chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) (08/30/85)
>In article <1075@mtgzz.UUCP> leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper) writes: >[...] Then I did not read more than a comic book a year until relatively >recently. What I did read convinced me that comics were maturing a little >but were still silly and banal. > >Recently a friend who is a big comic fan got me reading a few. My conclusion >is that my distaste for super-heroes rules out the vast majority of comics >sold. At some point, I will probably write a general article about my >conclusions about comic books. Actually, I hope that mark doesn't get around to posting his general article on his conclusions about comic books. From the comments he's made, it seems that such an article would unfortunately fail due to the all too often case of a reviewer reviewing what they don't understand. Background: I seem to have a similar background to Mark. I've got a strong basis in visual media and a heavy attraction to SF and Fantasy. I've dropped a number of reviews into both sf-lovers and net.movies over time, and as a matter of fact I'm now doing a series of reviews for a San Diego based fanzine. My background in comics is pretty sparse: I used to read the old Gold Key(?) classics many years ago (things like Hunchback of Notre Dame, done in 35 pages, in color no less..), but little else. Beyond a bit of Elfquest and my current Groo and E-man fetishes, I still don't read a lot of comics. Over the last few months, though, my roomate, a strong comic reader and collector, has left her reading material where I can find it, and I've found myself picking stuff up and leafing through it, listening to her, reading the "Comics Buyer Guide" and generally getting the feel for the comics industry. My initial feelings (and she'll attest to this -- I made a snide comment about the flash once and she didn't speak to me for days....) was similar to what I'm seeing out of Mark -- comments about the triviality and shallowness of the material, sturgeons law, and all of that drivel. I learned early to (1) keep my mouth shut, and (2) to not judge the comics industry by the standards I was judging it by. Comics are NOT movies, comics are not SF or fantasy. What I've found, after keeping an eye on Infinite Earth, and X-men, and some of the other stuff that seems to be taking over my bookcases, is that it ISN'T shallow or banal once you figure out what is going on. Pick up a random comic, and it doesn't make sense, but once you start getting the perspective of the series or the universe, there's a LOT going on under the surface. You can't take a comic and review it independent of what is going around it anymore than you can take a random chapter out of a book and expect it to stand on its own. This is the typical mistake I see made when reviewing comics -- they all stand on their own, but they tend to support each other as well. I suggest heartily that Mark stick to reviewing the things he knows how to talk about intelligently, and let Boyajian and Moriarty and Sefton and the others that know the details of this genre do what they do well. I've stayed quiet in here because I simply don't know what I'm talking about, and I'll continue staying quiet until I feel I can hold my own with the resident experts. I hope the Leepers, good as they are elsewhere, do the same. Comics have to be discussed on their own terms, not on the terms that SF would attempt to force on them... chuq -- Chuq Von Rospach nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA {decwrl,hplabs,ihnp4}!nsc!chuqui Son, you're mixing ponderables again