This is the thread where we make fun of Salon commenters AND WHERE WE TALK ABOUT DOUGLAS' NEW BOOK

Feel free to add your own!

Man. I'm loving some of those comments. Thank you, Internet trolls of the world...

Still, Wolk isn't really helpful on what distinguishes dazzling work from dreck. Most of the superhero and over-priced "golden age" preciosities on the shelves in comics stores is aesthetically autistic. Calling it nostalgie de la boue is a compliment. Maybe "graphic novel" is a pretentious term, but it points us in the right direction -- away from the cheerful idiocy of childhood toward the complicated illumination of art.

the books not out yet, though, is it?

"Comic Fans, Grow Up!"

Wouldn't the consequence of this be that comics might become...not just for kids anymore?? :-O

Anyway, I really enjoyed Douglas' essay, gonna try to get a hold of that book. I don't know if I'm utterly convinced by the anti-nostalgia argument tho:

The most frustrating effect of the art/pop divide in comics, though, is nostalgie de la boue. A lot of the best cartoonists of the moment have picked up their visual vocabulary from the crap and hackwork of the past, and they're fondly and unhealthily attached to it in a sentimental, self-loathing way, as a curdled by-product of the attachment they felt to it as children. You can find this fascination with the feeble, uninspired comics of the artists' youth in Chris Ware's "Rusty Brown," in Dan Clowes's "Ice Haven" and "Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron," in Ivan Brunetti's "Misery Loves Comedy," and in a lot of other art comics, and it's an utter drag.

Is this necessairly worse than Tarantino and Rodriguez's obsession with 70's b-movies, to pick an example at random? I do think that indie (never heard "art comics" that much, feels like "art rock") comics would benefit from gathering more voices that don't fit into the neurotic, introverted style that Ware and Clowe (and Crumb and Pekar before them) sort of personify, but at the end of the day, it's not gonna be much of a surprise that a big part of what comic writers think about are, you know, comics. Don't really see why that should be condemned any more than music about music or movies about movies.

Nostalgia within the superhero market is another deal alltogether, of course, in a setting where the general tone of an entire publisher's output is set by comitee, these tendencies can be a lot more destructive.

"aesthetically autistic"

hahahahahahahahahahahaha

I don't even like Golden Age comics and I still think that's an incredibly stupid thing to say!

David, I already quoted that! Without the first sentence, though--my bad.

ILC: proudly making fun of EVERY other message board since 2004. :)

Anyway, I really liked the excerpt, Douglas, and I think that it excels at what good criticism does: to propose an argument and start a discussion rather than trying to impose an absolute view.

And what's funniest of that first poster is the moment in which he comes back, claiming to have read "all those important comic works" but still shows an almoust fanatical incomprehension of them, without any convincing argument whatsoever.

I love this one too:

I figure the mean reading level in the US is about 10th grade. That's the sweet spot. Since most everything is crap, and it is, just enjoy it the best you can and forget about whether it's art or not. Because it's probably not. It's probably crap. If comic books are art then I guess all the indie bands you like are art too. But they're mostly crap. And the really popular ones or worse, the bands like OAR or Chili Peppers are monmental piles of steaming crap. Just because they call it art doesn't mean it is.

So just enjoy your crap and stop telling me it's art.

And even though I know it's stupid to make fun of typos, I think "monmental" is a great word. "Monmetal" would be even better, though.

Oh shit - I was wondering why that nostalgia phrase sounded familiar! My bad!

You've been watching the Simpsons for too long. I have never had this experience in a comic book store. Every comic book store I've gone into,in Portland, in Japan, New York, and California even after years long breaks that have rendered me entirely out of it as far as the medium is concerned, has had wonderful people who were willing to talk for hours just to get me up to date. These guys know that it's a fragile medium, and they do what they can to encourage newcomers. Just because the clerk doesn't jump out and say "hiiiiiiiiiiiiii!" in the shrill voice of a bra saleswoman isn't reason to write them off as snobs.

Followed by:

THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND CLAY ... Is great if you like the unreadable brain vomit of pompus assholes. Michael Chabon wishes he was twice as pointless and vapid as Dave Eggers, alas it's only the dullness of a weak proletarian mind. So you might as well read comic books because the Oprahfication of literature is making a world of idiots anyway.

I'd like to know the magical fairy world the previous poster lives in where s/he's dealt w/ personable comic sales folks AND shrill bra saleswomen.

You know it's a he.

I tried to read War and Peace, but unfortunately it only sent me into a deeper slumber than before.

"the unreadable brain vomit of pompus assholes" - the seed for an awesome Grant Morrison / Brendan McCarthy collaboration.

Or, y'know, if Jim Woodring wants in on some chunks as well, that's cool.

I'm still trying to decipher what he meant by "weak proletarian mind". Capitalists rule ok?.

He means "I am desperately afraid that I'm not actually as smart as I want to be so I will loudly proclaim that one doesn't need to be intelligent to be a good manual labor in a transparent effort to assuage my ever-mounting intellgience anxiety; also, I have a micropenis".

My hypothesis is that anyone who doesn't see the intellectual merit in C&C Music Factory's single "Things That Make You Go Hmmm" is someone who will dis comics in order to assuage their own anxieties of mental inadequacy.

Given Leee's linking to this thread from FCT's LET US DISCUS THE BOOK thread, we should discus the book in this thread, when we have read the book.

Is it out? I thought next week? Or is that just in Canada?

I haven't seen it in stores yet here.

I wonder if any bookstores in my area will be stocking it, or if I'll have to order it.

It was at my local NYC comicbook store.

We got it in at work this week. I thought.. hey ...wait...ILXOR!

Not on Salon, but over at CBR, Erik Larsen says:
As far as I was aware, all comics were in the same format.

Which was cool. I mean, it worked, and since it was the only show in town there weren't dickheads out there throwing around derogatory terms like "pamphlets" or "floppies" at these four-color wonders, they were just comic books.

Just an FYI, note the new thread title.

Ah! Thank you!

FYI, there'll be a book release party at Floating World Comics here in Portland this Thursday, July 5.

Just bought it and looking forward to reading soon.

I finally saw a copy! In the Penn Station bookstore, of all places. It is very handsome, if not, at first glace, exactly the theory-heavy book I expected it to be. But I skimmed through the Kochalka/Thompson chapter while I waited for my train and generally agreed. I did not buy that copy there but I will buy a copy somewhere at some point.

I can't find a copy in Vancouver. Maybe I need to look harder, like outside my house.

I, too, will someday bring you one step closer to royalty checks, Doug.

I have a press review copy waiting for me, but I like the idea of tangentially making Doug richer, so I'm gonna buy it instead.

On Friday, I went to the big bookstore downtown, and their in-house computer said they didn't have it in stock, but that another location had two copies. So yesterday, i went to the other location, and their in-house computer said that they didn't have any copies but the big one downtown had 3. WTF!
I wish I was back at home, and that the awesome tiny little bookstore I used to go to was still open, because I know they woulda had it, and probably the owner woulda called me to say that it came out and that I'd be interested in it. Big cities are okay, but small cities are better for making relationships with people who love to take your money and make you happy and then go out of business because you are not enough.

The awesome little book store you took me to closed?

Yeah. It was kind of a major part of my decision to split town (though I have yet to find a similar book store here, lotsa good used book places and my comic shop is a pleasant hole-in-the-wall).

bought it from Amazon. 90% finished. Very, very happy. Now write another one whilst i read it again.

I read a grande latte's worth in my local chainstore, which, surprisingly, proved to be a great deal (quite compulsively readable). I'm almost certainly gonna purchase soon, when I get a cash influx.

HERE ARE SOME COMMENTS ON DOUGLAS' FINE FINE BOOK:

-The Morrison chapter's stunderful - I was sure to gaze carefully at the cover of SSOV: MISTER MIRACLE #4 when I got home.

-The comparison of Gilbert's prolific nature to that of a kid running off a sugar high proves an indelible image.

-Despite all the caveats you place upon Ditko's latter-day work, you make them sound all kindsa seductive.

-PARAPHRASE: "virtually impossible to imagine a linear first reading of WATCHMEN" = OTM

I was very pleased with the used bookstore I went to when we didn't have lunch. I found a fantastically priced long out of print book by one of my favorite authors, a fairly obscure book of experimental poetry from the 70s in great condition at a low low price.

Leaving town over a bookstore closing is pretty hxrdcxrx though.

On the display table at St Marks! Success!

going to seek out again today. it seems like all the "hip" bookstores in Vancrazy are used, and all the new bookstores are STRICTLY FOR HIPPIES.

Casuistry: OH MAN! That's exciting.

True? (was it Ethan Persoff? a ha ha, etc. [seriously, looks like a cunt's trick if true - whose decision?])

Sorry to use this as a general booky-book thread, but did anyone else read this: http://www.amazon.com/Soon-Will-Be-Invincible-Novel/dp/0375424865 ?

Writing was a little patchy but it's a fun attempt at a prose comic book.

How's it rate compared to the "action" bits in Kavalier & Clay?

Still haven't read K&C :(

Actually it's more the editing that's patchy, there are some weird inconsistencies (maybe intentional to get that classic comic book editorial sense?!). Still, fun book.

(which might be the first mention I've seen in the mainstream comics interpress)

Just bought Douglas' book and it may just be the best book about comics I've ever seen. His one chapter on Morrison makes the whole of Morrison The Early Years look like a flattened turd in the company of The Lord Of Hosts. And his preface is a book in itself. Huzzah for the new King of Com-Crit!

Oh man, this is good.

Douglas Wolk and Steve Lieber are going to be at the Louisiana Book Festival this weekend, but i don't know whether i should go. It would be most cool to see Wolk speak, and have my book signed, but my girlfriend might be most annoyed with me.

Why would she be annoyed? I promise to write something extra-nice in your book if you do turn up!

Douglas, any trips to Memphis or Atlanta in the future?

I wish! I'll be in Baton Rouge on Saturday, which is as close as I'm getting in the near future... sorry!

oh, my girlfriend has family coming in from out of town. They want to go to New Orleans. Last night she seemed bewildered why i would think she would be annoyed with me for a book-related event, so it's looking like I get to go.

Going to do my best to drag some friends along, but the ones who will be most eager will be at work.

Wish the book was already in paperback. The people who i know need to read this book most cannot afford hardback, and i loathe loaning my copy to them, as they would do something like use a hunk of charcoal or a strip of bacon as a bookmark.

Douglas Wolk - Second cousin to Bea Arthur, aka "Maude"

I have been debating whether to chat up some guy on a personals site, who has expresses great interest in comics, by asking him whether he has read "Reading Comics" yet, but I fear it will come off as just too, too nerdy.

The Wolk & Lieber appearance in Baton Rouge. Not a single one of my damned friends showed up after a week of goading. Turnout was pretty good for the size of the room though.

Not less than three but no more than five times in the course of an hour, the question, "Is there any difference between comic books and graphic novels?" It was a question addressed and answered in the first minutes of the discussion. (answer: none.)

Because i haven't been in a proper comic shop in fifteen years, and haven't really hung out in one in twenty, i forgot how spooky certain fans can be. There was an obsessive Watchmen fan sitting front and center, raising a hand after any statement by Douglas or Steve, and it always seemed to be about some facet of the genius of Watchmen.

(He took copious notes, which unnerved me.)

A woman who arrived late aggressively asked two questions. One was, "My grandson likes Star Wars. What comic books would you recommend he read?"

Douglas and Steve politely answered that there was no way to know this without knowing her grandson, to which she took offense.

The Watchmen was recommended by a certain someone in the audience though. So was something called Scion, but pronounced as Sky-on.

The second question from the grandmother is obvious. She stormed out after she heard the word "semantics" in answer to her second question.

The rest of the discussion went well overall though. There were a number of well-informed people (including another possible grandmother who was hip to the Rabbi's Cat, something i've never read.) It was a little disappointing to see that most of the discussion focused on the translation of comics to film instead of as an independent medium (with one lonely guy who stumbled through the assertion that books with photos are for illiterates. Ah, that gadly. No. Next,)It actually starting to warm up right at the end with the rapid fire questions.

And i had my book signed (yay,) after i asked whether he was going to drag Grant Morrison into the fray when Douglas was talking about what happens in comics between the panel. Didn't stick around, because after six years, i still feel more comfortable as a lurker.

Casuistry, ask the guy "if there were a fire in your house, would you save your Overstreets or your Comics Journals?"

Wow, this book was reviewed in the Irish Times today. By a woman! Who likes comics!

By which I meant that they stayed away from clichés about the Simpson Comics Store Guy.

Rock, he's into Marvel. Years of lurking here and I still don't have a opening line for such a person.

"Who'd win: The Hulk or The Thing?"

"Jim Shooter: Threat or Menace?"

"Can I interest you in a VG edition of Giant-Sized Man-Thing?"

hahaha, "uh just a little spine curl and flaking."

just don't forget to bag and board!

just traded (loan-trade) Reading Comics with a coworker for all volumes of Invisibles trades! SCORE!!!

hey mang, if you ever finish the 5-Year-Gap Legion you make passing mention of here, please let us know.

(insert "writing about")

slashdot review:
http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/10/1347239

I borrowed it from the local library.

Because it is a highly praised book, I am looking for bits where I can react with a "THAT IS TOTAL BULLSHIT, THIS GUY KNOWS NOTHING"

Haven't found any yet.

There are some blank pages near the end you might take issue with.

huh! what kind of so-called comics expert is he?

This Freakytrigger piece by Tom should probably be linked to form here - really nice piece on Wolk and "clear-line" criticism (that in itself is, largely, a good example of clear-line criticism!)

Douglas, I just wanted to tell you that the piece you wrote about the Fall's Peel Sessions in the believer has a warm spot in my loving heart and also on my hard drive. I want to pick up this book too...and soon!

sorry no caps on the Believer

I'm delighted to report that there is a thread devoted to Mr. Wolk's book in John Byrne's website…I'm fascinated by him and the way that he treats the site as his own Latveria, where he often excommunicate the brave acolytes who disagree with him on picayune matters, is mostly lauded by the drooling remainder, and otherwise carries on pompously…

he doesn't like the idea of Douglas' book, and opines heedlessly, as he often does on books, comics and films he refuses to see…

http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=24202&PN=1&totPosts=105

note that Mr Wolk's friend Steve Lieber pops in early on…

Oh my God. That is comedy GOLD.

Oh my God, Douglas -- if you ever wrote about the Five Year Gap Legion, I'd be well beyond thrilled.

Maus is a good example of the form as is Superboxers and others.

Vis a vis comic book comedy, I cannot recommend byrnerobotics.com enuff…

That John Byrne site... it is interesting (on the first page anyway) how they focus on the "what is the point of comics criticism?" question. It was only really when DW raised this in his book that I thought "yeah, what is the point of comics criticism, or indeed criticism generally?".

I'm not really convinced there is much of a point, except that some people like to read it, like the way some people like to read comics.

Lord give me strength as I attempt to avoid that ByrneRobotics link.

In the interest of presenting both sides of the Reading Comics feedback (because ILC is fair AND balanced), here's an even-handed critique from Madinkbeard.com:

His argument for art comics as style over content seems so indistinct. Couldn’t one easily say that the so-called “mainstream” superhero comics are an example of style over content? Wolk frequently returns to the idea of “ugly” art in comics, yet, despite his attempted forays into aesthetics (like Kant), he never makes any good claim for what “ugly” means. He says that “it’s a result of a conscious choice to incorporate a lot of distortion and avoid conventional prettiness in style.” The former quality is inherent to almost all comics from Fisher to Schulz to Kirby to Ware. And it becomes clear from Wolk’s text that he equates the latter quality with the generic superhero style.

Eddie Campbell also weighed in, albeit in a more strident fashion (& only in the midst of addressing the issue of the "graphic novels" handle, it seems), and seems to put his lot behind this quote from a Chicago Tribute write-up:

There is a vivid disparity, then, between the oft-told contemporary tale of a medium ascending in the cultural pantheon and the reality that comics are still -- comics. Even when they're gussied-up and stuck between bound covers and dubbed "graphic novels," they're still -- comics. Even when comics-based films such as the "Spider-Man" franchise and "300" are box office winners, the whiff of juvenilia still clings to comics, like the scent of grape Hubba Bubba and burned Pop-Tart. And that's just fine with Douglas Wolk.

A Mr. A1an Dav!d D0ane also weighed in on the book, but the dude's a serious crank whose opinion means sweet FA in my mind, so the hey with linkage. He spent his blog post concering RC bitching more about Douglas' involvement in the "terrible" Jess Lemon charade than about the actual book, so if you want to read the vituperative off-topic ramblings of some dude, Google is right there.

I can't stomach more than 2-3 visits a year to Byrne's board, and I've already been there once this year.

Ha! Yeah, the Eddie Campbell thing bugged me--not least because the Chicago Tribune writer got me, like, 180 degrees wrong (or, let's say, 160; she pretty much ignored most of what I told her in favor of the few out-of-context quotes that supported her thesis), and he formed his opinion based on that. Oh well: at least when I say cranky (or enthusiastic) things about Campbell's books, I've read them first.

Mr. P, I've tried a couple of times to write about the Five-Year Gap stuff, and can't get it right. Actually agreed to write about it for a book on the Legion last year, and ended up stymied and apologizing to the editor.

Wish I'd explained the "ugly"/"pretty" thing more clearly; there are lots of "not good"/"good" associations with those words that probably got in the way. "Difficult"/"easy" might have been a better way to put it.

About halfway through the book and enjoying it muchly, despite disagreeing with the author on a couple of points(namely that bit quoted at the start of the thread).

Also, the pedantic 2000AD fanboy in me wants to point out that Strontium Dog didn't actually end with Johnny and Wulf staked out in the desert(although perhaps it should've done).

Hey congratulations, Harvey winner man!

Well, thank you! I'm very happy about it.

I just bought this last Saturday and have read prolley 85% of this...and I LOVE it (as if there was any doubt).

You said you worked in a comic book store in Michigan in the 80s. Which one?

You = Douglas

Well, thank you so much! I worked at Curious Book Shop/Curious Comic Shop in East Lansing.

this might be strange...but my uncle was pretty big in the comic book scene in Michigan...he lived in the Jackson area...his name was Bill Baetz. Did you ever meet him?

I don't think so--!

right on...anyways, your book...it sorta transcends comics. That sounds totally snobby, but it couldn't be further from it. What I mean is that not only is it one of the most useful books written about comics ever (The Harvey award is well-deserved) but it is also a very handy guide to aesthetics as a whole. I had a few small quibbles with what you said abt some of my favourite creators, but I can definitely see myself coming back to this book again and again over the years. Good work!

Douglas explains it all for you: http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2009/12/your-video-of-the-day-wolk-wolverine-kant/

One thing I remember about that book is that there are loads of comics mentioned in it that I have never heard of anywhere else.