Why we can't seem to be legit Article by aviewaskewed, 02:52 AM 05th Apr 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. It’s a follow up to last week this week, woohoo! I’ll hold off on anything Countdown related for a week, since I want to be sure people have read it. Sorry about the lateness, I’ve had a pretty busy week, and I’m still wading through Countdown and other such coverage and happenings, plus non-site and comics related commitments. Shall try not to have this happen again. Last week, I talked a bit about the Golden Age of comics in brief, and we discussed my beliefs in regards to how we should view that material from a storyline context today. One thing I wanted to touch on, but didn’t get to, was that I wanted to also talk about why comics scholarship doesn’t catch on massively, and how we should view past material in terms of it‘s readability. There has always been a school of thought that says you revere the past because it’s the roots of the industry and the medium, failure to revere the original stories of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, no matter how crude, as anything but great, is a sin, and must mean you’re some un-educated schmo. This ideology is quite frankly, stupid. Look, I’ve read some old Batman stories, and while some are good, and I can appreciate what they meant in establishing the character and his world, some of them are just pure dreck, same as we have stories today that suck, but some people think to say ANY of it is bad somehow means you have to turn in your secret decoder ring. Simply put, this is bullshit, and it’s exactly why we are unable to have mass and true comics scholarship. People cannot separate fact, from fandom, it’s a truth of this business. That’s why I think it would be next to impossible to get away with saying that I think Stan Lee’s gift for ideas, for hype, and an incredible work ethic, more then his writing talent (which was good, probably better then a few, but not as great as he’s been lauded to be, just go read Essential DD vol. 1 and you’ll see what I mean), would be a criminal accusation to most, people love Stan Lee, he’s part of the comics culture, and people don’t want to think there was ANY shuck and jive in what he did, let alone that so much of what he did worked was because of a mastery of shuck and jive. I read columns and reviews all the time done by people who’s opinions, and abilities I respect, and, in many cases, I consider light years ahead of my own. But every so often, I’ll catch a line, a phrase, something that just says to me that they have crossed the line between being a fan, and being a true scholar. That’s not to say real scholarship doesn’t exist, Scott McCloud has written some excellent books on the subject of comics as art form, but he is an exception, rather then the rule. Not to mention that some people just wind up calling something great because of a “holy shit!” type moment in it, honestly, I think a lot of the people that read Dark Knight Returns, or Watchmen, took the wrong messages and lessons away from it, hell, I think we have that happening now. People are really quick to point out the coolness of Batman ripping into the leader of the mutants, or the explosion in New York at the climax of Watchmen, that they miss the larger picture, the symbolism, the breaking of cliché. They go for the visceral response, and don’t really ever consider what’s happening beneath that surface reaction. Another problem is people are defensive as fans. I’m guilty of it myself, but the fact is, the truth has to be said, there’s been good and bad in this business. The problem comes of course when somebody attacks the crap out of a series you love. Give you an example, I’m getting some ragging on from our own Stafffighter (and if you’re not reading his Thursday Super Psychology columns, what the hell? They’re great stuff), about Tomb of Dracula. For those not familiar, Tomb was published from 1972-1979, by Marvel Comics, easily the most popular of The House of Ideas attempt at a horror line, lasting a total of 70 issues, and introducing Blade, Hannibal King, and Frank Drake, who would eventually become the Nightstalkers to The Marvel U. This book has a fine pedigree in that from ASM and Justice League writer Gerry Conway wrote a story or two (the original, but I think that may have been the end of his involvement), Archie Goodwin, a legendary DC Editor, JSA and JLA writer (a co-creator in both teams to be sure) Gardner Fox, and a young Marv Wolfman (who wrote every issue after his debut in #7), with art provided by the legendary Gene Colan on every issue. Now, I personally love vampires, I love Dracula as he’s portrayed throughout this series (arrogant, evil, but yet, there does almost seem to still be a shred of the man and his somewhat misguided honor, even 500 years after he was turned from the light), the first few issues are just fairly good adventure stories, they feature some real leaps in imigination, theme, atmosphere, and a lot of other things that were going on at the time. I really think to get into the Tomb, you have to give it at least a two trade commitment, as Wolfman struggled a bit, but found his voice and stride about halfway through, it’s also historic because we all know what Wolfman has done since, so it’s interesting to watch a gifted writer cut his teeth (no pun intended) on this book. But Stafff doesn’t see these things, Stafff is hung up on the things that Wolfman did that weren’t so good, he’s focused on the wooden bullets, and all the hokey vampire killing tactics being employed by our well-meaning, portrayed as simultaneously competent, yet bumbling, and proverbially in need of a clue (Rachel, he can turn to mist, stop shooting that crossbow already!). Now, I’m not saying Stafff’s criticisms aren’t justified, because they are, but there’s a lot of good in this series as well that he just ain’t seeing. I like to think that in these arguments, I’ve tried to defend this work that I enjoy, fairly, admitting the faults, but pointing out the good points in a manner that is truthful, but yeah, that’s a fan just wanting to scream “yeah well, if you don’t get why this is good work, you’re a dumb ass, and most people agree with me, so ha!”. A LOT of people seem to give into that it seems to me, maybe not so much in those words, but certainly when they take that out sometimes when they’re trying to do a scholarly work on a book they look. You’re too close to the material to be objective, because you let your fan defenses come up, and you wind up only wanting to point out the positives, and hide or ignore the negatives. But that’s not to say we CAN’T have serious scholarship, or that we can’t have fandom, or even an appreciation for old work. Fandom drives any business, any medium, if nobody wants the product, nobody is going to buy it, and the company selling the product goes out of business. Comics are a business, they’re a business built on telling stories people want, that they’re fans want, they have to always work towards doing that before they do anything else. But there is definitely room for scholarship, there’s definitely room to work out a canon, there’s room to say “this is qualitatively better work then this” (which is something many people have problems doing because of the perceived state of collapse the industry is in, most people are too “ra-ra! Something is selling!” to consider if it’s really got any merit, or ability to stand the test of time), to learn from, and understand the techniques of the creators that came before. Geoff Johns is influenced by John Broome’s old All-Star Comics stories when he writes JSA now, everyone has been influenced by Kirby and Adam’s artistically, they really defined the language of this medium. We’re beginning to see that scholarship coming around within the industry to a degree, and that’s good, that’s what we need to be doing. We need to kill the image that comics are a bastardized, garbage medium, for idiots who can’t really draw well, or hacks who can’t write. The only way we do that is to as community, encourage the industry to broaden, to show the outside world through our intelligent understanding of what we’re putting out now, and what was put out in the past, not our fan based reactions to it, that this medium is worth looking at again, that it is worth seeing as a serious art form. We do that, by god we’ve taken a huge step towards truly legitimizing this art form, something that we can ALL agree is long past due. Back to Rants