Exit Wounds

• Eddie Campbell has been offering one great critique after another lately, first on
Asterios Polyp and David Mazzuchelli's ability to convey a sense of place, and then on Rutu Modan's Exit Wounds ("The impressive thing about Exit Wounds is that there is a keen organizing intelligence at work at every single level of it, from top to bottom."

• Jeet Heer ruminates on the concept of the "proto-graphic novel," i.e. graphic novels that were published before the term became ubiquitous.

• It's a few days old, but this review of R. Crumb's Genesis adaptation by Bill Kartalopoulos is still well worth your time.

• I don't always link to Tucker Stone's "Comics of the Weak" round-up, but this one's worth noting, as he mimics the prose of "controversial French writer Michel Houllebecq," which leads to bits like this one on Batman:

Gotham City has but two types of people-those who wreak violence, and those who have violence wreaked upon them. The first type are all men, for the most part, although the occasional lesbian is permitted participation, as long as she has previously received approval from whomever currently holds the title of most cruel. (Said participation is usually considered an important story point, further cementing the little respect or interest that these stories have for women--there are few other places in fiction where "the bitch can stay" is considered interesting or dynamic.

• David Welsh writes about the wonder that is Junko Mizuno.

• Katherine Dacey Rumiko Takahashi's Rin-Ni: "Takahashi’s latest series gives ample proof that while she may have a limited repertory, she’s the undisputed master of the supernatural mystery."

• Noah Berlatsky transcribes a lecture he gave last year on comics, homosexuality and gender. Part One. Part Two.

• Bill Sherman looks at Vol. 1 & 2 of Inio Asano's What A Wonderful World and declares: "If [Asano] occasionally over-iterates his themes, that’s consistent with World’s cast of rudderless urbanites still in the process of figuring out where they stand in the universe."

• Rob Clough calls Tom Gaud's Gigantic Robot "a beautiful-looking book about ugliness that is almost meta in the self-indulgence of the format."

• Matthew Brady on The Deformatory: "The beauty of Sophia Wiedeman's work is that one could come up with several possible interpretations."

• Johnny Bacardi does his usual pamphlet run-down, which is always worth reading.

• Late to the party, but still worth reading: Michael Buntag on Darwyn Cooke's Hunter.

• Our own Sean Collins reviews the Abstract Comics anthology: "What I liked, I liked for more than just the strips themselves--I liked them for the proof they offer that comics really is still a Wild West medium in which one's bliss can be followed even beyond the boundaries of what many or even most readers would care to define as 'comics.' "

Dash Shaw's Bottomless Belly Button

Sandy Bilus of I Love Rob Liefeld, the Comics Internet tips its collective hat to you. Picking up the torch from the sadly discontinued blog of Dick Hyancith, Bilus has compiled a "meta-list" of the 100 best comics of 2008, as tabulated from the personal best-of lists of dozens of critics and commentators. Behold the Top Ten:

1. Bottomless Belly Button, by Dash Shaw
2. Acme Novelty Library #19, by Chris Ware
3. All-Star Superman, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely
4. Too Cool To Be Forgotten, by Alex Robinson
5. What It Is, by Lynda Barry
6. Ganges #2, by Kevin Huizenga
7. The Alcoholic, by Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel
8. Skyscrapers of the Midwest, by Joshua Cotter
9. Kramers Ergot 7, by various
10. Capacity, by Theo Ellsworth

The point system used to tabulate the list makes it easy for books that made it onto a lot of individual lists but didn't top them to put in a strong showing; perhaps that explains the blowout victory of Bottomless Belly Button, which I recall as being widely liked but few people's #1 pick.

For you front-of-Previews types out there, DC's All-Star Superman is the highest ranking superhero comic, coming in at a strong #3. DC/Vertigo's The Alcoholic is the Big Two's next-highest representative at #7, while its labelmate Scalped comes in at #12. The top Marvel book, and second-highest superhero comic, is Omega the Unknown at #13. Manga's top-ranking title is Travel at #16. Click the link to see what else made the grade.

Me, I've got some quibbles here and there, as is to be expected. But overall, if you're looking to do some shopping this holiday season and don't mind being a year behind, you'd be hard pressed to top this for a wishlist.

Fahrenheit 451

Writing for Slate, Sarah Boxer (who, it should be noted, is a cartoonist in her own right) penned a review of Tim Hamilton's adaptation of the Ray Bradbury classic Fahrenheit 451 that — initially at least — seems flummoxed by the whole "graphic novel boom" thing:

It's hard to know what on earth Bradbury was thinking. Did he just give in to the enemy? And what was the artist, Hamilton, thinking, when he illustrated the fire chief's rant with his own tableau of degraded books: Hamlet for Dimwits, Time magazine, and, yes, two Classic Comics editions, Moby Dick and Treasure Island. (Hamilton himself illustrated a comic-book version of Treasure Island before taking on Fahrenheit 451.) It's as if author and artist were vigorously waving a white flag and shouting, "We couldn't beat 'em, so we joined 'em!"

Later on she adds:

Graphic novels may win some new readers, but the text is almost always shortened to make way for pictures, and what survives of it is radically different: It's mostly dialogue, like a screenplay. In the graphic-novel version of Fahrenheit 451, almost all of the words are spoken. Even the pictures confirm that the novel has become a script.

By the end of the review,  however,  she turns around and suggests that Hamilton's adaptation was more in keeping with Bradbury's own interests in the medium and the book's larger themes. It's all very confusing.

Still, who reads all the way through an article these days? The damage was done and the review was muddled and grumpy enough to incite a firestorm in the comments section:

I'm not going to try to quote every noteworthy comment here — life's too short. Suffice it to say most of them can be grouped in the following ways: a) Bradbury loves comics and has been adapted in comics since the '50s with EC, so nyeah; 2) Boxer should read Watchman! Or Maus! No, Persepolis! Sandman! c) Graphic novels should be solely reviewed by people who like graphic novels; and d) FU Sarah Boxer! Stop being a hater!

What interests/concerns me is not so much Boxer's take on the Fahrenheit adaptation or even her vague disdain for the medium as her seeming insistence, as shown in that second quote, that words paired with pictures inevitably results in an inferior product compared to a novel.

It's balderdash of course. While bad comic adaptations of classic books are a dime a dozen, there are enough good ones (like City of Glass) to put Boxer's lie to rest. The key is in letting the art tell the story.

It's a point that NPR's Glen Weldon puts more eloquently than I really could:

Let me try to put it more concretely: In the best graphic novels/comics/sequential art/whatever, the art doesn't just sit there. It doesn't simply illustrate what the words are describing, because comics are more than just books with pictures.

No, the art takes over a share of the heavy lifting. It does its own, independent narrative work: it characterizes, sets the tone, advances the plot, etc.

The art, in other words, gets off its damn butt.

Go and read the rest of Weldon's essay. It's not just a perfect encapsulation of what makes a good adaptation, but also a primer on how to write for comics in general.

Batman R.I.P.

Welcome to the first 2009 edition of Everyone's A Critic, now safely ensconced at its new home at Robot 6.

For those who aren't familiar with the series back when it was over at Blog@Newsarama, the object of this column is to offer germane discussion on comics criticism, macrame and similar lighthearted fare. OK, I was lying about the macrame part. That was just to draw you in.

Every so often I'll be poking out from my hidey-hole and offering my thoughts on a particular review-related issue of the day, pointing you towards an interesting discussion or review or talking with some of the industry's more intelligent and articulate pundits.

I say "every so often," because at this point, for a variety of reasons that I can't go into right now (I'm lazy, my big toe hurts), I don't have the ability to do the column as a biweekly, let alone weekly, thing. As things settle down it will, I promise, but for now it will more or less show up when I feel the discussion is germane enough. I like typing the word "germane."

Today I want to point you towards a lengthy discussion you may have noticed taking place a few days ago over at Sean T. Collins' site.

It all started when Collins posted a link to Tom Spurgeon's holiday interview with fellow critic Tucker Stone. Stone had said:

when you're working on the biggest super-hero character of the year, and your job is to do that characters big bestseller of the year, then that isn't the time for you to put out something that any Batman fan, even the dumbest one, calls "confusing."

To which Collins replied:

I don't know what it is about superheroes that occasionally draws this sort of thing out of critics, but you rarely see people demand that the big summer movie or the big autumn hip-hop record be more simplistic lest some people get turned off. Keep in mind that even though Tucker's not a fan of Batman: R.I.P. on a qualitative basis, that's not what he's talking about--this criticism would hold even if it were a great comic, as long as it was still confusing to some readers. That seems proscriptive and self-defeating to me.

And it was off to the races from there. Stone and Collins got into it (politely I should add) in the comments section. Here's Stone:

I do think it would benefit comics to have a bit more clear demarcation of where their Summer Crowd-Pleaser is going to be. With the super-hero stuff, a huge Batman epic event story--one that's going to get as much hype as DC is willing to give anything--that should be their tent-pole. Instead, it's an insular text that operated without connection to the books it's listed as being connected too, it appealed to the primarily Grant Morrison fan (instead of the primarily Batman fan) and I think that was a stupid call to make.

And here's Collins again:

I think you get into tricky territory as a critic when you start criticizing (or praising) material for how it does or doesn't function as commerce--to me that's an entirely separate issue.

Final Crisis

That then led to another post by Collins wherein he attempted to explain in greater and better detail how he reads and critiques a crossover event like Batman R.I.P. or Final Crisis. The comments thread to that post then turned into a big foofoorah with folks like Tom Spurgeon and Kiel Phegley chiming in. The discussion even spilled out onto other blogs, with folks like such as Tim O'Neil, Dick Hyacinth and Mark Oliver-Frisch offering their thoughts.

So why all the ruckus? Well, it seems at the heart of the matter is two very different ways of thinking and writing about comics and, on a broader scale, art in general. I thought it might be useful to try to parcel the two views out and weigh their individual merits. My apologies in advance if I misinterpret anyone's statements.

Let's start with Collins. If I'm understanding him right, he's saying that when it comes to reading and critiquing a big superhero crossover event like Final Crisis or Batman R.I.P., the need to pick and choose -- to be selective, favoring the main storyline and ignoring say tie-ins like Rage of the Red Lanterns or Death of the New Gods -- is not only preferable but imperative to one's enjoyment of a particular book.

In other words, by not getting bogged down in a ton of needless esoterica, contradictory plots and inferior work (or at least, work that doesn't hit your particular sweet spot) you prevent yourself from being soured on the work you are interested and can focus solely on its own unique aesthetic merits. Don't let the existence of the Animatrix, or The Matrix Revolutions for that matter, spoil your enjoyment of the first film.

Countdown

Sean's method is strikes me as something of an auteurist stance. I don't mean that as a slight; I'm simply saying he picks and chooses the books he reads because of his interest in a particular writer or artist, in this case, Grant Morrison. He might have a interest in Batman or the other DCU characters, but they're second to his interest in Morrison

I'm rather sympathetic to that stance because that's how I read a lot of these types of books myself. I refused to read any of the Secret Invasion tie-ins (the main series was bad enough) and I've tried to stay clear of a lot of the Final Crisis and Batman R.I.P., partly because of finances but also because I'm more interested in Morrison as a writer than I am in how these comics are "going to chance everything. What's more, I'm not convinced reading Paul Dini's "storyline from another world" in Detective Comics mattered in the long run in how I perceive Morrison's work.

So, yeah, I think Sean's methodology has merit, especially as a reader. It's when he starts suggesting it's a preferable method of criticism, particularly in relation to Stone's, that I think he falters. I'm very leary of saying one method of criticism is inherently superior to another in general -- I tend to think different methodologies can provide a fuller picture of a particular work or genre. Stone's take on Batman has merit, not the least of which being that it assesses the work in relation to the culture at large.

Because, let's face it. As much as we'd like to pretend that a work exists in a perfectly sealed vacumn once it comes off the printer's press, there are a thousand things, both economical and otherwise, that influence our perception. The Godfather is still one of my favorite movies of all time, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that remembering the mere existence of The Godfather III has never soured my enjoyment. And don't get me started on those last three Star Wars films.

So let's move on to Stone. I think a couple people misinterpreted his comments, feeling that he was suggesting that any work of art had to "dumb it down" in order to appeal to mass audiences and that this was a commendable goal.

Joker

I don't think that's what he was saying at all. I think (and again, perhaps I'm wrong) he was saying that if you have a popular character like Batman, who is currently starring in one of the biggest blockbusters of the year, and your big Batman comic book crossover event, which you're heavily hyping, is not only so esoteric and bewildering to confuse casual readers, but has a horrible anti-climatic ending that continues in another series and features art by a guy who can't draw a fist connecting with a face, well that's just plain stupid.

No, Stone is not necessarily addressing the success (and let's not forget that Batman R.I.P. was one of DC's biggest successes of 2008) of the series on the same aesthetic grounds as Collins. He's taking it purely from DC's standpoint, which is they wanted a tentpole event that could draw in folks from far and wide around and lead them to purchase other DC comics, like Final Crisis. Despite the sales numbers, he's saying they failed utterly on those terms because the audience that did tune in quickly grew frustrated and confused and might not make a second attempt.

Of course, I'm doubtful that DC honestly ever considered Batman R.I.P. to be the general crowd-pleaser Stone thinks it should have been. I think that was definitely aimed squarely at the fans, the regular readers. I think the recent Brian Azzarello Joker graphic novel intended to serve that purpose instead, and while it may not have reached Watchmen numbers, it looks like it may have served its purpose.

Sure, there are problems in attempting to form hypothesis about whatever the mythical "mass audience" wants, but I think it's perfectly valid to criticize a work in the larger context of whether or not it succeeded at its own modest goals, even its economic ones. There are a number of critics who steadfastly refuse to engage a work solely on its own terms but place (or mock) it within its relationship to the culture at large or as pure product. (Anthony Lane of The New Yorker comes immediately to mind.)

In the end, I think it's extremely valuable to read an assessment like Stone's on whether or not FC or what have you succeeds as product. Because let's face it, DC regards it ultimately as a product (hopefully an entertaining product, sure, but product nonetheless). It's just as valid to castigate a comic for failing to meet its demands for its intended audience as it is to praise it for its own particular set of aesthetic qualities.

But I also think Collins' view is whwhile since he comes at it from a different set of criteria. Asking whether the work is intellectually or emotionally satisfying is very important to me as a reader. I want to know what Sean thought of the book. But I also want to be able to garner a wider viewpoint without fling like I'm slumming or being a "reverse-snob."

So in short, everybody wins. Can I go home now?