The little meme that could continues to spark discussion as more bloggers jump into the “do comics actually suck?” fray, and earlier contributors refine their original statements. Here’s Johnny Bacardi on the trials and travails of buying comics on an unemployed person’s budget. Here’s Kevin Melrose on how bad bad retailers can be for comics (the post also touches on Pimpgate–joy!). Here’s Eve Tushnet on what’s wrong with floppies. Here’s Ron Phillips, taking a view on all the negativity that’s roughly equivalent to Clemenza’s view on the upcoming war between the families in The Godfather. And here’s the man who started it all, John Jakala, saying “My God, what have I done?” and clarifying that he’s only as fed up (or not) with comics as he is (or isn’t) with every other art form. On the upside, here’s Tegan Gjovaag, defending both floppies and Diamond’s pre-ordering system as embodied by Previews. It ain’t all gloom and doom!
In other news:
My defense of DK2 is seconded by Dirk Deppey, who offers ebullient praise for Miller’s controversial book himself as part of an exceptionally entertaining day at Journalista. And mine and Chris Allen’s dueling reviews of the book are being discussed at the V forum.
Entertaining capusle reviews from Jim Henley (particularly insightful regarding the unsatisfying wrap-up of the actual Purple Man storyline in the final issue of Brian Bendis’s excellent Alias), and from Big Sunny D (on the mess that is the current X-Statix storyline), and from Eve Tushnet (Grant Morrison and Ultimate Spider-Man, pros and cons thereof). Eve also offers entertaining capsule summaries of the appeal and drawbacks of different superheroes. She’s wrong about Ultimate Spider-Man in both posts, though, because that book is awesome. (Wrong about Batman, too.)
Over on the Comics Journal message board, there’s a thread that’s equal parts horrifying and hysterical about the problems the New York Press has been having with paying and firing its freelance illustrators. In my experience in publishing, when it comes to arguments about this sort of thing, the freelancers are almost always in the right. Just keep that in mind.