Board Thread:The Panopticon/@comment-24894325-20161231235903/@comment-24894325-20170101003439

My thoughts about recaps.

Recaps, on the other hand, is a different kettle of fish altogether. Try reading recaps 2-4 as one text. Don't you feel like you know, roughly, what the story is about? There are minor characters mentioned, when one thing is mentioned twice, there seems to be a development. I think this really is a ready-made synopsis.

Is it better than the full-scale plot? Of course not. A carefully written plot is a thing to cherish and I salute all those who write them. It's also a hard thing to do, even for a comic story. To my eye, plots is the least developed part of this wiki across all types of stories. That includes the comic stories: many lack plots. In the Tenth Doctor Titan comics, more than half of the stories lack plots completely.

Wouldn't it then make sense to use these publisher's synopses as a stop-gap measure, as better than nothing?

This would require a lot of work for sure. And there are certain subtle moments:
 * For one thing, the "Previously..." sections cannot be cut-and-pasted. They need to be typed by hand from the comic.
 * Secondly, the first issue of the next story may contain some intro to it that should not be part of the synopsis (in the Exhibit C, this is the last sentence of the recap of Issue 4).
 * Thirdly, some one-off stories would not have such recaps because they have not following story.
 * Fourthly, some special mini-series may not have such a recap for the last issue, or at least it may not be obvious where to search for it.

Nevertheless, this may be worth a try. What do you think?