how the fuck do you do a comic reading? (also, heated rivalry episode 1 haterism)

i'm having to do a reading of my uni comic and i'm kind of lost.

i'm very bad at reading aloud. i fall into this monotone that feels incredibly laboured and sits at a pitch that i don't like, i don't know how to perform the words, and i'm not good at doing character voices or making sound effects with my voice. and it's weird because i feel like when i'm speaking freely, i'm fine. i did a few months of improv just a couple years ago and i was fine. same when i'm singing along, where all that i'm doing is just trying to imitate the singer, and i feel like i can do that well, find and mirror the different vocal quirks and tone of voice and accents. it's only when i've got a text in front of me that i really struggle. gah

anyway. so this comic reading. how do you do that?

obviously i'll be showing the pages projected big onto the wall. but then what? just reading the text on the page gets awkward when there are "silent" scenes/panels. that -- i feel like -- is where comic is a very private medium. as in, it's difficult to share the reading-experience with other people because comic isn't time-based (like film or music, where if it's playing, everyone is gonna experience the same scene or note simultaneously) which makes reading together from the same book difficult, and performing it is difficult also, because sounds and events beyond what is described or discussed in the text are implied in the images, that you would either use additional sound effects and music to perform, or additionally narrate, or let people see for themselves but then you're just standing there waiting for everyone to have looked at the current panel and that prospect just sounds excruciatingly awkward. and i mean, the nice thing about having someone read something to you is that your eyes and hands are free, isn't it?

anyway, i was thinking back and forth. i tried reading my comic aloud, just the page text, and it felt awkward as hell and i hated it. my subsequent thought was, i need to write narrations for the "silent" scenes (quotes because they aren't actually silent, in-universe, there's just no page text i could read out). simply saying what was happening felt like i was preparing to talk to toddlers and i don't want to patronise my classmates like that. so it needed to be somewhat prosaic at least. tried it. did not get far at all. everyone can see what is happening, it's ridiculous to tell them again! show don't tell or whatever. ok, sound effects, then. did an outline of which sounds would go where and it's all so much. i'm not doing all that for a 7 minute presentation. what now? so i try reading it raw again, tell myself, lean into the awkwardness. lean into the obvious dilemma that there are silent scenes, lean into the fact that you are not a performer. and try to figure out how to do the voices. this surely is something you can practise. it's okay. it feels a bit less awkward now, i just have to practise doing the voices and having a normal tone of voice and saying the silly narrative bits in a fun, casual manner that doesn't reveal the amount of contemplation and preparation that went into them.

i'm not very happy with this part of the assignment. making the comic was easier.

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whatever. i watched heated rivalry episode 1 and it was mid. i've kind of known this. i've generally not been interested (i don't even know why, maybe i'm just a popular-things-hater, maybe i'm sceptical of gay mainstream media, maybe i've been preoccupied with watching other things and haven't really had the mental space to get invested into something new. whatever) and then dan and phil (take my hand. your 20s are for being 14 again be cringe be free) reacted to episode 1 and what i saw was so boring not even my favourite homosexual youtube duo were able to make me gaf. and i made a snarky tumblr post about it and i thought. i cannot allow myself to be a heated rivalry hater if i haven't actually seen the show. so i watched episode 1 this morning and it was mid. and i'm gonna talk about it.

what i've picked up on is that people are saying this thing is slow-burn. i disagree. they are fucking and having a domestic dispute in episode one. i don't care that in-universe it's been like a year since whatshisname smoked badboyingly right next to a no-smoking sign. slowburn is for the audience and it only works if you make the audience understand the characters' feelings and desires before the characters do and/or act on them. 2 seasons of yearning(tm) cannot be skipped over with timejumps. woah look, it's three months later! so much happened in that time, just trust me! no, you need to take the (real-world) time to develop the relationship, make the audience care, establish a chemistry between the characters that is so insane that it becomes excruciating for the audience to watch them keep saying "we're just friends", keep dating other people and keep busying themselves with other things so they don't have to confront their own feelings and take the risk of ruining something good at the chance of their feelings being mutual. just my opinion.

something more general that i feel whatever about is uhhh everything else, really. why is it so dark. i know we've been saying bring back good lighting in cinema but good lighting doesn't mean no lighting. put more lumen into those lamps i cannot seee!! the dialogue is so awkward? it's like they're trying to be sexy and serious but there isn't enough depth? generally, i feel like there isn't enough metaphorical meat on this show. it feels like they couldn't have made it more packed but not in a way where it feels overloaded because they put everything into the text that they thought of, but it just feels sort of flat because they ran out of ideas. or knowledge. idk how to describe it. you know how as a storyteller you should ideally know way more about your story and world than what you end up writing down for people to read? that iceberg of additional story- and world-knowledge is the meat that feels missing in heated rivalry. the characterisation of their relationship is also....well. idk. at the end of episode 1, canada-boy says something like "all you do is beat me" whatever whatever, and they have this quarrel about their respective personality flaws and their relationship and it's like. ok you are telling me this. but i haven't seen it. i definitely haven't felt it. where was the pain of losing repeatedly and his resentment towards ilya for flaunting his wins that canada is expressing here? where was ilya's annoyance with everything seemingly revolving around canada shown? we know they kind of think the other is an asshole, they made sure to tell us that, but emotionally, this fight they have as two heads floating tín the dark outside an award-event afterparty comes fully out of the blue. anyway. why is the sex so explicit anyway? you don't need to do all that.

it's lunchtime. i'm gonna watch episode 2. i need to know whether it stays like this. i want to be openminded. bit maybe, maybe i am a hater.