Part OneIn a previous entry (last October), I was mentioning an Einstein Documentary that I wanted to see. Well I rented some movies last week and finally got to see it. It was called Einstein Revealed and it was a DVD of a documentary that aired on the PBS show Nova. It was awesome. They kept using a little computer generated Einstein caricature in these cool animated segments that explain the different points in his Theory of Relativity. The best thing about it was how it was the story of his life, with how he came up with the Theory tied into what was happening.
I also saw Mean Girls and Dirty. Mean Girls was the bomb. Those teen movies always have a moral at the end and I like when stories have a moral at the end. But Dirty was the bomb. It was an Ol' dirty Bastard concert video with a 40-minute documentary in the bonus features. It was great to see the footage of him in the studio recording his last album, but it was also a little sad knowing that he would die in the studio very soon after the footage was shot. But I love Ol' Dirty and it was such a treat to see him work. Now here's an off the cuff poem about the weather.
It's Cold Outside, Where is my hat?
Finally lost my holiday fat
Lock the door, won't go outside
Don't have no sled for me to ride!
The people at the haunted beach
don't see this cold that's in our reach.
The monsters keep the bathers warm.
That is, until the Sunday storm!
Shoutout to my homegirl NyceOne who I haven't seen in ages and ages but is looking GOOD in the pictures from a recent performance I just saw!
Part TwoThe blog entry for January 14 has sparked some debate on the Toronto Comic Jam Message Board. Here was my addition further clarifying my position. Keep in mind it is not meant to disrespect any cartoonists or their work, but to illustrate a point about the attitude of today's comic book audience. Basically, it breaks down like this: we're supposed to believe that we're having this new golden age, but it's been two, three, four years or more and STILL no one gives a shit. OK, some writer at the Nantucket Town Crier got his write up of Jimmy Corrigan published. But so what? I read that issue of the Comics Journal too, homey.
We've been sold for years on the idea that the proliferation of superhero material has been the chief obstacle in the way of real and true artistes being able to make a living creating comic books. According to the rationale held by the seeming majority of those who care, if the mass public didn't equate the medium with superheroes, they would be better prepared to receive more mature and complex works. With all the attention paid to Chris Ware, Craig Thompson, Seth, Joe Matt, Chester Brown, Adrian Tomine, art spiegelman, Dan Clowes, Robert Crumb, and Joe Sacco (that's the complete list, isn't it?) in the straight press in recent years, haven't we had enough time to gauge what would happen if the spotlight were to fall upon these artists' works?
Years have gone by and the thinking still holds that if it weren't for those damn superheroes, this comic book (ahem, 'graphic novel') thing would be huge. As we slowly lose that excuse as the monthly pamphlet comic book market dies a slooooooooooooow death, we have Manga being assigned the role of the Villain in this melodrama, but I am suggesting that a culture has evolved in which the rule of Competitive Consumption has come to dominate the thinking. I don't think that as many people like Jimmy Corrigan as much as they like the geek-chic hipster cache. If every fourteen year old girl in every suburb of America bought a copy tomorrow, and put pictures of Chris Ware on their bedroom walls, would the same writers who praised Jimmy Corrigan the last few years breathe a sigh of relief that at last the Hillary Duff audience has demonstrated some taste, or would those writers suddenly denouce Jimmy Corrigan? My bet is on the latter.
Everyone makes a big deal about that McSweeney's thing a little while ago. I went into my local booksellers fully intending to part with the 30-and-a-bit dollars that it cost. I picked it up, flipped through it, and put it right back on the shelf upon my discovery of the Joe Matt strip. A strip in which a guy has just tossed off for the tenth time that day into a T-shirt given to him ages ago by the same ex-girlfriend he's been whining about having blown it with in his comics for so many years that I've lost count is still just that, no matter how you want to commend the drawing, the pacing, or whatever Chris Ware thought Joe's appeal was when deciding to include him. I put the book down because anyone who would hold that up as an example of the best we have to offer is someone who has nothing to offer me intellectually or spiritually.
It's been a glorious few years as far as mainstream acceptance of comic books goes, but they still haven't been able to crack into the kind of audience we all seem to 'just know' is there. We've blamed the superheroes and we're blaming Manga now, but perhaps it's time to address the fact that the unshaven, semen-encrusted, despressed, cynical, unwashed, complaining, woe-is-me face is not the best one to show if one is to woo the damsel that is real success.
All I'm asking is this: I love comic books too, but where are the comic books for happy, snappy, stylish, life-of-the-party people? (Those who are also asking this question are encouraged to visit
theseanwardshow.com/comics )
