Possibly Corny Defence of Comics as Art

Nope, it's actually a mildly interesting defence of Comics as Journalism.

AJL hobbyhorse#1 - AFAIK, there isn't a single decent critical reader on comics - nothing that collects lots of the 'classic' articles abt comic bks. I know we'd never reach consensus on this, but said volume wld prob. include Wertham, Robert Warshow(sp) (an interesting American critic who took a more measured look at crime/horror comic bks at the height of the Kefauver hearings), Gilbert Seldes (American lit crit who proposed that comic strips etc. were the seventh art(form) - or was it eighth? whatever, he wrote just abt the first crit text that took the funnies seriously), Umberto Eco on Steve Canyon, some classic Gary Groth rant or other, Spiegelman and John Benson on Krigstein's 'Master Race', something from Wizard, Eisner on storytelling, a page of the Overstreet price guide and of course Kenneth Smith!!! Well, you get the pic

I seriously believe such a volume wld do a lot to 'advance' comics crit and promote better discussion of the rather tired comics as art 'puzzler'

Seldes had comics as one of the seven lively arts - he had a whole chapter about Herriman in his book. I agree with you, and would add some of Samuel Delany's writing on comics.

Where has Delany wrote on comics? I would love to read that.

andrew is OTM, there's enough good writing about comics out there that a really great reader could be compiled, but probably never will be. there've been a couple of recent essay-compilations along those lines (at least two that i can think of, basically "writers reminisce about the comics they read when they were kids" in theme), but they didn't really do the trick.

such a book would have to include John Crowley's beautiful analysis of Pogo: http://www.bostonreview.net/BR29.5/crowley.html

my ideal volume would open with Harlan Ellison's idiotic "they ain't just for kids anymore, bub, if only your mom hadn't thrown yours out they'd be worth a fortune" article, followed by Gary Groth's hilariously mean demolition of same.

One of the essay books has some stuff about Comics (and Delany's experiences at writing one). I forget whether it's the Shorter or Longer essays book. (I suspect Shorter.)

I don't remember him saying anything earth-shattering though.

kogan is a big fan of warshow (sp.)