Rolling Comic Book thread 2017

I remember thinking even when I subscribed to TCJ 15+ years ago that they could've saved themselves the energy of writing yet another in a long series of articles on the subject by just inserting a little 'we still think mainstream comics are garbage' item in every issue.

i didn't think the point was that ads are bad; moreso that the characters in many ways are ads to sell 5 dollar leaflets and whatever else comes down the pike
corporate creations exist for the sake of the corporation and, as such, any attempt to heighten their status to folk myth in the age of continual copyright is quixotic
obvs none of this is new or shocking but it don't hurt to remind fanboys every once in awhile. tho of course, the self selecting TCJ audience already knew all that; this would've been more fun on buzzfeed.

Old Lunch- explaining the problems with them is important. Criticizing DC and Marvel has a lot more to it than just some crappy creator owned comic in a similar style.

I love my older brother but he asked me if I wanted to see Thor 3 and he didn't appear to be trying to annoy me, I need to ask him what was going on there.

I've never really understood why people have such difficulty seeing the big Big Two characters as both corporate trademarks which undeniably exist to make $$$ and iconic representations which have evolved beyond the mundane intentions of (and which will almost certainly outlive) those making $$$ off of them.

BTW, RAG, I totally agree with you. I would never suggest that people ignore the problematic elements of the Big Two.

That’s only true if by ‘those’ you mean actual execs rather than the corporations, though.

It's almost like it's possible to enjoy superhero comics without being an entitled fanboy, an indie snob, or an advertising exec

xxxp maybe your brother just wanted to go to a movie and was inviting you?

I get having objections to particular aspects of the corporate comic/superhero empires, but at some level there are cultural norms where you can just consume media or products on occasion without it being a morality play.

Like if someone offers me a Coke with lunch I don't immediately start questioning if my stances are being tested

^^ yep

Meanwhile, the past month has happened and DC still employ Eddie Berganza

Yeah, I was thinking about that exact situation the other day. How? How is that still possible?

The point is that we all could have avoided our crippling, lifelong addictions to Hostess Fruit Pies if Spider-Man hadn't been such a sell-out.

if you think that's bad imagine reading those ads in a part of the world where hostess fruit pies could not be had for love nor money

The day when I got to finally taste a Hostess Twinkie was both the best and worst day of my life.

Chuck- the problems are only partially about the genre itself.

I think people too attached to public domain characters are worth criticizing too.

Life's short, enjoy what you enjoy.

I did wonder if the Hostess products had made their way across the ocean. It's unfortunate, on the one hand, that your Hostess access is so restricted, but on the other hand, you presumably don't weigh 785 lbs (55.7 stone, for you Brits) like me.

'Brits'. You know what I mean. All you people that live over there in Non-American Accent Land.

Old Lunch- Life being short is all the more reason to convince people to explore more. I did say upthread that I recently bought some Deadman, Swamp Thing and would have got that Joe Kubert Spirits Of Vengeance thing if I was rich.

Stereotypical geeks and otakus really don't have the space to explore much more. I don't think they know how much they're missing, they just wait for the next franchise to get big enough to attract their notice.
Most people here only occasionally go for the big franchises and some who spend a lot of time on them admit it's not the healthiest way to be.

I like it when people challenge me about the things I'm spending my time on because I'm quite conflicted about a lot of it. Like the comics I mentioned above and some of the Shaw Brothers films I've been buying.

I knew someone who argued with people in comic shops about what they were buying. That probably sounds like jerk behaviour to most people but I really liked that.

I've got a friend who mostly does comic adaptations of books and he said he appreciated my arguing to do mostly original material, even though he still does adaptations and recently secured permission from an estate to do another.

I want people to make the most of their imagination and people who're doing the most imaginative work to get the attention they deserve.

most of my friends and coworkers don't have the time to seek out a lot of material because modern life is tiring and after they get their kids fed and to bed after work, your energy for exploration doesn't go much further than scanning through recommended netflix titles

It's a little reductive to assume that because someone is a fan of mainstream comics that they don't necessarily have wide-ranging interests beyond that. I read pretty much everything Marvel puts out but that's a relatively small fraction of/not particularly reflective of my reading habits overall.

(And I will also concede that reading pretty much everything Marvel puts out is probably a sickness of a sort, but it's one that I've come to accept as a chronic life partner.)

I think the risk with things like Marvel Unlimited or w/e is time allocation. As in, it's worthwhile to subscribe because if you're patient you can read all these mainstream corporate properties, but the extra content makes you lazy. If I read comics (or books or whatever) for a half hour before bed I could read the one comic I wanted to and then pick up something else, or I can stay there and read another four comics I had no strong interest in

some people are just reading prodigies, ilxor ulysses reads every single weekly title just about AND most of the indie stuff AND torrented scans of old stuff AND has time to go for long walks somehow and do pottery?

There's always something better you can replace your current reading material with.

I won't be happy until Old Lunch and Aldo's worst habit is reading even the worst titles in the Penguin, Oxford, Wordsworth Vintage, NYRB classics lines.

I hope you're able to make peace with your unhappiness, RAG. If it makes you feel any better, I am currently in the midst of reading a Penguin Classic and an Oxford (University Press) book. And a Stephen King novel, tbf.

btw NYRB has a comics imprint now? I met the two editors at SPX, the first year of books looked great and very hole-plugging and they were super smart ppl

https://www.nyrb.com/collections/new-york-review-comics

I have made peace with RAG's unhappiness for him - frankly I'm rather happy with it.

i'm a bit behind on my reading as of late jon... been focused more on the good stuff! my trash reading has been the complete dark horse alien collections...
NYRB comix tend to be very very good

Dark Horse Alien collections? Hell yeah!

lol, they are really pretty dumb tbh! sometimes you hit a good story.

you know what i read recently that was good was Jim Woordring's Jabba the Hutt stories. Those are dope!

I talked to him about his aliens miniseries. He tried to have fun with it.

A connected frustration is that fantastic/speculative fiction seems to be particularly debased by fans willingness to accept substandard material.

If general music and film fans were as big suckers as your average superhero fan, HMV would be 70% filled with tribute bands, remixes, unbelievably crass merchandise and you wouldn't be able to find decent versions of the original classics that most of the shit in the shop was based on.

Me still being a sucker: gazing at Corman's House Of Usher, Tomb Of Ligeia and Haunted Palace in the shops because the new remastering/packaging is so alluring but I have to keep reminding myself they weren't that great the first time I saw them and I should just be happy with Pit And The Pendulum.
Considering buying the new One Armed Swordsman (which I've seen before and don't like enough to buy) because the sleevenotes in the Shaw series have been so good.

I could watch whatever films Alfred likes but I feel compelled to stick mostly to my favourite genres even though they mostly suck in films. I'm not sure there's a proper substitute for them. If you like period horror and fantasy films you're resigned to mostly weak stuff, unless there is something else to fill that space.

I've always wondered how many elements of Marvel/DC superhero comics cannot be substituted for their fans. Is there nothing else that would satisfy those itches?
It taken me a very long time to realise what it was the attracted me to horror, I've sorted out what kind of horror I prefer but I'm still wondering what superheroes would look like if I subtracted everything I don't like.

Thinking back to when I got into superheroes a lot of it probably was the now embarrassing angsty brooding. I can still look back on the Clone Saga knowing it was awful but still enjoy how dark, serious and sexy it seemed to me at 9-10. The Siekiewicz inks are still great.
How could someone distill the colourful acrobatic characters, the rainy nocturnal settings and the atmosphere?

I would love to see what superhero and superheroesque genres would be like today if they had evolved without DC and Marvel from the 70s onwards. What would they keep, what would they throw away?

I love my older brother but he asked me if I wanted to see Thor 3 and he didn't appear to be trying to annoy me, I need to ask him what was going on there.

it's a Taika Waititi movie, I definitely want to see it for free (had no idea they were up to #3 though)

and iconic representations which have evolved beyond the mundane intentions of (and which will almost certainly outlive) those making $$$ off of them.

yah they have evolved into empty shells of IP that actually don't communicate anything iconic, precisely because of the moves of the corporations that manipulate them

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CTFqyc6UYAAqfMQ.jpg

How could someone distill the colourful acrobatic characters, the rainy nocturnal settings and the atmosphere?

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Tuesday, 24 October 2017 20:30

Distill those qualities into something better I mean.

that woodring aliens series is a collabo with "justin green"... surely not binky brown justin green?
in any case, it ain't that great...

Taika Waititi movie

― shackling the masses with plastic-wrapped snack picks (sic), Tuesday, 24 October 2017 20:36

I couldn't stand Eagle vs Shark and the Thor/Hulk banter in the trailers is tedious.

If I manage to attain the books/pictures/films/music diet I want and I'm still as unhappy as Morbius (who I assume has mostly attained his desired diet), I will conclude that life is hopeless.

If you like period horror and fantasy films you're resigned to mostly weak stuff

real talk, when the jackson lotr films turned out so well one of the biggest reasons i was so stunned is that there had basically never been a good fantasy movie in my lifetime. just fantasy movies that had magical aspects so strong i could look past the utterly shitty parts. this was not true of horror; there were legit masterpieces. fantasy in the cinema had never not required massive allowances. the lotrs were not perfect of course, but they didn't have tons of yawning potholes you had to pretend not to see.

You run out of properly great period horror films very quickly. Best you can hope for is good parts and something new coming along occasionally. Fingers crossed for Rainer Sarnet's November turning out great. I've been slacking on the European fairy tale films but I sense more gold coming.

BTW
- in the TCJ's defense, it's worth remembering how inadequate, by and large, English language comics criticism was before the Journal. Gary Groth's allegiance to the Mencken/Thompson school of 'speaking truth to power' journalism, combined with a high cultural snobbery that had things in common w/ the Frankfurt School, staked out, really for the first time, an actual aesthetic position about comics - what they were, what they could be. It's definitely a position that can be argued against - there's something hilarious about someone like Groth, so utterly indifferent to the pleasures of popular culture, publishing ppl like Peter Bagge or Los Bros or Dan Clowes whose work is finely marinated in the kind of 'mindless trash' that Groth despairs about, and the Journal's project, in its 70s/80s pomp especially, was definitely archaic (from what little I know since then, Groth is deeply antagonistic to the modern instituionalisation of comics criticism and its embrace of post-war 'theory' of various kinds) , sometimes borderline reactionary, and overwhelmingly literary. But, as much by example, I think the Journal did help to elevate standards within the comic book industry, both in terms of the product and in terms of ethical standards (with of course compromises and lapses along the way.)

Groth is deeply antagonistic to the modern instituionalisation of comics criticism

― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 24 October 2017 22:02

I don't know what this means.

Groth defended Kirby as a genius and I think he thinks CC Beck is the best superhero comics ever got. I think he likes plenty of what might be considered pop trash.
People really exaggerate TCJ's anti-pop genre stance. In the 70s-80s Kim Thompson really overrated what look like quite mediocre or terribly flawed comics probably out of desperation to find anything at all ambitious.
I would have went mad in their position. It's easy to say now that they didn't challenge the mainstream in a graceful and persuasive manner but jesus, people forget what it was like back then.

Wasn't it Groth that wanted to publish Fukitor?

95% of alternative comics have been marinated in pop trash. I'm fine with that inspiration because I'm the same but more variety would be nice.

When I was a teenager there was quite literally no one else approaching comics critically except the Journal. The CBG? The fuck outta here with that. Amazing Heroes? A good time, but no. Even as late as when Destroy All Comics came out, it was still something to gape in amazement at when another magazine appeared with a similar agenda.

Groth DID publish Fukitor.

I think he likes plenty of what might be considered pop trash.

I don't think he, as a 63-year-old man, engages with any of what might be considered pop trash.

Honestly some of my favorite Gary is his epic interviews with Gil Kane, frazetta etc, when he would sit down with these old craftsmen he became like the best interviewer on earth

It is deeply strange how having even modest critical standards seemed so transgressive. Even in the early 00s it was kind of a shock me to hear someone like Gil Kane or Steve Bissette being very honest about the quality of the comics I was reading.

I Still see comics and speculative fiction creators/fans in horrified disbelief when someone dares criticize the work.

are we really debating the merits of TCJ re: comics criticism? They fucking invented it, in the middle of a vast critical wasteland and with a lot of pushback from the industry at large. Jon not Jon otm.