Blogging’s been light around here lately because I’ve been busy with my new gig, namely being a supervisor in the music and movie departments of a local bookstore. Did I ask about how their graphic novels are selling? You bet I did. And apparently they’re selling like hotcakes. Supposedly they move a lot more than they even have room for on the floor. And who’s buying them? Kids. And which ones are they buying? I’ll give you three guesses. Ladies and gentlemen, can we please agree to retire the “kids don’t buy comics” meme once and for all?
Anyway, I haven’t had much time to surf, but I’ve noticed several big pieces that address some big issues.
First up is Steven Grant, who offers an overview of the problems faced by DC and Marvel in the current comics market and press. I think it’s clear to most of us who follow these things that the New Marvel Magic has pretty much worn off–what do they do now? DC, meanwhile, is gaining a little critical and audience traction, but are they showing any signs of being able to capitalize on this? Check out what Steven has to say about it, and who knows? You may see a little guest analysis yours truly…
Jim Henley, meanwhile, has honed his thoughts on the superhero genre into an essay, defending the spandex set as “the literature of ethics”–if it’s done right, naturally. Tim O’Neil, who much to his amusement has unwittingly become something of an archvillain to we pro-superhero types, offers an agreement-slash-rebuttal that strikes me as the most reasonable thing he’s yet said on the subject. Read ’em both.
And read the comment thread on Jim’s essay, too; I particularly like Sean Gleeson’s questions: “What’s so bad about being a male child’s fantasy? Is it because there’s something wrong with being or having been a male child?” Of course, he later commits the ultimate sin of referring to books that “transcend the genre.” Listen, folks: If a given work is of a particular genre, and it’s really good, it hasn’t transcended the genre–it epitomizes the genre. It shows you what the genre is capable of. To say it transcends the genre is to write the potential for greatness out of that genre by definition!
And read Bill Sherman‘s take on Jim’s essay, as seen through the prism of Kurt Busiek’s Superman-related minseries Secret Identity. It serves as a thoughtful exploration-slash-critique of Jim’s take on superhero politics.
(I’ll offer a critique of my own–Jim, my good man, where are these neoconservative superheroes you’ve seen? From where I’m sitting, all the big writers (except Morrison, who’s got less irritating fish to fry) have been spending the last few years tearing neocon foreign policy to shreds with their superhero yarns. President Luthor, anybody? The attack on “Qurac”? Geoff Johns’s Avengers arc? Mark Millar’s work on The Ultimates and Superman: Red Son? Brian Bendis actually destroying most of the Middle East in Powers? Point is, while I (a liberal, for the most part, in case you’d forgotten) personally may agree with Jim’s contention that acting like a neocon in the foreign-policy arena is a natural outgrowth of left-liberal politics, most left-liberals don’t agree, and if you need more evidence than the past two and a half years’ worth of actual behavior from left-liberals, you can look at the superhero comics they’ve been writing, too.)
Franklin Harris serves up something in the same vein as Jim–a defense of superheroes, this one focused on the folks saying that the genre is the reason for comics’ financial woes. I mostly agree, but I think Franklin is wrong about superhero comics squeezing out non-superhero comics from comics shops. He says they don’t, and I guess in a sense he’s right, since most shops don’t stock non-superhero comics at all. They’re not just squeezing them out–they (or more accurately the developmentally retarded fanboys who run most comic shops) are keeping them from ever getting in. Still, it’s always worth shooting down facile anti-superhero arguments, and Franklin’s a past master at it.
Finally, ADDTF reader Ben Burgess pointed me to this Gardner Linn post on Grant Morrison’s recently completed New X-Men. An in-depth summary of the entire forty-issue run, tracing each of Morrison’s themes from inception to conclusion, this post is so good it will make your hair hurt. As sad as I am that Morrison’s X-book is no longer a going concern, and that Marvel shows no sign of following it up with anything remotely resembling its genuinely revolutionary combination of sophistication and heart, the thought that we’re now able to talk about it all the way Gardner talks about it makes me glad indeed.
Okay, back to work.