cover with 42 awesome things on it, but the comic is only fifteen pages long and all the pages are HORRIBLE! This will throw off the AQ even more.
You have an awesome awesome quotient, here. I am just trying to understand it.
4:42 PM
A cover, like a writer or artist, is like a bonus awesome thing. And the cover counts only once, even if there was a nuclear zombie AND a kid with fire hands on it.
4:45 PM
Shit!!!
4:46 PM
What if you get a comic with no cover or a comic with pages missing? How do you grade awesomeness if you don't have any idea what could be missing?
Do you lower the page count?
4:56 PM
What if you get a comic with no cover or a comic with pages missing? How do you grade awesomeness if you don't have any idea what could be missing?
Do you lower the page count?
Duh, yes.
4:59 PM
What about awesome idea vs. awesome execution? Are these two seperate awesome things? If they gel, I can see how some awesome points could be lost because of this. You have to be very careful how you count.
5:19 PM
I count carefully as shit!
5:25 PM
Break out the awesome things in Hellboy. I just want to compare notes. So I can get my math right for the future.
5:27 PM
No. Goddammit, I gotta make dinner.
5:36 PM
You might be too lenient on your awesome-ness.
And you count ad pages. Were there any awesome ads? Like, I dunno, for a flaming Frisbee (tm) of Jagged Spikey Death? Wielded by Don Rickles?
7:19 PM
That would, in fact, be awesome. As it is, no ad I've seen has added to the awesomenocity of a comic book. Those books sans advertisements may have a slight advantage in this department, but the deserve it.
7:22 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home