Stuart Immonen wants you to not be a jerk.

[thebitterguy]

Artist and overall great guy Stuart Immonen is feeling a little unimpressed by the level of the dialogue regarding comics.

Sure, that’s right– there’s a conspiracy of artless crassness afoot. Everyone’s in on it; didn’t you hear? 100% of comic creators are white, male pigs, who don’t know a damn thing about art, or people, and frankly couldn’t care less.
Why is it like this? Why, when there are plenty of examples of praiseworthy comics, is so much of the “commentary” consist of unsupportable generaliztions? It’s up the hill backwards, it is.

Comments

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

Possibly because all the people seeking to pile on comics are the sort of folks who'd never be caught dead with a comic book in the first place, and are willing to indulge in whatever unsupportable generalization they like. I first saw this kind of intellectual mendacity back when Allan Bloom skewered rock music in "The Closing of the American Mind"; for a supposed intellectual, he essentially treated the whole issue with the kind of arm's-length distaste, like a sideshow impresario too good to enter his own tent.

[brand-of-amber.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I love comics. Read them daily.

And while there is a lot of really wonderful stuff out there, there also is a really huge load of foul shit.

But then, I don't see it being much different than say, books in general. I think the real problem is that people cast it in terms of "comics" rather that "comics by X" or "about Y" as though the whole medium is up to judge. No one (or no one who'd get taken seriously) would say that about, say, novels in general. But folks will whip out the "comics are sexist suck" like it was valid to judge all graphic storytelling by the cut-off wearing model of Mary Jane's ass making Spiderman a sandwich.

[thebitterguy]

When are you gonna be starting your comix reviews, btw? Still burning through the TPL's Graphic Novel section?

[brand-of-amber.livejournal.com]

Here is my first one, of the first two books of the Shaman Warrior Series.

First, an impression of Shaman Warrior:

G1: Hey, I'm cool and have long hair and a tight belly, but I'm brooding and mysterious!

G2: Yes, master! And I am cool and am all giant and am angry and mysterious!

G3 - 475: We too are cool, and angry, and brooding, and mysterious!

G1: DIE!

G2: MASTER!

G3 - 474: DIE!

G2: DIE!

G1: DIE!

G4: No, YOU DIE!

DIE!

(reader: Who even screamed that?
Reader 2: Probably Lone Wolf.
Reader: He isn't in this one, this is a different series, from Korea.
Reader 2: Oh, I thought it was the continuation of Lone Wolf and Cub, written by a comitee of high school students whose literature growing up was Final Fantasy 7 and Trigun)

DIE! DIE!

END

So... oh wait, I guess that is the review, right?

[thebitterguy]

Excellent! Keep 'em coming!

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

More like Sturgeon's Law is in full effect and the fans are all fucking whiners. Even when they have points. There's every reason to get on Marvel and DC's case over how they treat their female characters, but saying a Robin deserves a trophy case because of her genitalia is idiotic.

[koipond.livejournal.com]

To be fair, if they're looking at the pile that is Superhero comics, there generalizations aren't that far off. Sadly, that's all people really think sometimes when the word comic is brought up.

That's just the nature of the industry. When your two/three largest comic book producers use over sexualized superheros as their bread and butter you get those generalizations. Ultimately, the charge of sexism, racism and bad taste is totally justifiable within the superhero comic book genre. Not just comics in general.

The real work is making people understand there is a distinction between types of comics.

[brand-of-amber.livejournal.com]

And that even within superheroes there are works that are not sexist, fascist, conservative propaganda written for the wish fulfilment of pre adolescent boys.

(There are you know. Two of them.)

[koipond.livejournal.com]

Which makes them the exception rather than the rule. So when describing superhero comics you can use that because it covers far more than it doesn't.

I can say that Victorian literature has certain qualities, and then there are those that break that mould. Same goes with Fantasy literature. I can say that most modern fantasy is just trying to take Tolkien and run with it, but you do have those that don't. However, on the pie chart of that type of fiction the bigger slices goes to the description.

That's why you tend to talk about those comics individually since they deserve to be talked about on their own merits rather than as part of a whole.

[brand-of-amber.livejournal.com]

Also because focusing attention, and more importantly sales, upon them you show that it can be otherwise. And if you can make it profitable to break the bad parts of the genre mold....

The funny thing about genres is that they really are what we make them. Just the "we" is bigger than we'd like to deal with.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Actually, there are plenty of superhero comics that are actually good, fun reads. "Teen Titans", "Blue Beetle", certain sections of "Countdown", etc. It's just they're not the ones selling the most issues.

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

The real work is making people understand there is a distinction between types of comics.

I wonder why this is harder than making people understand that there are different types of TV shows or different types of books.

[brand-of-amber.livejournal.com]

My vote goes to ignorance.

Though, you know, people will talk a lot of shit about "TV shows" as being all evil, bad, crap, or -istist in one way or another, as though all TV was one mass of the exact same consistency.

That they don't do the same with books, when they probably know less about them, is probably due to cultural snobbishness.

So ignorance and cultural superiority complexes.

[thebitterguy]

That, and for about 40 years now, the medium has been almost exclusively linked to the culture at large with one genre that's considered fairly infantile.

So, yeah, ignorance and superiority.