That’s the question that Eddie Campbell asks after reading this Chicago Tribune story, which takes the “gosh, ain’t comics come a long way” approach in its profile of Wolk and his new book “Reading Comics.” To quote Campbell:
Douglas Wolk is a nice enough bloke, but my feeling right now is that his book “Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean” (Da Capo, 2007), which I haven’t read, is probably doing more damage than good. I’m tired of having it all lumped together as though we are all doing the same thing. As my pal Evans once quipped; “Did Ingmar Bergman have to justify Star Wars every time he sat down for an interview?”
You should also go and read his daughter Hayley’s comments just for fun. Anyway, that post inspires Tom Spurgeon to comment:
That’s funny, and I feel for Campbell in that his best work is so frequently processed through this prism of it either not being a tale of crying Superman or teeth-clenching Batman, or being a more enlightened version of the same thing. I suspect we’re a far way away from the day when comics are routinely engaged without the detritus of the medium’s specific historical and cultural history gumming up the works in all sorts of strange, pathological ways. On the other hand, my gut says a lot of film critics writing about film over the last half century will feel similarly compelled to write about both Elisabet Vogler and Obi-Wan, or maybe just Obi-Wan.
Writer Ben Schwartz pipes in:
Btw, People think of STAR WARS and JAWS as having a terrible influence on the modern movie world. I say, spend a week at any modern indie film festival and see if you don’t want to come away wanting to hang John Cassavettes in effigy for all the hacks he inspired.
My take? Whenever you do a story like the Tribune’s you have to write for a general audience, which can lead to some lumping together or just general confusion. That’s not necessarily Wolk’s fault.
August 24th, 2007 at 10:40 am
Mr. Campbell says he didn’t read the book, but found it necessary to criticize it anyway only after reading the article in the Tribute?? Was there something in the article that influenced him in not wanting to read the book?
August 24th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Eddie Campbell is a brilliant creator, but him saying stuff like that is why I finally had to give up on reading his blog to preserve my good opinion of him.
August 24th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
“My take? Whenever you do a story like the Tribune’s you have to write for a general audience, which can lead to some lumping together or just general confusion. That’s not necessarily Wolk’s fault.”
Yeah, no shit. Movies, comics, and prose fiction–all have been mostly crap over their history. Comics are just so historically marginal, though. There’s been a much lower percentage of people trying to make non-crap, and a much shorter history of critics championing this stuff (about 30 years in America, give or take). Of course “mainstream” stories will be a little condescending.
I mean, if the day finally comes when big newspapers (or their 2024 equivalent) are writing stories about video games which aspire to literature or art, you know there will be a lot of Pac-Man and Mario references to navigate.