Talk:Invasion of the Triceratons, part 5/Transcript/@comment-5630934-20180411225058/@comment-995426-20180412031812

Didn't you ask this question when I did Change is Constant, part 1/Transcript? My answer then was "sure, what not?" But if you want a more in-depth explanation...

The transcription work has greatly aided in the creation and refinement of comic topic articles, because it provides a readily searchable reference as well as links to existing topics and red links to articles waiting to be created. It's also useful for clarifying discussion disputes about the comic source, such as confusion over "Takeshi Tatsuo" vs. "Tatsuo Takeshi" (the comic uses both naming forms). Transcripts also help in an area where comics have a disadvantage vs. movies and TV shows&mdash;accessibility of source material. A movie or TV show can be watched many times, movies can be bought just about anywhere these days, and TV shows are rerun by cable networks. Editing about comics relies mostly on the memory of readers and availability of comics themselves, and a lot of comics this wiki covers are decades old and not easy to find. Even for new comics, not everyone readily has access to comic book stores, and otherwise obtaining comics requires a certain amount of effort in searching and buying material that is more obscure than TV or movies. And even for those who have the comics, it's a lot slower to flip page by page scanning for words than it is to browse through a group of electronic transcripts with Ctrl-F text searches.

And it's not like a transcript replicates the original comic, because it can't always describe scenery or action sequences without text, but it's not really meant to&mdash;it documents text, including all the dialogue-heavy portions and expository info dumps. It also doesn't replace obtaining the comic itself, because part of the casual enjoyment of reading comics is in the visual presentation and quality of artwork, which you can't see in a transcript.

So given all the ways it helps, and the ways it doesn't exactly hurt, the simpler explanation is still, "sure, why not?" :)