Four topic roundup.
First things first: The second installment in the ADDTF Interview series has been posted! This time around, I’m happy to offer my conversation with Blankets creator Craig Thompson.
To celebrate, I’ve also reformatted my Phoebe Gloeckner interview to make it a whole lot more readable. If it hurt your head to read it the first time around, give it a shot now. After you finish the Thompson one, that is.
David Fiore is still watching the Watchmen more effectively than, well, anyone this side of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons themselves, I think. Today’s near-comically insightful quote stems from David’s comparison of the work of Jack Kirby (morality constructed through action upon the outside world) to Steve Ditko (morality constructed through, if I’m getting this right, the choice to continue existing in one’s own space and on one’s own terms):
one of the reasons I’m down on the series (as an influence upon the tradition) is the fact that Moore bascially expels the Ditko elements (Dr. Manhattan, Rorschach) from the field, leaving the Kirby elements in the ascendant. I haven’t said much in this space about Nite-Owl and the Silk Spectre, but clearly, they’re very important to the design of the series. They’re likeable characters and they serve as stand-ins for the reader (Moore’s idea of the superhero reader–who enjoys the genre primarily as a power/escape fantasy). Neither Dan nor Laurie is able to function very well in the “real world”, and both seem to view adventuring as a “radical choice” (i.e. if you embrace it, it becomes your life–and, really, why wouldn’t you, if your real lives are as vapid as theirs seem to be)… They can’t even have sex unless they go through a good deal of costume-clad foreplay, and, you know, that’s just not too healthy!
Damn, he’s good. Please, go read the whole thing!
In a funny little bit of synchronicity (are the angels warring in Heaven as we speak?), Jim Henley revises his harsh criticism of Darwyn Cooke’s New Frontier on the very same day that I finally read the book. I’m glad Jim retracted some of his condemnation of Cooke’s depiction of erstaz pacifist-cum-ace pilot Hal Jordan. It seemed to me that the story framed this issue so that it was clear the military brass was not aware of Hal’s demurral to kill until after the Korean War had ended. I think it’s conceivable (more so given the flexibility we customarily accord to the “reality” of morality plays, as this superhero comic surely is)that Hal hid his pseudo-pacifism throughout his training, and that by the time it became obvious to his fellow pilots, he’d so won them over with both his personality and his skill as a flyer that they helped cover it up. It appeared to me that the brass began their investigation into Jordan and his refusal to kill only after the harrowing post-armistice incident depicted in the comic made doing so necessary from a diplomatic standpoint. Moreover, I don’t think Jordan was being lionized for this position: It’s clear that his actions, though “moral” on the surface, were simply a dodge that forced his brother airmen to make the difficult decisions he himself couldn’t handle.
Much of this appears to be borne out by Darwyn Cooke himself on DC’s message board. (I don’t know if the link will get you to the right posts, because DC has a bass-ackwards board that puts the oldest post at the end of the thread; just go to the bottom of the last page.) Cooke’s moral equivalency about the Korean War is troubling given the well-known nature of the North Korean Communist regime, and to the extent which this influenced his storytelling, it’s right to criticize his depiction of Hal Jordan. (Certainly the suggestion that the average American, let alone ace pilots, were indifferent to the Red Menace in the 1950s is a bit of a stretch. And if refusing to stand against North Korea makes you “a forward thinker,” as Cooke suggests, let us hope that the future has passed us by.) (UPDATE: Wait a second–An email exchange with the illustrious Jim Henley reminds me that the Korean War was unpopular (duh). Not Vietnam-unpopular, which is sort of what I was talking about, but unpopular. So it’s certainly fine to have characters wonder what the hell the point of it was. It’s just a little less fine for Cooke himself wonder that, as he apparently does if his messboard comments are any indication. That’s all’s I’m sayin’.) But most of what Cooke says makes sense for the character, the situation, and the story. Long story short: I gun for lousy storytelling in the guise of moralism with all the gusto of that helicopter in Atlantic City in The Godfather Part III, but I don’t see it here. (And the art is top-drawer.)
Finally, the battle between the Comics Blogosphere’s Preeminent Curmudgeons continues. Yesterday, NeilAlien responded to criticism levelled at him by Dirk Deppey by saying “that’s not what I said”; today Dirk responds by saying “Yes it was.”
No, it wasn’t. I think this is all a misunderstanding based on the following sentence: “Markets for non-superhero comics need to be rebuilt from outside the happy and fully-serviced superhero comic market.”
Dirk has taken this sentence (written by NeilAlien here) to mean that Neil feels the Direct Market is getting along fine as a superhero-only vendor, thankyouverymuch, and that efforts to change this are a waste of time. This is how Dirk responds (partially to assert that he’s not attributing maliciousness to Neil’s position):
[T]he attitude represented in [Neil’s] quote would eventually lead to the downfall of the Direct Market, but I don’t think Neil holds it becuase he wants to see retailers on the unemployment line. I just don’t think he’d thought things through when he wrote the statement quoted above….I believe that the “happy and fully-serviced superhero comic market,” which to the best of my (admittedly limited) ability to estimate is roughly 70-80% of the Direct Market, is headed for a slow but steady decline, for reasons enumerated in the disputed interview.
But Neil isn’t disputing that–in fact, putting it that way helps make his case! And his case is that browbeating superhero fans for not buying non-superhero comics is not a recipe for the successful salvation of the Direct Market. This is doubly true if those superhero fans are dying off! What Neil has advocated, consistently, is that the D.M. scratch that, the industry at large should forget about trying to convert this dwindling Superman audience to Jimmy Corrigan and Queen & Country and Iron Wok Jan, and instead focus on outreach efforts directed at people who aren’t part of the Direct Market at all! Manga fans (young and old, female and male), people who buy altcomix and non-fiction graphic novels when the New York Times or the Guardian reviews them, goths at Hot Topic or Tower Recrods, genre-fiction fans picking up stuff for the beach or the airplane or the commute–these are the avenues of expansion for the Direct Market and the larger industry, NeilAlien argues, and not superhero fans, who are already DM customers, and who have never shown any signs of willingness to buy non-superhero stuff. This is understandable, Neil says: After all, this is their micro-hobby. Using the analogy of henpecking at stamp collectors to collect coins as well, Neil asks, why should we even expect superhero collectors to change now, let alone ever?
Dirk, on the other hand, has made his opinion on this matter quite clear: The plight of the Direct Market is in large part the fault of the superhero fanboy. (For the record, you can find my take on the matter here, starting at the fifth paragraph.)
Dirk, Neil: You both recognize the dire straits the industry finds itself in. You both advocate the need for the Direct Market to grow into new audiences. Your only difference of opinion, it seems to me, is whether the industry should, in addition to wooing those new audiences, hold superhero fans accountable for their role in creating a mono-genre marketplace–indeed, often reacting angrily against the very introduction of alternatives into that marketplace–and exhort them to change in order for that marketplace to surive; or view them as reliable customers whose needs are being met, and therefore ignore them and spend prosetylization, marketing, and outreach efforts elsewhere, where the profit margin is potentially exponentially greater. That’s a reasonable difference of opinion, right? It’s also one that’s relatively easy to grasp, right?
Now, put aside your differences and work together for truth, justice, and the American Way, just like Batman and Superman!