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Author
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Topic: Can a Hobby Make It as an Art Form? (Nov. 2000)
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Kevin Ott
True Believer
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posted 10-30-2000 02:12 AM
   
While McCloud can come off a bit heavy-handedly in his sales pitch sometimes (I'd never try to turn someone on to comics by explaining that they've been around since the Incas were still walking around unmolested by the Spanish), his ideas in Understanding Comics are really nothing short of analytical genius. The really good ones always make it look easy.It's never been too hard for me to get people past the notion that I am a mature adult who reads comic books. Although I see a few grins around the newsroom when I discuss comics with Phil, one of our sports writers (who is way more well-versed than I am), they're generally good-natured grins, and most people that I meet understand that (a) comics aren't just about X-Men and Kryptonians, and (b) the ones that are about those things aren't necessarily childish. So I think most non-comics readers have a pretty good handle on the fact that comics have matured beyond Archie trying to decide between Betty and Veronica. (And they let kids read this stuff? I've seen
cleaner stuff on Cinemax!) And there are plenty of academics who regard comics as works worthy of study. The Journal of Popular Culture is sure to have plenty of archived deconstructions of the medium. But there's still a stigma. People won't smirk at comics, but they won't really read them, either. My mother is an avid fan of Star Trek: Voyager and X-Files, and she likes reading pop novels by people like Michael Crichton (I still like Jurassic Park), but she never displayed any interest in any of the comics I've described to her. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that people still rank their media. TV is still bad, books are still good. There are still plenty of folks out there who would rank the crappiest Dean R. Koontz novel above a top-notch episode of The West Wing, just because one's a book and the other's TV. Maybe the Biography Channel and the History Channel and all those other Sam
Waterston-related cable stations are exempt. Thus, people might think that if you're reading a book, having pictures in it that describe the action is cheating, since books are regarded as a more intellectual medium. Once we learn to look at the message before the messenger, we'll be able to appreciate comics a lot more, and maybe not be so
embarrassed reading them on the subway. But McCloud says it a lot better in the book. Go read it. |
Pattie Gillett
True Believer
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posted 11-02-2000 06:27 AM
Confession time: I haven't read either of McCloud's books in their entirety. What I've have read leads me to conclude that the comics industry could do a lot worse that McCloud as a spokesperson. Understanding comics is a patient and detailed look at the the nuances of comics - the very thing non-comics readers miss.
Bam!, Pow!, and Zap! aside, comics can be a subtle but powerful art form. The best comics manage to do, in 20 pages, what 75% of television and movies fail miserably at: providing real insight into the human experience. There are comics today that combine fantasy with historical fact to offer insights one might expect to find in academic journals. Other comics make not-so-subtle commentaries on the power of the mass media and our other collective obsessions.
Even, as Dave said, the tried-and-true superhero genre has moved beyond the super-villain-tries-to-blow-up Earth formula to more plausible and thought-provoking scenarios. For example, the JLA (the team of superhero big guns like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, et al) regularly fights antagonists whose "weaponry" is nothing more than total control over information distribution channels.
Thanks to the long reign of comics in the US (most of the superhero books emerged in the 30s), reading a stack of dusty comic books is no more a waste of time than a trip to your library's archives. Comics writers and artists go out their way to make their work a reflection of society and society's concerns at a given point in time. That's why a trip through the complete annals of the Batman title, for example, will show the character's various battles against everything from Russian spies, Middle Eastern terrorist, Neo-nazis, to techno-criminals and multi-national business empires. American comics have essentially recorded what we love, hate, fear, buy, and do for a very long time. That's not just kids stuff. That's life stuff. Yes, it's all drawn out in little boxes, and yes, the breasts of the female characters are too big and, yes, there are as many poor examples of the genre as there are masterpieces. But, comics are still manifestations of the thoughts and feelings of individuals interacting with their world. They share them with us so we can understand that a little better, too. If that's not art, I'm a six-foot bat. Oh wait, I want to be that anyway.
[This message has been edited by Pattie Gillett (edited 11-02-2000).] |
BJ
One of the Regulars
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posted 11-05-2000 03:31 PM
I love comics. I haven't even heard of McCloud but I belive comics help the reader understand what is going on. Most of the action that goes on in comics can't be described in mere words. People want to know what Flash's speed force looks like, and how Havok shoots his shockwaves. Comics provide that standard of how everything looks. Without the pictures, people would have seriously skewed views of what the Martian Manhunter looks like,
One book that i feel would have benefitted from images is Ender's Game. A fantastically(is that a word?) written book by Orson Scott Card, when he describes the flying around done by the teams in battle, it's hard to imagine just what the room looks like and how the maneuvers are done. This is just my humble opinion, I am in no way to be considered an expert in comics since I haven't been that consistent a collector. |
Kevin Ott
True Believer
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posted 11-05-2000 09:05 PM
BJ, that's an excellent point about Ender's Game. I loved the book (but rather disliked Card's foreward in the later version), but had some trouble visualizing just how Ender and Bean and company were whizzing around obstacles (they called them "stars," I think) in the war simulation room. I would've also appreciated some visual representation of a hook, which was the device used by a commander to affect the settings of the zero-gee suits the soldiers wore. I wonder if there are any non-SF novels that would have benefited from pictorial representations? |
BJ
One of the Regulars
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posted 11-05-2000 09:56 PM
If you don't consider Fantasy part of Sci-Fi, then The Blackgod, an incredible sequel to the fabulous book The Waterborn by J. Gregory Keyes could have benefitted from a pictoral representation. Now the Fantasy genre is mostly based on your ablity to "fantasicize" the situations. One part in particular describes one of teh main characters, Hezhi, looking into a spirtual plane and it descibes the interaction between her and the sprits in which a battle breaks out. I could invision it for the most part, but I would have liked a pictoral representation because I have a hard time invisioning that complex stuff.
*I can't describe the books because it is quite difficult for me. You would be better of reading it yourself at www.randomhouse.com/delrey/*[This message has been edited by BJ (edited 11-05-2000).] |
Brian Thomer
One of the Regulars
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posted 01-05-2001 03:11 PM
Hey if you don't think so check out "Unbreakable." As Mr. Glass (played by Samuel L. Jackson) points out in his Comics Art Museum(Yes, I know it's not real.), alot of thought goes into the way those comics are drawn and I think comic artists deserve some damn respect for what they do, I sure as hell know I couldn't do any better... Unless of course it was "The Lengendary Adventures in Stickpeople Land." |
Pattie Gillett
True Believer
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posted 01-05-2001 03:35 PM
Bri, I am all for comic artists getting more respect and acclaim - as long as said respect and acclaim is directed at someone other than Alex Ross. He's become a bit too ubiquitous for his own good. You get that feeling that if he painted toilet paper, someone would buy it? |
Dave Thomer
Guardian of Peace and Justice in the Galaxy
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posted 01-11-2001 02:44 PM
On that note, check out this column from Gail Simone, who is one of the most hyterical commentators/satirists I've read. In fairness, it looks like George Perez has gotten his due in the last few years, and I'm sure there are one or two other artists that have gotten the level of attention that Ross has . . . aw, who the hell am I kidding? |
Pattie Gillett
True Believer
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posted 01-11-2001 06:02 PM
LOL!!!! I barely got past the headline. Very appropriate. |
Dave Thomer
Guardian of Peace and Justice in the Galaxy
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posted 01-21-2001 01:18 AM
Besides Perez, other artists I feel should get some more attention are Alan Davis, Barry Kitson, Tom Grummett, and Jeffrey Moy. Those are off the top of my head right now; I'm sure I'll think of more. |
Dave Thomer
Guardian of Peace and Justice in the Galaxy
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posted 03-01-2001 04:53 AM
Not that many more have come to mind, although Jeff Smith's work continues to be vastly underated because of its subject matter and apparent simplicity. But man, can he tell a story.And if Mike Parobeck were alive today, you better believe I'd be touting him. Now there's a man who left us too soon. |
Dave Thomer
Guardian of Peace and Justice in the Galaxy
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posted 03-23-2001 03:20 AM
Steve Conley, creator of Astounding Space Thrills (now available on our front page as well as his own website) recently did an interview with Comics Newsarama (a site I recommend for comics news, BTW) in which he argued that McCloud's definition was offbase. I'll quote a portion here, but the whole interview's worth reading: quote:
SC: Comics are literature, no hold barred. It`s literature and you`re not limited to alphanumerics. CN: That`s it? SC: That`s all it is. All the rules of literature apply, everything Aristotle said about literature apply, everything about fiction writing applies, and that`s why the writers will always have the upper hand in this business. As much as the artists have wanted to be the big shots, you can see how things have collapsed and it falls back into the laps of people like Alan Moore, Warren Ellis and Brian Bendis, because comics are literature, first and foremost, and it has to have a good story. It has to have a narrative, whether the pictures are next to each other or not.
I'm not so sure that Conley and McCloud are really all that off, even though Conley says McCloud has painted himself into a corner. The main difference I see between the two is that Conley seems to be focusing on comics as storytelling; probably mostly fiction, but I guess biographical or other factual narrative told in story fashion fits. McCloud wants to talk about a specific kind of melding of picture and word, once that can be used to convey a variety of kinds of information for a variety of purposes. In other words, I think, although I could be wrong, that McCloud is using a technical definition of comics to make the field more expansive. I'm not so sure I disagree with that. But I do like Conley's simple, straightforward emphasis on narrative and on the importance of reading a comic. I am assuming that this might include a comic without words, because the piecing together of panels to interpret the flow of a narrative could also be construed as reading. But anyway, check out the interview. It's a good read. |
Dave Thomer
Guardian of Peace and Justice in the Galaxy
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posted 04-14-2001 06:00 AM
How in the hell I managed to leave Brian Bolland and Phil Jiminez off my list of skilled comics artists is beyond me. Bolland only does covers these days, but they're darned good overs, and Jiminez's art on Wonder Woman is great. They both have done outstanding work on The Invisibles as well, but I'll get into that when I review those books down the line.  Oh, and Steve Lightle, who used to be cover artist for The Flash and whom I first encountered as artist of Legion of Super-Heroes way back in the 80s is also darned good. | |
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