Stay wiith me on this one, it's going to be a bumpy ride...
Hobbies. We all have hobbies. Things we enjoy and know rather a lot about but for which we do not receive compensation. Comics, well, I used to sell a lot of comics, so not really a hobby. Sports? Used to gamble. Cooking, well, I've cooked at the Palmer House, probably not a hobby. Hmm, I've got one. I used to play at match-making. I was pretty damn good at it too, and now Chris Maka is laughing himself sick, because he's met me and I look a lot more like an offensive tackle than I do a yenta, but in fact, several couples I introduced now have marriages and kids. Though only one couple had the excellent taste to name their child after me. I had to stop in law school, because I met a guy who insisted on punching outside his weight class, and it stopped being fun. And also elmo refused to take my advice.
I bring this up because there's a difference between profesion and hobby and this fact seems to have escaped some of our comics writers from TMK to Brian Bendis. They let their fannish little ideas hold sway. These are ideas that any normal person would just share with their friends at the weekly gaming session and get shouted down. Instead they wind up being published by the major comics companies who hired these fools and then refuse to edit them. Btw, a quick shout out to the editors: sometimes editing is more than making sure things are spelled correctly or that the art is on time. Sometimes editing is telling the writer who just suggested that Archie is actually a clone to go sleep it off.
Anyway:
Since we have at least one actual professor of English Literature in our curmudgeonly cohort, I feel confident that I will incur his wrath by expressing the following opinion: I think it is fair to say that the greatest writer of all-time was William Shakespeare. (The second greatest, imnsho, is a guy named Louis Brandeis. This has nothing to do with comics, but what the hell, I'll never have another opportunity to tell this story. He was an American Supreme Court Justice, and he practiced his craft on the Court where writing is a contact sport. He used to make other justices change their votes by threatening them with opinions he could possibly submit, which would be so brilliantly written that the other justices would be forced to go along with them, leading to undesirable results. If you want to see how American Law might have gone, the Earth-2 of American Law if you will, hey a comics reference!!!, check out _The Unpublished Opinions of Mr. Justice Brandeis; the Supreme Court at Work_ ed. Alexander Bickel.)
Anyway, Shakespeare. Greatest writer ever. Tremendous influence. Practically invented the Enlgish language as we know it.
Comics writers: You are not Shakespeare. I say this because Bill racked up quite the body count, and since he might have invented what we view today as dramatic structure, a lot writers seem to confuse death with drama. One comics writer told me that he wasn't going to revive a certain character because he thought death should have meaning. Interesting thought. Here's the thing: a) nobody is really dead. Close your eyes, comics writers. Repeat slowly. "Fiction." b) If everyone does the same damn thing, it loses its efficacy. Hmm, no wait, that's not strong enough. If everyone does it, it no longer works. Even a little.
Oddly, this phenomenon has affected another American form: musicals. Stephen Sondheim, master of the American musical, has also gotten a bit of a body count, even with one of his works, "West Side Story," being an acknowledged rip of the Bard. But he has not always been rewarded with commercial success. Meanwhile we've had "Rent" and "Avenue Q." Kander and Ebb too. They kill characters like Richard Ramirez at a sorority house. But that's not the whole Broadway story. We also have Andrew Lloyd Webber and Mel Brooks. For every "Cabaret" or "Sweeney Todd" we have "A Chorus Line" or "Cats." My point being, I mean other than that I am quite obviously a closeted homosexual who knows way too much about Broadway? I look at comics like "Identity Crisis" or "Avengers: Eaten By Wolves" and I want to know: where's my "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" (by Sondheim, ironically, this time ripping Plautus) or "Bye, Bye, Birdie." I mean, it's called "comics" not "tragics," yes? Well, there is actual comedy. Strips. Archie. Bugs Bunny. Simpsons. Anything by Priest, or PAD who is really Priest's less talented younger brother. But there's nothing playing on the same field as the superhero comic books, really. A qualitative difference marks off Superman from the Simpsons on the newstand, but Broadway reveres Oklahoma and South Pacific on the same level as A Chorus Line and Annie. Unlike movies, best musical Tony can go to a comedy as easily as a drama. In comics, though, no comedy tonight.
Another thing about Shakespeare is that except for the History plays, he never had to worry about the next issue. There was no "MacBeth Pt. 2, Banquo's Back and This Time It's Personal." If a comics writer kills off a character, the next guy can't use that character without coming up with some reason for the character not to be dead. Sometimes those reasons are stupid. Sometimes not, but they definitely make life harder for the next guy who has to scrape them up.
So, comics writers:
Here's a challenge for you: instead of killing off a few dozen characters, try telling a story about them. I'm talking to you, Bendis.
Next time: movies and comics.
Posted by Mike Chary at October 26, 2004 11:01 PM
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Here's a challenge to comics readers, read what you like and don't sweat the stuff you don't.
The problem with telling people that they shouldn't complain about what they don't like is that it inevitably applies just as well to the person complaining about the complaints.
Holy shit, the Red Sox are leading in the World Series 3-0 and I just took Mike Chary's side in an argument! Citizens: report to your bomb shelters NOW.
The problem with telling people that they shouldn't complain about what they don't like is that it inevitably applies just as well to the person complaining about the complaints.
You're absolutely right, which is why I'm not sweating Mike Chary's post in the least. I just recognize a behavior I used to have and am sharing my current views that have made me a much happier reader. If people are truly bound and determined to lament the current state of comics, nothing I have to say is going to change their minds.
As far as having to clean up previous writers "messes," I'm just going to echo my feelings about a recent DC relaunch. I don't care what Adam Strange was doing before now and I don't care where previous writers left him. All I know is the first issue of his current mini was a great pulp scifi jaunt that was a ton of fun.
Ralf: Oddly, your apparent psychic ability to tell whether or not you like something before reading it does not prevail amongst comics readers in general. Your advice, therefore, is just silly given that those of us with subscriptions have agreed to purchase comics in advance. Additionally, at least the name of this site implies strongly that the authors thereof are going to be complaining a lot of the time. Perhaps Marc's advice has a more immediate application.
Your attitude is a rather fannish one: who cares if you don't like it. As I stated up front, I am addressing the professional side of things which might be stated as: if you aggravate your audience by telling bad stories, they'll stop buying your product, and then we have the current industry. You don't care what happened to Adam Strange? Fine, they have you. But what use to gain Ralf Haring and lose twenty others. You gonna buy 21 copies, Ralf?
Marc: Remember Bill Buckner! The deal with the Bosox is that they take their fans just to the edge, and then screw them. They haven't won yet, and the Cards were incredible this year. And no Schilling until at least game 6, and he's injured.
I don't have psychic abilities and do read stuff that doesn't tickle my fancy because I'm trying something new. I tried the recent Townscapes collection from Bilal and didn't particularly like it (The Beast Trilogy was more to my liking). I borrowed the first volume of Battle Royale from a friend and it left me feeling conflicted as to whether I wanted to get the series myself.
Also, many thanks for explaining the not-so-subtle hint in Marc's post.
if you aggravate your audience by telling bad stories, they'll stop buying your product, and then we have the current industry.
No, then you have the industry from ten years ago. Sales are rising now. It isn't exactly healthy, but it's better than it was.
Comedy's hard. Dying is easy.
Plus, of course, being grown up isn't supposed to be fun, and comics (and their fans) desperately want to be grown up and respected and stuff.
Then there's also the idea that comic writers want to get realism in their work...but they grab the wrong parts of reality. Pointless death is all too common in reality, but it doesn't work well in fiction. Here's a hint...we read stories because we want something that makes more sense than our lives.
The sad thing is that all these writers so want to tell stories that are so much better than the sometimes silly stories of the 1960's and 1970's.
Yet 30-40 years later, they are still published in the form of Essentials and Masterworks.
Does anyone think any of the dreck published in the 1990's and 2000's will be read in 2040?
Does anyone think any of the dreck published in the 1990's and 2000's will be read in 2040?
Not all of it is dreck, of course. I fully expect Sandman, Bone, and the like to remain in print. It's hard to gauge what from the currently published company superhero books will become a classic over time. I think Morrison's X-Men run is one that will be fondly remembered in the future.
The nostalgia market comes in waves. Just one or two years ago, all the books based on 80s cartoons were burning up the sales charts and I expect in ten or twenty years there'll be resurgences of a similar nature. The Masterworks, Archives, and to a lesser extent the Essentials are published because there is a small, dedicated readership that buys them because those were the comics of their youth. I only buy them on an extremely sporadic basis because they really aren't geared towards me. I can't justify $50 for something that I only find interesting from an academic standpoint.
Sandman and Bone aren't super-hero comics, nor do writers start new series about those characters with ideas that will reboot the titles. However, you are right that there are some quality comics that will stand the test of time. They just aren't the super-hero ones.
The Lee-Kirby-Ditko books were admired when published and admired today. They were reprinted in the 1970's in various titles, and reprinted in the 1980's in Marvel Tales, mini-series formats, Marvel Saga (kind of) and the first Masterworks. In the 1990's and today they are published as Trades, Masterworks, and Essentials.
These are the exact same stories, but people still want to buy them because they provide a magical experience lacking in most super-hero comics today. Morrison's X-Men run was entertaining at times, but ended with a repeat of the Phoenix saga. I don't think this derivative ending will excite people as the original Phoenix story did.
Almost all Marvel comics today are living off the legacy of Lee-Kirby-Ditko or to a lesser extent the Shooter-years. One can point to any number of "iconic" moments from the 60's to 80's that helped define those comics and created those nostalgic moments.
What iconic moments were created in the 90's and today? Not many. I find Bendis' DAREDEVIL interesting, but always find myself wishing there were more fights with super villains. It lacks the intensity and suspense of Miller's run.
What's left? The Crossing and Teen Tony in the Avengers? The Clone Sage in Spider-Man? The various over-exposure arcs in X-men? The terrible art created by the Liefeld clones? The post-Onsluaght titles? The merger of the Malibu titles with Marvel? All are vilified or forgotten now by the comics community.
Never having been much of a DC fan I do not know how much this applies to those books, but I think for the most part it does based on other fan opinions.
There were bright spots at various times, but ultimately they all failed.
My prediction is that in 2040 there will still be publication in one form or another of the Lee-Kirby-Ditko books and almost none of the super-heroes of now.
That's pretty fucking nihilistic. And no, I don't have a problem with curmedgeons. I have a problem with the constant pining for the past that seems to crop up everywhere I look, from politics, movies, academics, art, and especially comics.
There are some very interesting things going on right now, and there were some interesting things done with superheroes in the past ten years. I'm thinking of Hellboy, The Authority under Ellis and JLA under Morrison, to name a few. Maybe it's because these stories were made years before I was born that I fail to see their appeal. In any case, it seems very regressive to place them on a pedastle and not move beyond them.
I don't think it's surprising that most Marvel and DC series are still milking old concepts. What's changed since the 80s is that people actually made a go of self-publishing and can now afford to keep their best ideas for themselves. They learned from the immense screwings their forefathers received.
As far as superheroes... I think Astro City will stick around. I didn't want to list Bendis' Daredevil because it's still going on. I think it's on track to be a classic DD run, but there's always the possibility of screwing the pooch at the end. Promethea will likely stick around, but that can really be said about everything Moore writes. Promethea deserves it more than most, imo. Starman perhaps. Morrison's Animal Man probably. I hope Planetary will stick around, but that's another one of those in-(very slow)-progress ones.
I think what will be remembered about Morrison's X-Men run is the revelation about Xorn and the extremely intricate way it actually works in all his previous issues without any readers having suspected a thing.