Or “It’s comics. Hooray Comics!”
Comics have me down today. It’s not because of anything in the comics but because of the lack of enthusiasm anyone has about comics. It started this morning with Chad Nevett and Tim Callahan’s two part dirge about mainstream comics here and here and then it carried over to Tucker and Jog’s non-trip through last week’s comics and then it settled in on Geoff Klock’s reaffirmation of Chad and Tim’s dirge. O.k., maybe it’s just not today but I don’t know if it’s because a winter malaise has set in early (the snow is already starting to fall here in Chicago) or because everyone is just tired of reading and debating End-Of-Decade lists (Blankets, really?) but everyone seems all set to hunker down for the rest of December and take a shit on comics.
It’s funny how five years ago, X-Men comic critic Paul O’Brien stated publicly how bored he was with comics and Alan David Doane jumped all over that statement. I so want to be ADD to Nevett and Callahan’s O’Brien here but I don’t know if I have the energy. But I look around my desk at all the 2009 books that I have piled here and I’m don’t understand how people think that comics are in any worse shape now than they were a year or two ago. Right now on my desk, I have:
- Ganges 3
- All Star Superman V2
- Batman R.I.P.
- Black Jack V8
- Incognito
- Batman & Robin #1-3
- The Comics Journal #299
- Wasteland V5.
- What a Wonderful World 1 & 2
- Oishinbo : The Joy of Rice
- Oishinbo: Fish, Sushi & Sashimi
- Noir: A Collection of Crime Comics
- Vagabond VizBig V1
- A Drifting Life
- Dark Avengers Annual #1
- West Coast Blues
- You Are There
- Grandville
- Asterios Polyp
- Winter Men TPB
- Beanworld 1-3
- Jonah Hex #50
- Sweet Tooth #4
That’s all stuff that’s come out over the course of the year and it’s still only a small handful of what I’ve gotten and enjoyed this year. Are they all classics? Not hardly but they’re all enjoyable and stuff that has me excited to read and to reread them.
Notice anything about that list? There’s hardly any superheroes on it? To use some language that I regularly try to avoid on this family blog, fuck superheroes. Fuck Marvel. Fuck DC. If you’re bored with them and you think you’re bored with comics, you’re just not trying hard enough. You’re not looking beyond your little walls. No matter how much I like Chad and Tim, or how much they protest that they read more than superheroes, they’re attitude in that meandering and mealy-mouthed Splash Page just screams Marvel and DC fanboys.
Klock calls out himself, Nevett and Callahan about their age. I’m going to be 40 next year and for the past month or so, I’ve wondered if I want to be “that” guy– the guy who can’t let go of something that he loves. I think, in the end, it’s more that I don’t want to be held down by these things anymore. After spending most a life collecting comics, I look at the massive number of long boxes I have and wonder how I could get rid of 90% of them (you’ll pry my Uncanny X-Men by Claremont and Byrne out of my cold, dead hands.) I couldn’t imagine not having some kind of four-color thrill going on in my life. Comics are an artform and I’m still in love with the artform even if most of the actual art produced are just more of the same old, same old.
Yes, the mainstream is lame but guess what? The mainstream has always been lame. The mainstream gave us Marvel’s Secret Wars and no matter how much nostalgia and childhood innocence you wrap it up in, Secret Wars is lame.* Suck it up and accept that the few things that you like are the exception and not the rule. Heck, the indie and alternative comics are lame as well. It’s Sturgeon’s Law and it still holds true today; 90% of everything is crud. Your Marvel comics? Crud. Your DC Comics? Crud. Your Image and Oni comics? Crud. Your handmade little mini comics? Crud. Forget the 90%. Any enjoyment about comics aren’t about that 90%. It’s about discovering the 10% that’s good and probably the .5% that’s great. That’s where the fun of comics is. That’s what keeps you reading and coming back again and again.
I totally agree with everything you said, except of course Secret Wars. People are far too often confusing genre with medium. But what of us who LOVED superhero stories, mostly Marvel and some DC, that don’t necesarily love comics the art form?
I find now how much I enjoy reading comics but am struggling to find genres I like. While I’m interested in something like an Asterios Polyp, I fear it’s too artsy for my tastes. Blankets, for example, is good example of a personal type of storytelling that normally enjoy. Except that book got way to pretentious for me.
So while I’m searching for other styles to read I also don’t want to give up on superhero books either, though I find I’m becoming more and more that “guy” you spoke of….
Ty, I don’t even think it’s about genres. It’s about finding interesting work. From what you’re saying (how you LOVED superheroes,) you’re looking for something to kick in that nostalgia for you but I don’t think anything is going to be those books you loved. And anything that tries to be is horribly filled with nostalgia instead of story.
No, the mainstream hasn’t always been lame. It’s gone through its ups and downs, and now its just in a downturn. Superhero comics one year ago were better, on average, then they are now.
No big deal, it’s just that it’s something we felt like talking about.
Plenty of great stuff out there, as we all know. The bulk of my reading isn’t superhero-related, though I tend to get paid to write about the superhero stuff.
Tim,
Thanks for dropping by and leaving the comment. The post was a combination of stuff, particularly seeing you & Chad and Tucker & Jog all struggling with superhero comics right now, which I can completely understand. I’m down to buying what feels like next to nothing right now from the main Marvel or DC lines because none of it feels as bright and lively as it has in the past, even as recent as 3-4 years ago.
My reaction was more about people I know who read a variety of comics writing about superhero comics as the totality of current comics. Sure superhero stuff is kind of maudlin and dull right now but there’s plenty of other stuff out there. I think we (myself included) tend to find it easy to say “superhero comics are great now” or “superhero comics suck now” but how many people are just singing the praise of comics no matter what they are right now?
Is the mainstream lame? Well, I’d say that the comic mainstream was, is and probably will be lame, with brilliant flashes of inspiration. I think the whole of Marvel and DC had that inspiration back around 2002-2005 and you can still find un-lame (non-lame?) stuff around from writers like Rucka, Brubaker, Fraction and Johns but the majority of it just isn’t that good and hasn’t been that good in a long time. I threw the Secret Wars quip in there because I knew a couple of friends of mine were going to jump all over it but when a generation of comic fans hold up Secret Wars and GI Joe as the good books of the past, what do we expect of our comics now?
As I said, I was more just struck by the fact that multiple people who I know of and follow regularly wrote about the general apathy towards superhero comics right now. But I wonder if it’s really that constructive to jump on that pile now or is it better to say “yeah, those comics kind of suck right now but here’s a bunch of good stuff you can read if Marvel and DC isn’t doing it for you.”