>>and then saying you haven't even read David Boring! FYI, David Boring has plenty of characters to
identify with, and it has a wonderful story too. <<

For you, maybe. But I haven't been 20 in more than a quarter-century.

Best, Pat

>>
>>Clear storytelling with traditional attention to things like plot, character, and dialogue. Protagonists
the reader can identify with (this does not mean infallible heroes, either--Sam Spade is a protagonist
the reader can identify with and he has enough faults to fill a room), but who have clear motivations
and principles. Art that is readable and appealing to the eye. (That doesn't mean "pretty," either.
Chester Gould's work was readable and appealing but hardly pretty.) Stories that fit the medium.
(Sorry, but "talking heads" is out of place in a visual medium. As someone once said of another
artform, "If everything you're doing could be done just as well--and probably with less work--in
live-action, why are you making a cartoon?")<<

Sounds reasonable enough. So could you recommend any comics out there right now that have all
these elements? Or, if there aren't any today, some exemplary comics from the past?<<

Most of the Julie-Schwartz edited DC comics of the Silver Age. Russ Manning's Magnus. Hal Foster's Prince Valiant on the strip side, along with both Caniff's and Wunder's Terry and the Pirates. Sugar and Spike. Spider-Man up until Stan Lee stopped writing it. Challengers of the Unknown for the first 25 issues or so.

Best, Pat

"Most of the Julie-Schwartz edited DC comics of the Silver Age. Russ Manning's Magnus. Hal Foster's Prince Valiant on the strip side, along with both Caniff's and Wunder's Terry and the Pirates. Sugar and Spike. Spider-Man up until Stan Lee stopped writing it. Challengers of the Unknown for the first 25 issues or so."

Is there any comic that you consider a superlative work that compares favorably to works in other media? Or, do you think the above is the best that comics can do?

Speaking literally, Feiffer's strips (except for the ones with the dancer) are almost exclusively of talking heads, and the way I understand the term "talking heads" is literally. Are you using it differently?

"Two: As "intellectual" as I find these things (and be aware I use that as something of a put-down, as I really consider them "pseudo-intellectual" at best), they are likely simplistic and naive to the audience you think would like them."

Issue 1: What do you consider a true intellectual comic, then? Everything I've seen you mention to your liking has the characteristic that it can be easily understood by a 9th or 10th grader. Note that this isn't a putdown of those works (despite what you might think of us pseudo-intellectuals), but I do wonder if anything that isn't so readily accessible is considered worthy of being read by you. For example, the 2 most difficult reads I've ever encountered (and I'd wager that anyone else might encounter) are Aristotle and Kant, thus it seems your position would be that they're both "pseudo-intellectuals." Both require previous knowledge in order to approach their works, neither wrote (well, Aristotle's work is a collection of classnotes, to be fair) in order to avail themselves to the masses, and both were fairly dismissive of mass opinion.

Issue 2: The point is that such audiences might like such comics if exposed to them. Why? Because, Eightball and ACME are, in fact, not simplistic, but Lee's superhero works and old action/adventure strips are.
That is, this audience might discover that comics aren't limited to the types that you favor.

[This message has been edited by Charles Reece (edited 05-06-2000).]

(Chris and Charles logged in while I was typing this. The first two paragraphs refer to Pat's list of "exemplary" comics in his most recent post.)


Anything that aims for anything more than formulaic genre trappings played out ad infinitum?

And could you please explain exactly how you identify/sympathize with the protagnonists of these comics? Do you yearn to slay beasts and save damsels in distress from evil kings? Or do you more closely align yourself with those who share a penchant for protecting the galaxy from grotesque monsters arriving in spaceships with deadly ray guns to enslave the freedom-loving Terrans?

Ok, enough jokes. We're finally getting somewhere here. You have offered up your personal opinion that the "art comics" we've held up as "good" are nothing more than pseudo-intellectual piffle that pulls the wool over the eyes of readers insecure about their own intelligence level and seek props to wield to look the part of the "intellectual". Fine. Now, can you see that this is "merely" your take on these books (which you've admitted to either not having read or only flipped through briefly), no matter how "true" it seems to you?

In a related area, is there anything in the realm of "art comics" that you don't think is the emperor's new clothes? You alluded earlier to a respect for Love and Rockets. Clearly the Hernandez brothers are aiming to do comics that are more "mature" and "serious" than Julius Schwartz kids' comics. Or is this not as clear to you as it is to me/us? Do you allow that there are some people who aren't "pretentious" may legitimately claim to attempt comics more intellectually (and don't go sneering at my use of the word here, we should be past that by now) ambitious than old-fashioned bam pow shoot'em ups?

You like Feiffer, right? Here's a personal favourite of yours that is not popular in the real sense of the word (as opposed to the "one of Fantagraphics most popular artists" sense). He's an intellectual, a thinker. He does comics that are not drawn in a style that in any way resembles any of the things Americans call "comics." You might say he's a "thinking person's cartoonist," right? This is what appeals to you in his work. His work is best-known for appearing in a newspaper specifically created and designed to appeal to "intellectuals" (as opposed to USA Today, or local advertising circulars with articles). Not popular. Most people don't who who or what he is and wouldn't like it if they did. He was a major influence on the art comics that came in his wake. I haven't read his book about superheroes, but I can't imagine him thinking that they're as intellectually satisfying as stuff done in a vein closer to that which he works in and has influenced. And needless to say, the Hernandez brothers are on record as being intellectual snobs as well.

Why won't you just admit that some people want comics to be "more" than what the general public thinks comics can be and that they're not phonies?

[This message has been edited by Jamie Salomon (edited 05-06-2000).]

Not to belabor a relatively meaningless point, but I couldn't help but find this tidbit amusing.

Kim Thompson wrote:

While I certainly wasn't looking for it, I did stumble across an alternate spelling (or misspelling?) of the word in a source that Kim is no doubt familiar with...DAVID BORING. Case in point: On page 78, panel 4, David's girlfriend is reading a book titled DISTOPIA: Millenial Journal of Popular Culture and Folklore.

Now back to the long and winding thread (already in progress)--

Jeez Kim, I know you guys give much latitude in the area of "editorial control," but this is really too much! I've passed Robert's discovery on to Chip Kidd of Pantheon. He assured me that this gross negliegnce will be corrected in their edition of David Boring and that Clowes has received a strongly-worded warning about his free-wheeling mangling of the English language in any future dealings he has with publishers outside the insular comics community.

Really unnecessary, Jamie. It was just an interesting factoid. And this thread was AFTERALL initially about David Boring, was it not?

Rob, I was just trying to inject a little levity into what's been what's been a rather dour, terse thread. I wasn't making fun of you. Shoulda used a smiley, I guess.