There's an element of comics culture, sometimes called (a little derisively) "Team Comics," that gets excited whenever anything that looks like that acknowledgment or respect I mentioned above turns up in the outside world -- a college class on the graphic novel, a Hollywood movie based on a graphic novel, a newspaper or magazine article about a cartoonist, somebody reading a comic book on a TV show. Different segments of Team Comics take notice if a TV character is reading a new issue of "Aquaman" or Lynda Barry's "One!Hundred!Demons!," but the principle is the same.
Both the "Team Comics" culture vultures and the alternate-cover-hoarding mavens are driven by the desire to turn their hobby into some kind of success or validation, whether through affluence or cultural power, and that impulse is directly connected to the class aspirations that afflict the entire medium. A lot of comics readers are unhealthily attached to the idea that everyone else thinks what they do is kind of trashy and disreputable, and that they have to prove their favorite leisure activity worthy of respect -- to show the world that they were right all along.
It's probably time to let go of that strain of earnest defensiveness.
Uh...Der. Wow.
I get it now. We're all comic book geeks.
Mind officially blown. That's it. I'm getting the hell out into the sunshine. Stat.
8 comments:
Oog. Yow. Thanks for the link... I can't remember the last time I read an article about comic books that was so filled with bad conclusions, broken facts and generalizations so sweeping that they could clean up the floor after a Motley Crue hotel party.
I mean, "an incestuous relationship" between the comics and the audience? Um...duh! We're the frikkin' consumer, dumbass. We're supposed to like them.
Geez.
Yeah...uh.. I think you're missing the point.
And what does it mean that the two biggest comic fans I know loved that article?
I can identify with the trashy and disreputable part....was I supposed to notice something else?
I'm very ambivalent about this article. I sorta agree with most of the statements made -- and, yet, I also feel somewhat insulted. I've been a long-time casual reader of comics (the gory pulp horror and superhero stuff, right on up to the more "intelligent" cutting edge offerings such as Sin City, Sandman etc.). I own perhaps six or seven issues, collectors editions, and the rest were read and trashed/handed over to others to enjoy. I don't hold them in high esteem (i.e. keep them sealed forver in plastic bags) but I do respect the genre and the writers/artists who have made this their life's work (more so, now, that I have entered into an agreement with some of the folks associated with HEROES to produce my own series of graphic novels based on my TV show yet-to-be). I do recognize that there is a divide between lovers of the auteurist art comics and the more mainstream stuff, like Spiderman and Witchblade -- and I really wish there wasn't.
Why can't we all just...get along?
KJC
I get it now. We're all comic book geeks.
So the next step is to get to where that's not a problem? *wry g* Your columns have made me think more than once of a T-shirt frequently worn by an actor I used to work with: "Theatre is life. Film is art. Television is furniture." It annoyed me beyond the telling of it.
Interesting piece; I'll have to check out the book. I wish the author the best of luck in getting comics fans to actually let go of the "persecuted minority" mindset. That's a doomed endeavor with pretty much any group of humans I can imagine.
And if you didn't already, now you know why I laugh at Henry every time he gets bristly about the "correct" term for his medium. ;-> It was losing any meaning when I started reading the things 25 years ago, cookie...
A great read. Thanks Denis.
Substitute "people" for comic fans and the money quote rings true for most subcultures I know.
"A lot of [people] are unhealthily attached to the idea that everyone else thinks what they do is kind of trashy and disreputable, and that they have to prove their favourite [musical genre / leisure activity / religious belief / sexual orientation] worthy of respect -- to show the world that they were right all along."
Dead on. The thing is, in my wreckless misspent youth, I was into the comics very much. And very much a Canadian nationalist.
I once asked the Marvel editor-in-chief why nobody Canadian was writing their Canadian superhero team title.
Needless to say, I've seen and been part of this whole thing. When I was 16. While not too much time has passed and I still love comics and, heck, Canada too, I'd like to think all of the above are more mature then they're ready to give themselves credit for.
Keep up the good work on the blog.
Quoth Matt:
I once asked the Marvel editor-in-chief why nobody Canadian was writing their Canadian superhero team title.
Because they thought of it as an X-title spinoff, which meant the rapidly-losing-his-marbles Brit got it piled on his plate.
I still swear they'll find Claremont's dessicated brain in the back of a file cabinet someday, and it will explain so much...
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