October 11, 2011

Maybe Comic Books Need to Undergo a Periodic Death.




Technological advancements, the attendant euphoria that comes with a medium or a genre’s popularity all inspire far more mediocrity than they do genius, or even meaningful work.When the Polaroid put the power of instant photography in everyone’s hands, it also lowered the bar, capping what was possible for the sake of getting the public a baseline result: a repeatable, consistent result. That the ensuing generations of photographs were of muddied colors and a kind of generalized unmotivated focal plane was the apparent cost of averaging out and quickening the art of photography for the masses. -Just like instant coffee, there is a trade off in taste for the sudden rush and payoff at the press of a button. The same can be said of the camera as a whole (as a successor to the paintbrush.) This may have more to do with the fact that most people are just not thinking much when it comes to creating images or capturing moments in their lives; they allow the machinery to do the thinking as well, and we all know that machines don’t think.
Such seems to be the case with my beloved medium, the comic book. This weekend, thousands will crowd the Jacob Javitz convention center in New York City. This year as in the last 15 years, there will be an increase in the number of “independently” created comic books, as has been the case every preceding year. The vast majority of this “new” material, created by amateurs, some still in high school is unreadable shit. Even some of the entrepreneur based titles and many of the new launches by established house like DC and Marvel are thin examples of the medium’s potential.
The comedian Patton Oswalt (himself a fan of comics and science fiction,) remarked some years ago that comedy had died in the early 1990s, but he added that it needed to die because the comedians sucked, and the audiences sucked too. He insists the rebirth of the stand-up form in the 2000s would not have been possible without this artistic culling. That’s how I feel about the 2000s onward in the comics.
The plethora of licensed adaptations, rehashed concepts, and homogenous autobiographical works is not only depressing and embarrassing for me as a creative artist in the medium; it presents practical problems at the comic shop and digital newsstands. Every time someone like Ed Burns decides to do a Dock Walloper (with Respect to Jim Palmiotti,) he is necessarily crowding out something else by somebody else who isn’t just making a token visit to the comic book medium. Add to this the recurring problem that comics face as a “pop art” ghetto, where any idiot thinks he can write a comic book (Yes, you’re an idiot if you think you can just sit down and write one without knowing the medium as consumer, or as a devoted reader .) Years ago, I had someone tell me they thought teaching art was easy, to which I answered; “Maybe you’re not very good at it?” That guy hasn’t spoken to me since. I’m finding myself having to offer variants of that existential question to many people who say they want “to do a comic book” or “have an idea for a graphic novel.”


I have come to hate the word graphic novel. I only use it out of sheer convenience and custom. I hate the term graphic novel because it’s most often used by people who want to talk about comic books, but don’t know anything meaningful about them.


Today, printing is cheap. The internet is even cheaper as a distribution option. Scores of aspiring storytellers, or “idea” men (read: bullshit artists and opportunists) now no longer have stumbling blocks between themselves and a completion of a comic book, and that means there’s a lot of shit being made out there crowding out the stuff people could be reading instead. I’d put Walt Kelly’s Pogo over just about anything “new” this year, and that’s because whatever material of that caliber is getting produced is getting shoved out of the shelves by the latest celebrity penned graphic novel.
Before you ask someone like me to listen to your idea for a comic book, -ask yourself this:
Have you ever read Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli’s run on Daredevil (collected as the trade paperback, Born Again?) Have you ever read any of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts work prior to 1968? Do you know who Harvey Pekar was? Do you know who Kurt Busiek is? Do you know who Alex Toth was? Have you ever heard of a company called Charlton?
That’s my litmus test for keeping out the pretenders, and if you know anything at all about mainstream comics, you’ll know it’s not much of a test at all. If you can’t answer those asinine questions, I don’t care how many times you’ve read Watchmen or seen Batman Begins; -you’re a danger to our medium’s level of quality and you need to stay out until you know better. If you think you don’t need to know anything to write a comic book, -well that’s why you’ll suck at it. That’s why I won’t talk to you. I wouldn’t give a minute’s time to a young author out to write his first novel, -who didn’t know who Philip Roth was.
-Get it now?
I’d like to see the next series of over-budgeted Hollywood costume abortions implode their first weekends out. This way, perhaps this beacon of an easy buck or an easy book will stop drawing dilettantes to the world of comic books like mindless moths to a lamppost.
-SJ

3 comments:

  1. On the other hand, Donna Barr would answer "no" to maybe half those questions, and no one would suggest she's not qualified to do graphic novels. Or comics. Or whatever you want to call them.

    There's something to be said for being aware of the form's history, but it's not everything.

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  2. @Kurt Busiek,
    I certainly see your point, but Donna Barr's no newcomer who's jumping to comic books because they are increasingly hip (I may have first seen her work in the early 90s when I was just out college?) I guess I should state that I think the specific questions I asked are irrelevant, the point is someone established like Barr or someone in question approaching you or I for a collaboration should know something beyond what gets covered in TIME magazine about comics.
    I don't think it's everything, or even grounds for "certification," but getting to know the form's history, or more to the point, it's ground breaking work, notable creators and canonical works is an integral part of being a capable artist or writer in comics, and at the least shows respect for what you do, have done, and the rest of us are still trying to do.
    Many thanks for stopping by, (and giving cause for a shout out to Donna Barr.)
    -SJ

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