Ranting about pretension in comics, and some politics notes. Article by aviewaskewed, 12:11 AM 21st Sep Disclaimer: The following column is entirely the opinions of the author (even at that we aren‘t sure), any similarity to the opinions of any other staff or affiliate of theendlesscrew.com is entirely coincidental and unintentional. Unless specifically noted otherwise, all creator comments have been gleaned from other sources and no creators have actually endorsed any aspect of this column. They probably might endorse it if they knew it existed, who knows? Trying some new stuff this week, I think perhaps between a reading of a book on Robert Crumb, and Louis Black in a short period of time (two or three days) and the enjoyment I get out of Stephen Grant’s Permanent Damage at CBR every Wednesday has inspired me. One of the principle problems I’ve had with this column in the past is that I don’t always have a rant or topic big enough to fill what I feel is the requisite amount of space. You see dear reader, you and I have a pretty honest relationship I feel, I write up this big stream of consciousness each week, and you read it. Simple, pure, happy. I also have some ambition to maybe at some point get paid to do this sort of thing, so not only is it a good idea to keep these things of a certain length and quality so that I don’t waste the time you graciously give me by reading my words, but also so that some professional type folk will eventually read this and go “I want to hire this guy!”. So with that said, here’s what we’re going to do, I’m going to kick the column off each week with a rant on something in comics, of what length, I don’t know, however much I’ve got in the think tank on the subject. Then we just digress into whatever else I’m thinking about at the moment happens to strike my fancy about the world, or life, or whatever. So yes, it’s sort of like blogging, but I’m going to try to keep this away from anything you might not necessarily care about. Let’s try it this week, and if you truly hate it, or truly love it, shoot me some sort of communication (since most of you reading this probably know me, you have endless options to do this, no pun intended) to let me know how you feel about this, or any other topic. I think this is going to make for a much better experience for everyone involved. Let’s kick it off. So for awhile now, and I’m sure I’ve probably mentioned it before, I’ve had a real aversion to the seemingly vogue idea of calling any collected edition of comic books a “graphic novel”. It’s such a pretentious sounding name, as though somehow by it being collected it is elevated above the mere monthly 30 page magazine. I don’t much mind it if you call something that originally appears between two covers a “graphic novel”, or even if it’s a one and done compilation like “Watchmen” or “V For Vendetta” which even though it came out monthly, can certainly be defined as a “graphic novel” in it’s collected form. Those are the ONLY uses of the term that I feel are actually descriptive of the work, and not somebody trying to get all pretentious and artificial about the work. But you know, maybe I’m being a bit small minded here. Not that I’m necessarily doing a 180 and saying I was wrong, just that I think I’m probably not seeing or recognizing the marketing scheme inherent here. Like I said, I’ve been reading some stuff of Robert Crumb’s lately, somebody who isn’t necessarily a huge fan of his fame, and has had some pretty extensive experience with the “art” world from all sides. He has come to the same conclusions a lot of people have: it’s all bullshit. It’s all people blowing smoke at each other in an effort to look smart. It’s all about a bunch of people who really missed the point of the children’s story about the emperor who has no clothes. That’s not to say art doesn’t exist, or that there isn’t valuable work in the arts, there absolutely is…but there’s also a lot of stuff that’s supposed to be art that I think is only valuable to a very small minority. I can see why company’s love the term “graphic novel” because it makes comics sound prettier as an art object, and worthier of people’s attention. I also think it’s myopic marketing. There’s such an obsession among fans and pros (and let’s face it, most pros are just fans who are on the other side of the fence now) to get books excepted by the critics, and viewed as art. All fine and good, I’d love to see comics reviewed the same way as books are, but you know what I’d like even more then that? Good comics to sell a whole bunch of copies month in and month out!!! I’d like that more then anything else in the world, and being accepted as art, and getting critical praise won’t get those numbers that the comic industry really needs, it needs Joe Average buying, and if you look at film, and you look at prose…Joe Average doesn’t give much of a crap what people consider art if he did, most of the top grossing movies, or authors, would not be able to rub two sticks together right now to build a fire, but instead their millionaires. People like Stephen King, most critics don’t. People like mindless action flicks, most critics hate them. Now, I could probably go on and on about good things in film or prose that never quite get the attention they deserve, but that’s a whole other issue. My point is that the net should really be cast wide, and if comics want to really bust out and sell in big numbers (and of course, that’s everybody’s goal) then they need to first make better material, and they need to do a better job of marketing it. The “graphic novel” approach is a nice touch, perhaps it really is time we try to abandon the word “comic book” and all the negative connotations associated with it, but to think that acceptance in the critical world of literature is going to answer the industry’s problems is lunacy. Packaging is the key, as is marketing. It’s all about building an audience, but I think comics has something working against it that a lot of people don’t really touch in: people in general just don’t seem to read like they used to. Now THAT my friends, is a problem for any publisher, publishing any form of written work. If people aren’t as a society reading, you’re in trouble before you get out of the gates. I’ve heard some rather frightening statistics about how low the number of people who still read out there are, and I just heard the other day that the book industry is reporting a decline in sales they’re chalking up to nothing coming from the “big authors”. It’s a real shame people don’t seem to see the pleasures in reading anymore like they used to, especially with the sad state of television and movies these days (especially network TV and regular studio movies…yuck). I know people who have absolutely no problem with the idea of comics, even have favorite characters, but won’t read the books. That’s a problem I just have no solution to quite frankly, you can only lead the camel to the water, but you cannot make him drink. Want to share some political thought with you this week, just a couple bits I’ve seen in the news and then a theory that seems to have emerged to me. First off, what the hell is wrong with George Bush? I don’t mean this in general, because if we speak generally, we’ll be here way into next week’s column (and this one is already late enough as it is) listing things. No, I just meant the most recent bout of insanity he’s on about saying America is now above the Geneva Convention. I don’t condone torture, at all, and I really think that if President Bush would like to change my mind, or the minds of other American’s about how we’re better off having torture as an option to interrogate suspects, I think he should do something like…oh I don’t know…give examples of how we’re better off doing this!!! Bush seems to think that just standing up and saying “well, kicking the crap out of people until they tell us what we want to know is good. It’s thwarted attacks, oh, I don’t have to give examples…cause I’m the President, and I don’t need to justify anything to you, you should just believe me.” Right, because that adventure in Iraq is going so very well for us, not to mention our continuing adventure in Afghanistan which everyone has pretty much forgotten in the wake of the Iraq failure. The other thing baffling me here is how he thinks he’s going to get Congress to pass this radical bill which would basically be America spitting in the face of international law. Hey, we’ve got mid-term elections going on right now! Republicans are desperately trying to keep their seats and show America that the arch-conservative Bush does not speak for the entire party, even Republicans who are on this hot seat right now who totally agree with what Bush is proposing are pretty much guaranteed NOT to vote for it, because they like their jobs, and it wouldn’t be too hard for their Democratic opponents to at the last minute get a copy of the votes on this bill and smear somebody with a positive vote here. It’s also heartening to see people who’ve stood with Bush on a lot of issues (like McCain and Powell) stand up and see how irresponsible this is. By God there just may be hope for this country yet! Yeah…I don’t really believe that one either…in part because of the next thing I want to spend some time complaining about. Jim McGreevey was on Oprah today. Let me say this, Jim McGreevey may just be a genius, I’ll tell you why. Everybody in the country knows, and will probably remember McGreevey as the former Governor of my home state, New Jersey, who outted himself and resigned office. That’s ALL their going to remember him for. Not the sea of corruption and horrible things he did in office that were not good for the state, were all for him, but for the gay affair. Wow, that is a great piece of work right there, no sarcasm in that whatsoever, that is a great piece of image making right there. He now gets to be an activist for gay rights if he chooses, and he’s sidestepped the cloud of impropriety (other then the affair) that surrounded him. Good work Jim! You lousy political man you…I really wish Richard Cody had decided to seek a full term, he was good in the interim. That’s all I think I’ve got for you this week, this column is already two days late, apologies, another of those nutty work schedule weeks, and my commitments elsewhere also popped up on me. Hope you like the new format, as barring a torrent of negative email against it, this is pretty much what you can look forward to now each week, as I think it’ll help me pump more of these out. Until next Monday. Back to Rants