Robot 6
Quote of the day | ‘Don’t mess with my cake’
“The real answer to questions like, ‘Why doesn’t the Flash clean up Gotham City, too?’ is ‘It would make Batman’s cake lousy. People read Batman because they like crimefighter stuff where Batman’s cool, and don’t really want to see Superman or the Flash or Green Lantern mess with that particular cake.’ On the other hand, people who like stories where Batman and Superman and Green Lantern work together have the JLA cake, and some people like both kinds of cake.
But if you start to tie it together with logic foremost in your plans rather than entertainment, then you need to explain why Superman doesn’t help all the other heroes almost all the time, and why aren’t the crimefighters turned into SF-type heroes to make them more effective, and you end up with everything being JLA cake, and no solo Batman cake left. Or you come to the conclusion that it doesn’t work, so Batman shouldn’t be in the JLA, which maybe preserves the Batman cake, but it messes up the JLA cake.
So in the end, the answer to all of these questions is: Don’t mess with my cake.”
– Kurt Busiek, using a cake/frosting metaphor to point out how logic should never trump fun in shared-universe superhero comics. He’s right of course, and that he even has to point this out goes to show how grown-ups ruin everything.
(via The Comics Reporter)
17 Comments
PreacherCain
June 4, 2012 at 10:05 am
Ha, that’s a great quote. Grown-ups really HAVE ruined superhero comics!
Chris
June 4, 2012 at 10:21 am
^ PreacherCain
HALLELUJAH!
Philip
June 4, 2012 at 11:22 am
Agree. Anyone who complains about lack of logic in comics is sorely missing the point of the medium in the first place.
HOWEVER…I do think that some writers sometime dumb things down a lot and I do think that’s unfortunate as well.
I guess is hard to strike a balance between fun and smart.
Zach
June 4, 2012 at 11:25 am
What does the cake metaphor add here?
Thad
June 4, 2012 at 11:27 am
Aw man, I thought for a second Kurt had started blogging again and his RSS was just broken.
But this post is two and a half years old.
Simon DelMonte
June 4, 2012 at 12:00 pm
1. So when are we getting something new from Kurt, anyway? I miss KBAC.
2. The film critic in New York magazine said that his only problem with Avengers is that in any forthcoming Marvel movie, he will have to wonder why one member of the team doesn’t call the rest of the team and make short work of the bad guy. Clearly he is thinking a bit too much, as well.
Kurt Busiek
June 4, 2012 at 12:05 pm
1. KIRBY: GENESIS has been coming out — just proofread the final issue.
There’s a pile of ASTRO CITY pages in the drawer, and we’d have scheduled the relaunch months ago, but I’ve been sick for months and am currently on medication that makes it very hard for me to write (finishing GENESIS was a very slow process, and there I had the plot all outlined). Once I get through that it shouldn’t take long to get up to speed. Getting through that is the problem, though.
2. Yeah, that film critic, if he’s old enough, probably watched THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN without wondering every week why the Bionic Woman wasn’t called in on all the cases, too. It just won’t come up in the solo movies.
Nat Gertler
June 4, 2012 at 12:20 pm
Zach: The cake metaphor adds CAKE!
There is nothing that isn’t improved with cake.
Kurt Busiek
June 4, 2012 at 12:27 pm
I’d say the cake metaphor serves to provide a distinction between what counts as cake and what counts as frosting, but I like Nat’s answer better.
Michael P
June 4, 2012 at 1:37 pm
The cake is the truth.
Christopher
June 4, 2012 at 3:14 pm
Actually, the cake is a lie.
Bruce Kent
June 4, 2012 at 6:42 pm
@Kurt
Get well soon! I have been a fan of your work for many years.
ed
June 4, 2012 at 6:59 pm
Chacun à son [Comics] goût?
Sure, have your separate-realms, interact-with-each-other-only-when-it’s-editorially-permitted, willfully-de’logified’ FOR FUN!!! Big Two superhero “cake” if that’s what you like—
But I think I’ll stick more to the Alt/Indie section of the Comics dessert cart, thank you. Less corporate empty calories, more satisfying sustenance— AND better for my reading entertainment diet! As I’ve matured as a comics reader, the endless re-frostings and mandated HFCS* content of those “cakes” have lost their appeal, and l’ve found I’ve been drawn to the tastier “tortes”, “tarts” and “pastries” of the competition instead…
*Half-Formed Complete Stories
Acer
June 4, 2012 at 8:19 pm
@Kurt
Hope you feel better soon. And thanks again for autographing the inside cover of my copy of JLA/Avengers back at Emerald City Comic-Con 2009.
Red
June 4, 2012 at 8:42 pm
I prefer pie to cake TBQH.
Kurt, love the quote and I hope you don’t need the meds for long.
Kurt Busiek
June 5, 2012 at 8:12 am
>> But I think I’ll stick more to the Alt/Indie section of the Comics dessert cart, thank you.>>
By all means. Great stuff on that section of the cart.
kdb
ed
June 5, 2012 at 3:41 pm
@Kurt—
Now if only those “cake” lovers could be more adventurous and try out those other Comics dessert cart options available to them: like perhaps some rich “flan” from Los Bros Hernandez— or a slice of “bibingka” from Lynda Barry— or maybe a “crème sucre” from Chester Brown— or some “trifles” from Alison Bechdel and Howard Cruse— or a couple of “baklavas” or “halvas” from Joe Sacco…
It’ll probably take the development of their comics-reading palette into something more refined and matured, but once tasted, they’ll be glad to have these additional options to go ALONG with the “cake”. Doesn’t the Big Two’s standard yellow-sheet-with-white-frosting-and-sprinkles get tiring after awhile? Let them eat MORE than “cake”!
(As a veteran of many Comic-Cons, I can see the effects of a primarily-”cake” oriented diet represented in the attendee Comics-loving population there— the lines for a signing at the MARVEL/DC booths can look sooo very different from the lines at DH/D+Q/FANTAGRAPHICS. For some, I’m assuming, comics-dietary reasons?)
De gustibus EST disputatum.