Let Us Now Extol the Virtues of Paul O'Brien

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Ninthart.com columnist
http://www.ninthart.com/display.php?article=1082

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 19:41 (twenty years ago)

He's a bit of grump, but never just for the sake of curmudgeonism.

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 19:44 (twenty years ago)

He's got a couple of points, but weren't we going to do an ILC 2005 poll to combat just this sort of pessimissim?

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 19:57 (twenty years ago)

I mean, I don't really want to read manga either, and most Marvel/DC books ARE mediocre, but I still feel like I've managed to read a whole ton of excellent stories in the last 7 1/2 months.

Bitching about a lack of new, big, exciting movements and unifying break-out hits = I am having ILM deja-vu.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 20:05 (twenty years ago)

He's pulling a fast one, though - in this week's X-Axis, he's Mr. Happy Sunshine A+ Guy.

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 20:17 (twenty years ago)

Even to the point of giving a B+ to the House of M issue.

It's possible that as a X-books fan, he has a certain well-earned antagonism to enormous crossovers.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 21:01 (twenty years ago)

Woah, he didn't give a grade lower than B!

WHO GAVE PAUL O'BRIEN ECSTACY????????

― The Ghost of Black Elegance (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 21:14 (twenty years ago)

Oh wow, that adds a whole new dimension to my perception of PO'B.

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Wednesday, 17 August 2005 03:38 (twenty years ago)

More O'Brien luvs right over here. Yes, this is the Fanboy Rampage!!! thread that nearly melted the place down.

― Matt Maxwell (Matt M.), Wednesday, 17 August 2005 17:02 (twenty years ago)

Wow!

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Wednesday, 17 August 2005 17:18 (twenty years ago)

Trying to navigate the logic being unspooled by various contributors to those comments nearly turned me senile.

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 17 August 2005 17:53 (twenty years ago)

"turned"

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Wednesday, 17 August 2005 17:58 (twenty years ago)

"perception"

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 17 August 2005 18:05 (twenty years ago)

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Wednesday, 17 August 2005 18:13 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, I'm a regular member of the peanut gallery at FBR, but I wasn't going to wade into that one. Nuh-uh.

― Matt Maxwell (Matt M.), Wednesday, 17 August 2005 20:09 (twenty years ago)

A, um, considered response to Paul's thingie:

"Those who falter in their purpose, or who find the entirety of current comics unsatisfactory need to politely offer to be upended and cut along the throat to bleed out like kosher chickens, as they have no just reason to clog my Internet with their mewling... The point is simple: if you don’t like what’s going on, don’t change the system from within, don’t elaborate on where everything’s gone wrong. Just die. Die and die again. For me. Please. And failing that, as you’re wont to do, get this through your head: the majority of any media sucks. How many movies come out each year? 100? 200? How many were you interested to see? 5? 10? And how many of those were any good? 3? 4? That’s just the way it is. There’s no great creative depression in any medium, and really no renaissance, either. There’s always some good stuff, and plenty of bad. If you can’t be poopered enough (I refuse to use the UK variant 'arsed,' which came along much later in a pathetic attempt to diverge from the established American form) to find it, then again, I say thee end that blah de vivre and just kick it. I can use the extra oxygen."

― David R. (popshots75`), Friday, 19 August 2005 16:53 (twenty years ago)

How can he die, and then die again? That makes no sense. I mean a bag of leaves???

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Friday, 19 August 2005 16:55 (twenty years ago)

Fucking comic-hating zombies, I hate those pricks.

― The Ghost of Black Elegance (Dan Perry), Friday, 19 August 2005 17:03 (twenty years ago)

Imagine if he came HERE!

― David R. (popshots75`), Friday, 19 August 2005 17:12 (twenty years ago)

We'd have to die, like, 30 times! Each!

― David R. (popshots75`), Friday, 19 August 2005 17:12 (twenty years ago)

clog my Internet
wot now?

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Friday, 19 August 2005 17:17 (twenty years ago)

I think this guy's missing the point that, for better or worse, many of us comic readers develop an emotional attachment to our favorite characters. It's not the same to see an awful dialogue line in some generic Vin Diesel character that I don't give a fuck about, than to see it in the mouth of a character I've grown to love over the years, like, let's say, Kitty Pryde or Wally West.

Still, if there's people who likes this stuff, then I'm cool about it; I can always re-read the old stuff. But me being cool doesn't necessarily mean that I don't think the X-Men by Chuck Austen are complete, utter shit.

― iodine (iodine), Friday, 19 August 2005 18:34 (twenty years ago)

The X-Axis changes ... FOREVER!

― David R. (popshots75`), Sunday, 21 August 2005 17:57 (twenty years ago)

Fucking summer crossovers.

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Monday, 22 August 2005 04:12 (twenty years ago)

i think that change to the x-axis is a rather good idea and hopefully will play to his strengths.

the "i don't want to read manga" bit bugs me a little: if your interest in comics is primarily in american superheroes, and you admit this, i'm not sure that you're in much of a ground to sound off about "the old, the conservative, and the stale"?

(think how it triangulates with "marvel and dc barking up the wrong tree all these years")

― tom west (thomp), Monday, 22 August 2005 20:44 (twenty years ago)

I mean, I think this is largely my problem (and yeah it's 'my' problem, I recall making noise on the last Paul O'Brien thread) with his criticism: that he is arguing from the base of being A Genre Fan but rarely bothers to use that in any deep way. (I realise that "any deep way" is a fuzzy & all-encompassing get-out clause, but eh, he's a guy with a website -)

― tom west (thomp), Monday, 22 August 2005 20:48 (twenty years ago)

Oh comic blogosphere, thy name is roffle:

"What do all these [blog posts so-and-so linked to] have in common? They are all the fruit of the poison tree of O'Brien's original filler-as-column piece on how bored (yawn!) he is with what he thinks is comics, i.e., those pesky, spandex-clad North American superhero comics. The sub-genre of the defunct boy's adventure genre that continues to exclude an unheard, unseen majority of potential comics readers by virtue of its stranglehold on an entire industry that shuts its eyes, plugs its ears, and yes, wishes it into the cornfield. Jimmy."

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 25 August 2005 16:40 (twenty years ago)

As for the willful ignorance of PO'B when it comes to manga: it's his perogative, and he's upfront about it (to a degree). Not sure what you mean, Tom, by his being A Genre Fan & not using that in "a deep way", even in a vague way.

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 25 August 2005 16:43 (twenty years ago)

something like: he appears to wish to review superhero comics qua art, although really deep down he wants superhero comics qua superhero comics, or possibly vice versa

― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 25 August 2005 19:02 (twenty years ago)

Where do you get the "qua art" bit? I can't recall any sort of affectation or pretention in his writing that suggests he's not firmly aware that he's reviewing a superhero comic. Especially when compared to other online folx infected with Revieweritis (like the dood I quoted a few posts ago).

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 25 August 2005 19:10 (twenty years ago)

I've never, ever, ever gotten the sense that Paul thinks the X-books have deep artistic integrity. I talked comics with him pretty extensively between 1996 and 2000 and he seems to have the same viewpoint as me, namely "Wow these are fun to read (except for when they suck)!"

― The Ghost of Black Elegance (Dan Perry), Thursday, 25 August 2005 21:52 (twenty years ago)

Haha, found this while doing the "random thread" thingie, think it deserves a second outing:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe/msg/dc5466b7361bfeaa?q=g:thl378700492d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Friday, 26 August 2005 18:45 (twenty years ago)

The impression I get is that Paul's main criterion is whether a comic makes any sense at all.

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 26 August 2005 20:27 (twenty years ago)

Then he must be a very unhappy man.

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Friday, 26 August 2005 21:41 (twenty years ago)

D0AN3 go there, Chuck.

― David R. (popshots75`), Friday, 26 August 2005 22:05 (twenty years ago)

It's about time some UK newspaper (The Indy? The Scotsman?) finally put their money where their "Boff! Comics Aren't Just for Chris Ware-fans Anymore!" features are, and hires a regular comics correspondent. P'OB (if he had some of his rougher edges sandpapered) would seem to be an obvious choice.

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Friday, 26 August 2005 22:20 (twenty years ago)

wolk does this for the washington post right? i see comix coverage sorta elsewhere - entertainment weekly routinely reviews them, spin did very regularly once upon a time (found out about ALOT of shit there). i see it in dailies also but usually folded into the lit coverage (to be honest wolk at the post might be folded into books also (?) and i'm only noticing he's there comix correspondant as a result of knowing his name). the times had an article about the manhattan guardian (or the architecture in it specifically)(very much from the 'new york' angle) that surprised me for being about something in an active, non-collected in tpb comic (as in 'wow, someone there actually reads comix')(note: it wasn't geeta).

― j blount (papa la bas), Saturday, 27 August 2005 05:26 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, and up here in Canada we have Jeet Heer, but there's no one really in the UK (where I'm returning next month) who I can think of.

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Saturday, 27 August 2005 15:48 (twenty years ago)

Is the Onion's coverage also in the printed version?

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Saturday, 27 August 2005 21:08 (twenty years ago)

There's a printed version?

(yes, yes)

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Sunday, 28 August 2005 01:38 (twenty years ago)

nine months pass...

Valedictory address: http://www.ninthart.com/display.php?article=1246

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Thursday, 22 June 2006 19:29 (nineteen years ago)

Hahaha good old Paul!

― Jesus Dan (Dan Perry), Thursday, 22 June 2006 20:32 (nineteen years ago)

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