comics criticism
Critiques, criticism, reviews and jokes: Why do you talk about comics?
Everyone's one
Last week we talked about credentials and whether or not that affects how we value criticism. And in the comments to that post, a lot of folks began to segue into what I want to talk about today: the reasons people participate in criticism. That’s great and actually, it started in the comments section to that first post. I maybe should’ve started this series of observations with today’s post, because it’s so fundamental to the discussion, but I guess I wanted to save the best for last. As some of those comments reveal, we don’t all have the same assumptions for why people talk about comics.
Tom Spurgeon wrote about it that “I used to participate in these frequent discussions on the role of a comics critic, but at some point I just started thinking that writing about comics is pretty much the same about any other writing. I would imagine that applies to writing about writing about comics, too.” I don’t want to put words in his mouth, so I’ll just say that what that suggests to me is that writing about comics (or anything else) is an art form all its own. I know there are those who disagree, but they’re wrong. It probably won’t be that hard to argue that criticism is a lesser art than creating a story, but there’s still art to it. It’s still a medium for expressing yourself. There are those who do it very well and those who do it very poorly and a great number of people somewhere in between who are continually trying to improve.
Since criticism is an art form, in defining good criticism it’s helpful to think about it in terms similar to the way we think about other art. Authorial intent, for instance. In order to judge whether or not a piece of criticism works, it’s not only useful, but vital to know why someone is talking about comics in the first place. I’ve thought of four reasons, but there could be others. And certainly, individuals not only bounce between these groups depending on their audience or mood; they may also have two or more of these motivations going at once. Knowing that is helpful too.
- November 4, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Michael May
Comics A.M. | Nate Powell at U.N.; Stan Lee’s YouTube World of Heroes
Nate Powell at the U.N.
Creators | Any Empire and Swallow Me Whole creator (and our special guest this weekend for What Are You Reading?) Nate Powell appeared at the United Nations earlier this month with several teen-fiction writers who contributed to What You Wish For, a benefit book to fund libraries in Darfuri refugee camps in Chad. Video of the event can now be found on the U.N. website. [Top Shelf]
Business | Details on the collaboration between Stan Lee’s POW! Entertainment Inc. and former Disney CEO Michael Eisner’s Vuguru have emerged: The two companies will work on a YouTube channel called “Stan Lee’s YouTube World of Heroes.” The channel is one of the 100 online video channels announced by the Google-owned video site, which seeks to add “professional, high-quality programming” to its site. [Los Angeles Times]
Business | They might move slow and eat people, but MSNBC estimates that zombies are worth about $5 billion to the economy. [MSNBC]
- October 31, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Professional Critics vs. Amateurs: What difference does it make?
"So what I told you was true..."
I’m not quite done talking about comics criticism. Your comments to that post from last week were awesome and gave me even more to think about, so I want to dig into this a little deeper. Maybe for a couple or three posts. In this and the next one I’d like to offer some definitions that I’ve found helpful in thinking about criticism and role it plays in the comics industry. After that, I’m planning to talk about some rules for good criticism, pulled from a variety of sources. We may not agree on all of them, but hopefully it’ll make a good discussion.
Last week, I mentioned the idea that everyone’s a critic. To quote Obi-Wan, that’s true “from a certain point of view.” Anyone who talks about the comics she buys is participating in criticism. (And we should maybe pause for a second to clarify that “criticism” doesn’t automatically mean ragging on something. It can be positive or even praising. More on that next week.) But though everyone can join in the work of a critic, it’s still helpful to put some labels on the groups of people who do.
It’s not helpful from the standpoint of classifying who we will and won’t listen to. As I said last week, there are some great professional critics, but there are also useless ones whose primary motivation seems to be getting quoted. There’s a lot of irrelevant noise in message-board land, but there are also people who use that as their primary platform to talk eloquently about the comics they read. It doesn’t matter what the label is; useful discussion about comics can be found anywhere.
A couple of things make these labels helpful though.
- October 28, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Michael May
Judging comics fairly: Everyone’s a critic, so let’s be good ones
If you can read them, you can talk about them.
I’ve been thinking about comics criticism lately. That may sound a little inside baseball, but it’s not really. Not the way I’ve been thinking about it. As “real” critics are fond of pointing out, the threshold for criticism is extremely low. In fact, we all engage in criticism, even if we’re just talking with our friends about the movie we just saw or discussing our weekly comics stash on a message board. There are supposed to be some differences between someone writing a review for publication and people chatting on Facebook, but I’m not sure there always are.
Professional critics are supposed to adhere to some standards that in reality they sometimes disregard. In contrast, I’ve read some very insightful reviews and had some meaningful discussions about comics (and movies and TV) in the most informal of places. Good criticism isn’t about venue or credentials, it’s about gaining knowledge about a subject and being able to apply that knowledge thoughtfully to the things you read and watch. So when I talk about comics criticism, I’m not just talking about a particular kind, but simply the way we all talk about comics.
Whether they’re reading The New York Times or a comment on a blog post, readers decide whether or not to take criticism seriously based on how seriously the critic is taking his or her subject. And part of taking a comic seriously is thinking about things like authorial intent.
- October 20, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Michael May
A first look at SVK, and other comics that trick the eye
Two panels of SVK with and without the hidden content
Comics critic Paul Gravett has a peek at SVK, the new graphic novel due out from Warren Ellis and D’Israeli, as part of an interesting article on comics that trick the eye. SVK, which was announced last December, is a graphic novel with a hidden agenda, so to speak: The private thoughts of some characters are invisible on the printed page until the reader shines an ultraviolet light on them, at which point they appear in thought balloons. Gravett shows a few examples of this and then goes on to some interesting historical examples of other comics that use concealed content, including 3D comics, vintage newspaper strips that used invisible ink, and a comic that flips upside-down halfway through.
- July 4, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Best Online Comics Criticism 2010
If you’ve made your way around the Interwebs at all over the past few days (or at least the comic-book derived portion of such) you may have noticed a couple of posts devoted to what’s being called the “Best Online Comics Criticism of 2010.” And, unless your memory is as faulty as mine, you may also recall similar lists being made around the same time last year, as this is an annual event created and overseen by the esteemed critic (and Hooded Utilitarian contributor) Ng Suat Tong.
Suat was kind enough back in January of ’09 to invite me to be one of the judges for this year’s round-up. the other judges consisting of Tim Hodler, Johanna Draper Carlson, Melinda Beasi, Derik Badman, Shannon Garrity and Bill Randall. I’ll go through this year’s winners, with my personal commentary in a minute, but if you’re the impatient type, you can see the final results here and here.
First, some brief observances …
- January 22, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Chris Mautner
What do women want? Part 2
Having looked at what women want in superhero comics, let’s examine their attitudes toward poop jokes.
Sean Michael Wilson, the editor of the alt-manga anthology AX, didn’t do a scientific survey, but he did read the reviews of his book and noticed something interesting:
However, one aspect has surprised both myself and Asakawa, the Japanese editor – quite a few female American reviewers have taken issue with the large amount of scatalogical toilet humour and also the sexual content of the collection. Somehow they seem to find it offensive, or unpleasant, or immature. It was surprising to me to see this kind of reaction, as it never occurred to me at all – as a British person – that these could be seen as negative.
It was surprising to me that Sean would find this surprising, but maybe that’s because I’m a female American comics reviewer, and I have always regarded potty humor as the purview of seven-year-old boys. I haven’t been to Scotland since I was six years old; now I’m beginning to wonder what I’m missing. Do sophisticated people there stand around at gallery openings sipping Cabernet and cracking fart jokes?
- January 6, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | B&N complicates Borders talks, Stan Lee gets his star
Borders
Retailing | As the financially troubled Borders Group met Tuesday with publishers in hopes of converting delayed payments into interest-bearing debt, the bookseller’s larger rival Barnes & Noble expressed concerns that could complicate negotiations. “We think the playing field should be even,” B&N spokeswoman Mary Ellen Keating said in a statement. “We expect publishers to offer same terms to all other booksellers, including Barnes & Noble and independent booksellers. We fully expect publisher’s will require Borders to pay their bills on the same basis upon which all other booksellers pay theirs. Any changes in publishers terms should be made available to all.” Meanwhile, Reuters considers what the closing of Borders’ 600 stores would mean to the book industry. [The New York Times, Publishers Weekly]
- January 5, 2011 @ 08:29 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M. | Spider-Man resumes tonight, One Piece creator makes $24M
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark
Broadway | The Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark canceled both Wednesday performances to test new safety measures following the Monday-night fall that left a stuntman hospitalized with broken ribs and internal bleeding. The cancellation of the sold-out evening show was announced just three hours before showtime at the Foxwoods Theatre. Tonight’s performance is expected to go on as planned.
Producers and creators met privately on Tuesday with the entire company to address safety concerns about the $65-million musical, the most expensive and technically complex in Broadway history. Although accidents in theater productions aren’t uncommon, it’s unusual for there to be four injuries before a show has officially opened. MTV offers some context. [The New York Times, The Associated Press]
- December 23, 2010 @ 08:19 AM by Kevin Melrose
The wisdom of Julia Wertz
It’s funny because it’s true: Julia Wertz provides a peek into the effects of reviews on a creator’s psyche at The Fart Party. Then to prove she’s not that thin-skinned, she posts some excerpts from bad reviews at her blog:
Only in America could an alcoholic, whiney, self-sabotaging person with limited artistic skill write and illustrate a comic, oops, “graphic novel” about her pathetic and boring life in San Francisco and New York City/Brooklyn and become successful. Reading it almost drove me to drink.
Ouch! Actually, Drinking at the Movies is anything but boring—it’s funny and perceptive and unsparing, and it’s well worth a read. I’m with the New York LA Times on this one.
- November 3, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
What’s wrong with Booth?
Sometimes, when I’m reading a comic, I’ll think “This art is ugly” or “This is hard to read,” and I’ll wonder if it’s just me that thinks that.
In the case of Booth, the historical graphic novel about Lincoln’s assassin, by historian C.C. Colbert and French artist Tanitoc, it’s not just me. Writer J.L. Bell had the same reaction, and he explains one reason why: Misleading word balloons.
Take this panel, for example. The curve in the tail of the balloon at the left suggests that its words come from the balding man looking away from us. But in fact those words are those of John Wilkes Booth, in the muddy green. If I hadn’t remembered that in real life Booth claimed to have thrust himself into the John Brown affair, I would never have been able to interpret this panel.
Bell also notes that Tanitoc’s art is sometimes too blobby and hard to read visually. Despite these flaws, I would still recommend the book; the story was strong enough to carry me through the rough parts, but I do wish it had been a bit smoother.
- August 17, 2010 @ 12:30 PM by Brigid Alverson
Everyone’s a Critic: A roundup of comic book reviews and thinkpieces
Hiroyuki Takei's Butsu Zone
Manga: It’s a Jason Thompson hat trick: The prolific editor and writer, and the author of Manga: The Complete Guide, has three recently published articles, and all are worth a look: At comiXology he sings the praises of Shaman King creator Hiroyuki Takei; at Anime News Network, he writes about the classic manga The Rose of Versailles, which tells the story of Marie Antoinette and her cross-dressing bodyguard; and at io9, he looks at five sexually twisted manga.
Roundtable: The Savage Critics get together to discuss Dan Clowes’s Wilson, and how much they resemble (or don’t resemble) the title character.
Art comix: Paul Gravett talks to John Broadley about his hand-crafted graphic mini-comics woven around bits and pieces that he finds at his day job at a clipping service.
Advice: Lauren Davis looks at a couple of diary comics and notes the importance of having some sort of overarching theme.
Criticism: Kate Dacey, chronicles the seven deadly scenes of reviewing—and admits she has committed a few herself.
Timing: David Welsh discusses the sometimes unexpected pacing in One Piece, noting that lead character Luffy achieves one milestone on the way to becoming King of the Pirates in just a chapter, rather than a volume.
Snark: Chris Eckert retells Identity Crisis from the culprit’s point of view. Warning: Spoiler!
Conversation: Translator Jocelyn Allen, blogger Deb Aoki, retailer Christopher Butcher, and editors Erik Ko, Dan Nadel, and Ryan Sands got together at TCAF for a panel on indie manga, and Deb has the transcript for your reading pleasure.
- May 11, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Tintin
Publishing | Stanley Pignal takes a look at the transformation of the Tintin brand since the death of Hergé in 1983, as the cartoonist’s widow Fanny Vlamynck and her husband Nick Rodwell drastically changed merchandising strategies. In the process, the prickly Rodwell has become a controversial figure, running afoul of fans and journalists alike in his effort to exert control over Tintin’s image.
Of particular interest is a brief profile of Bob Garcia, a novelist and fan who published a series of books examining Hergé’s possible inspirations for Tintin. Garcia believed he could legally reproduce a few copyrighted illustrations for the purpose of critique, but Moulinsart saw things differently: The writer is now fighting to keep his home as penalties and legal fees mount. [Financial Times]
Crime | Danny Wayne Barton, owner of Kryptonite Komics in Carbon Hill, Alabama, was arrested Thursday after he allegedly sold marijuana to police informants on four separate occasions. Three of those incidents reportedly occurred in Barton’s shop, which also sells smoking devices as the Good Karma Store. The 38-year-old retailer faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison on four counts of unlawful distribution of a controlled substance within a three-mile radius of a school. [Daily Mountain Eagle]
- May 10, 2010 @ 08:07 AM by Kevin Melrose
Editing is thinking: An interview with David Ball
The Comics of Chris Ware: Drawing Is A Way of Thinking
I first met David Ball a few years ago, while working on a story for my employer, The Patriot-News, about how comics were being used in high school and college classrooms. Luckily for me, Ball just happened to be teaching a class on the subject at the nearby Dickinson College. Ball was kind enough to return the favor and invite me to speak to his comics class when he taught it again a few semesters later.
Fast forward to today, where Ball is co-editor, along with Martha Kuhlman, of the new book from the University of Mississippi Press, The Comics of Chris Ware: Drawing Is A Way of Thinking, a collection of essays by noted comics scholars like Jeet Heer about the seminal Acme cartoonist.
Knowing Ball lived and worked next door (relatively speaking), it seemed silly for me not to get in touch with him and see if he was up for an interview. Thankfully, he was eager to talk about the book.
Why Ware? What is it about him and his comics that you feel justify a book of this nature?
Unlike many of our contributors in the collected volume, I came to Ware’s work very late and not as a dedicated reader of comics but rather as a scholar of American literature. I had known that fascinating things were going on in contemporary comics for a while, but reading Jimmy Corrigan knocked the wind out of me. The book seemed so versed in the American literary genealogy of Melville and Faulkner and Nabokov with which I was familiar, but was using techniques, referring to other comics, and stretching my brain in ways that were wholly new to me. I knew that I would need to educate myself rapidly to catch up — a still ongoing process — and that colleagues in history, art history, and comparative literature, as well as comics commentators and enthusiasts could help me better understand what I was reading. Ware quickly became a discovery I could share with others and a way I could talk to, and learn from, scholars and readers whose interests were different than mine. That kind of intellectual dialogue is what this book of essays is about, and I hope that readers of the volume will similarly find ideas that are new to them, and share in that sense of discovery. Every time I reread one of Ware’s comics, or get my hands on a new fragment of “Rusty Brown” or “Building Stories,” I find something new and unexpected. That sense of discovery is a rare thing in any art form, and I’m convinced it’s why we’ll still be reading Ware fifty years from now.
- May 7, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by Chris Mautner
Everyone’s A Critic | A roundup of comic book reviews and thinkpieces
It Was the War of the Trenches
Peter Richardson discusses why World War I did not capture creators’ imaginations the way other wars have, and he accompanies his discussion with a beautiful counterexample, a sample from Jacques Tardi’s It Was the War of the Trenches, upcoming from Fantagraphics next month. (via Journalista)
Craig Fischer has a decidedly mixed review of The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion, but then halfway through he goes roaring off into a digression on one of Hal Foster’s possible influences, Olive Beaupre Miller’s series of children’s books titled My Bookhouse. For good measure, someone just sent Ben Towle a set. (I had these as a kid, and they are lovely.) For more about Foster, see Ng Suat Tong’s recent post at The Hooded Utilitarian.
Tom Crippen, who is no Sarah Palin fan, cries foul nonetheless on Oliphant’s cartoon showing her postcoital encounter with a moose, pointing out that it probably reveals more about Oliphant than Palin.
Vom Marlowe reviews vol. 1 of Song of the Hanging Sky, a lovely manga with a quirky plot and a few perplexing translation problems.
Brian Heater thinks Jason’s Almost Silent is a good choice for graphic novel newbies.
Frank Santoro reviews Gipi’s Garage Band at Comics Comics.
Also at Comics Comics: Jeet Heer posts some loosely related notes on John Stanley.
Larry Cruz explains why video game webcomics are a good thing at The Webcomic Overlook.
Sean Gaffney reviews D&Q’s latest Yoshihio Tatsumi release, Black Blizzard.
- March 25, 2010 @ 12:30 PM by Brigid Alverson