Does Not Illustrate (runoff crowner 8/20/13): Genre Savvy

All the useful information in this image is in the text; the graphics add little or nothing... I guess that a robot is speaking, but that is not important. Anyway, I don't really get it. Saying "If I live through this, I'm..." may be but is not necessarily due to being Genre Savvy. I think it's worse than nothing, and the page should be left blank if no suitable replacement is found. (And if any page doesn't need an image, it's this one; it almost doesn't need a description! That's a great name.)

As always, suggestions welcome, of course. None of the examples with which I am familiar make good images.

edited 14th Jun '13 11:38:54 PM by rodneyAnonymous

I was thinking the same thing. Let's pull.

Pull it.

As far as replacements go... well, there are sub-pages that can have their own images if needed, but I'm not seeing any way to show this trope without lots of text and word bubbles.

It could be moved to the webcomics subpage, but something that shows the concept and 1) doesn't take two panels and/or 2) isn't so freakin' big would be better.

That original image is really big, and almost all text to boot.

Could something like this work?

edited 15th Jun '13 6:11:12 AM by m8e

If we know what why he's holding up a gun with a pencil (preferably without a caption), then I'll say yes.

Very basic savviness, but still savviness.

It can also just be common knowledge not to mess with criminal evidence during an investigation.

That or he's a police detective. There's no indication that he's doing this because they do it in stories. I agree with the OP, this doesn't really need an image and I really doubt we can find one that doesn't rely on words.

That is maybe not the best image but it does demonstrate that this might be communicated without words.

Does anyone else want to pull?

While the pic is quite text reliant, it isn't misleading and still displays the trope. And in the absence of a better suggestion, I say Keep Until Better Image Suggested.

An image can hurt the page for reasons besides being misleading.

edited 22nd Jun '13 2:41:30 AM by rodneyAnonymous

I think the gun-and-pencil is an improvement, but I don't think the current is bad enough to pull.

Keep in mind, we're still arguing a pic for a subpaged trope. I kinda like the gun-and-pencil pic for whatever subpage it would belong on.

Is this any good?

That's not so much Genre Savvy as Tempting Fate. "Never say "What could go wrong?!" shows up in any number of genres

Even with the gun-pencil-thing, I'm having a hard time seeing how you would illustrate this in a single image without background knowledge of another trope that isn't reliant on text.

I agree that it does illustrate, and we don't have a better image suggestion.

Explain how it illustrates? It is just speech bubbles about it.

Would it work if we used an image of someone lampshading a famous trope (e.g. Black Dude Dies First) in an attempt to avert it?

I think that this is one of those tropes which simply cannot be illustrated through a picture alone.

Perhaps we need a new policy on pictures for tropes like this? Should the policy officially endorse using a picture with text (including what would normally be Just A Face And A Caption) if the trope is difficult or impossible to illustrate with just a picture?

Is there a forum where I should bring this up so it can be discussed?

We don't need a policy on pictures for tropes like this, because there is no policy on pictures for tropes not like this, in the sense you mean. Page images are evaluated according to many criteria, and one of them that has gotten traction is "too much tell, not enough show". If you think your suggestion is good and the article warrants a higher tell:show ratio for a page image than normal, sure, explain.

There is no line between "no text at all" and "nothing but text". It's a gradient. No need to have rules about it.

Also, on the gun/pencil image: Don't forget the caption! An important detail or two can be filled in by the caption.

edited 2nd Jul '13 1:58:10 AM by rodneyAnonymous

Would this also be Tempting Fate or could we use it?

Edit: Added higher quality version.

edited 2nd Jul '13 7:15:07 AM by Melkior