Blind Item: Which spectacular scribe came thiiiis close to starting a fistfight with a certain gutter-dwelling internet rabble-rouser–in front of an enormous line of signature-seeking fans (and yours truly) at the Marvel booth, no less?
As that little anecdote might indicate, I’m having a good time here at WizardWorld. A lot less alt-comix representation, which is extraordinarily depressing, but the presence of Craig Thompson is quite a boon to the spirits (especially those of my wife).
I also got to spend some time with Mark Millar, who turns out to be about 180 degrees from the cocky persona he’s constructed for his press releases. He’s an awfully friendly, smiley guy who seems genuinely tickled pink to be doing what he does for a living, as well as pleased that so many people seem to enjoy it too. Today he announced that he and Brian Bendis will be tag-team writing Ultimate Fantastic Four, which, given Bendis’s knack for dialogue and Millar’s for action, might well be the comics equivalent of Jay-Z and R. Kelly’s The Best of Both Worlds, only with less statutory rape. Seriously, I jones for those Ultimate books like they’re horse or something. This should be a pip.
You know, the events of today once again made me think of Gary Groth’s criticism essay. I said to Gary at San Diego that I thought he was presuming too much of comics creators to double as critics as well, and offer harsh criticisms of the work of their peers. My assumption was that most people simply don’t want to be seen as an asshole or a troublemaker. But I think that once you get to know a person who you’ve only previously known through their work, you recontextualize that person’s output based on their personality and thought patterns as you’ve seen them in action. If you get a favorable impression of the person in question’s heart and mind, you’re liable to take another look at their work and find strengths where you’d once (in ignorance?) seen weeknesses. This actually happened to me with Gary’s fellow Fantagraph, TCJ editor Milo George. Back when Milo and my communications with another had gone no further than me getting called a dumbass by him on the TCJ messboard for saying something apparently overly reverential about Frank Miller and DC Prez Paul Levitz, I extrapolated that his callous disregard for the feelings of his readers translated into a badly run magazine. But now that our e-relationship has extended beyond that somewhat into some illuminating conversations about the workings of the Journal (preceded by a mutual apology for our messboard snippiness), I find that I’m able to appreciate aesthetic and critical decisions he’s made for the Journal with which I once disagreed.
In essence, then, Gary’s complaint may well be valid, but I think it’s an unavoidable dilemma in a medium as inbred and insular as this one, where everybody knows your name. It’s more than a question of not shitting where you eat–it’s that once you get to know someone, you get to know where they’re coming from, and where they intended their work to go, too.