Dumas, I seem to have misunderstood the nature of your repeated queries.

It appeared to me that you felt genuine anguish because you mostly prefer super-heroes, and you felt there was a crowd of indie snobs looking down their noses at you. What I've tried to say, in response, is that it's OK to read what you want; and that most indie readers still pick up a few super-hero titles, too.

My concern for your feelings was, and is, sincere.

...

Not From Around Here, Harvey Pekar (and the genre of autobiographical, ranting comics in general) is not for everyone. I happen to like Pekar. Others, legitimately, do not.

And even I will admit that Pekar might be trying a little too hard, now that is he an established comics star, similar to our references above to Jack Kirby and Will Eisner in their later years. He has published a couple of hardcover books in just the last few months, including one that tells the story of an entirely different angry white guy, who is, if anything, less likeable than Pekar. I liked his old AMERICAN SPLENDOR stuff better, back when he was chatting about the roots of jazz music with the janitors at the V.A. hospital in Cleveland.

I can certainly see using "Maus" as a text. It would be great for a 20th-century history or Holocaust studies course.

It's cool. I get that a lot, and I knew you meant well.

At the risk of turning this thread into a flame-a-thon, I'll make some observations:

Dumas said:

"That's where my frustration starts coming in. Most of the time, indie fans can't be bothered to explain this stuff in a way that somebody who would rather just read old issues of Marvel Team-Up could understand.

Instead, the more typical pattern is to be sarcastic and condescending and accuse people of being too stupid to appreciate Luba, or whatever is being discussed. Maybe a rant about how Marvel Team-Up helped ruin the medium would get thrown in for good measure."

In response to this, Shoegaze 99 said:

"Of course not … because you would rather just read old issues of Marvel Team-Up.

And that’s fine – those are wonderfully fun comics – but when you say outright, “This is what I’d rather do and I can’t understand why I should care to do anything else,” it’s pretty clear that you’re not particularly interested in any part of the artform beyond “Entertain me.”

And that’s fine, too. No one has to have a desire to see what unique ways the medium can be used to tell stories, or how certain types of story are told differently in this artform compared to others, or how stripping away the pure entertainment layers of comicdom reveals previously unforeseen possibilities. If it’s not important or interesting to you, it’s not important or interesting to you. But when people attempt to say, “These things are worthwhile,” you don’t even want to go down that road because, as you’ve already made clear, you don’t care.

Which makes the constant “no one has managed to convince me why I should care!” baffling since you so clearly don’t want to be convinced. You come right out of the gate wearing a big sign that says, “I don’t care.”

Which is, truly and genuinely, fine. Just stop pretending otherwise."

Shoegaze, while I respect your basic attitude of tolerance toward anyone who just basically wants escapist entertainment, I think your reply to Dumas is something of a case of shooting the messenger.

Whether Dumas has sufficiently allowed himself to sample widely from all available types of comics, is something I do not know. Your reading of him as someone who ultimately does not really care to explore non-escapist fare may be the correct one, though I presume you've no more personal acquaintance with him than I have.

However, the thrust of the post quoted above is also about the "testosterone" shown by indie critics when they savage something they don't like as a means of hyping something they do like.

Harvey Pekar is a case in point. In some past issue of the JOURNAL, he wrote a long essay that basically championed the innovations of underground comics over the escapist fare of the mainstream. I'm going on memory here, admittedly, but the basic message was "indies= good, mainstream= bad."

Pekar has every right to believe that the level of quality in these respective areas is just that polarized. But as far as how many people his essay would persuade, I suspect that even if his essay had appeared in a mainstream mag like WIZARD, he would have convinced no comics-fans to widen their horizons. The essay was just a lot of preaching to the indy choir.

It's like the old folktale of the wind and the sun trying to persuade some guy on the road to remove his coat. The wind tries to force the coat off, which just makes the man keep it on tighter: the sun gives the guy a reason to want to take it off.

That may well be the case, though I’ll be honest when I say my response wasn’t simply based on this one thread or recent threads, but the overall tone I associate with Dumas in discussions of this type. Certainly you know better than anyone that this branch of discussion has been had before; it’s based on my reading of many of those past discussions.

Honestly, I get why some people are really rankled by the more aggressive indie types. I find them obnoxious, and I like indie comics.

But then, I also find raging fanboys obnoxious, too, and I like escapist comics!
Your presumption is correct. All I know of him is what has been posted on Comicon. I can only go based on what he has posted; clearly I have gotten a certain impression from that.
I don’t disagree that explaining why something impresses/interests you is more appealing than categorically slamming things in broad, sweeping terms.

Almost invariably, slamming one thing to make another seem better is an absurd way of touting the things you like, speaking more to the insecurity of the touter than the quality of the toutee. I’d be hard pressed to argue against the notion that such a style is, and almost always will be, crap – no matter which side it comes from. (And it truly comes from both sides. Who does it “more” I do not know, nor do I really care. It rubs me the wrong way from both.)

I do think it is legitimate to contrast your own preferences to those of others. When it comes to discussing the qualities of indie comics, for instance, in my opinion it is appropriate to contrast them with the mainstream – which is, inarguably, the superhero genre. Show why the strengths of some indie comics are different than superhero comics, and make an argument why those strengths are more worthy of respect. That doesn’t mean, however, slamming superhero comics. It merely means comparing what each offers, how they are different and why, in someone’s opinion, one is a product more worthwhile of artistic respect.

The idea isn’t to “win,” it is to share your passion for something others may not have previously seen. This is something lost on many who are, presumably, bitter that “their” comics aren’t more popular.

So what I’m saying is, I don’t disagree with the idea that shouting loudly “X is crap and Y is gold!” is nonsense. Because it is. I’m simply questioning the specific idea that Dumas really wants to “understand” when that’s not at all the impression I get.

Could we please not make this thread be more about me than the topic at hand?

If you've read the last two posts and think they totally revolve around discussing you rather than you simply being a part of them ...

Well, let me put it a different way. Instead of speculating about what I read, how about talking about what you like to read?

But what we like to read isn't the topic at hand.

Dude... If you're going to be difficult, please take it to Gene's thread.