The Secret of the Wednesday’s Haul

From Comics Aren’t Read Just By Nerds, a review of Douglas Wolk’s Reading Comics:

“As a result, Wolk’s survey of the English-language comics scene cuts between the kind of stuff that might win a Pulitzer or show up in a gallery and the stuff that’s chiefly prized by spandex hounds (who are apparently known in the trade as ‘FYOVs’ - short for ‘40-year-old virgins’).”

“Apparently known in the trade as “FYOV’s?”

I haven’t read Wolk’s book yet though it’s sitting on my bookshelf and I’ll probably hit it sometime after WWC this weekend. But I hope it isn’t as condescending at this review is.

“When a character stands up ‘at the end of 2006’s Astonishing X-Men #15′, Wolk writes, the artists ‘can pretty much count on their readers recognising it as an allusion to Wolverine striking the same pose at the end of 1980’s Uncanny X-Men #132′ - not a healthy-sounding state of affairs.”

So when Bourne Ultimatum makes allusions to the first movie (which it does multiple times,) is that “not a healthy-sounding state of affairs?” Allusions are a common literary tool. Why does Whedon, who frankly is writing a love letter to the books that he remembers, using it bad in a comic

And for possibly my favorite line of the review:

“Wolk also has a sneaking fondness for such ‘cheap, strong stuff’ as a 1970s Dracula series written by - can this be true? - Marv Wolfman.”

Oh, sweet irony; it is true. His name really is Wolfman and, yes, he did write some fantastic Dracula stories.

“Finally - or rather from time to time: he discusses his chosen figures in no particular order, quite possibly because he’s recycling old journalism - Wolk comes to the people who get reviewed in the broadsheets: the likes of Spiegelman, Burns, Satrapi, Ware and Alison Bechdel.”

But these are real writers, important writers and respected writers so we won’t make fun of them, their names or their work.

“[Wolk] even ventures a few remarks on their legendary touchiness: comics culture, he writes, sometimes feels like ‘an insular, self-feeding, self-loathing, self-defeating flytrap’. But he also writes sensitively about the awe-inspiring amount of time and effort it takes to write and draw a graphic novel, an ill-rewarded job that’s only ever done for the love of it.”

Usually I don’t mind these things but this review seems oddly accepting of the “insular, self-feeding, self-loathin, self-defeating flytrap” and doesn’t seem to realize that it’s reviewing more of a culture viewed through a book than the book itself. It says little about Wolk’s analysis of the more “low-brow” work compared to the real stuff. It doesn’t say talk about how or if Wolk makes comic books more accessible to the non-reader.

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