The Comics Journal (was "Real" Fans)

[Jason Fliegel]

In article <8592291...@dejanews.com>, <sea...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>Neither do I. I read The Comics Journal. I guess that makes me a Satanist
>or something. They've got such great interviews, though.
>

Ugh. I had some time to kill in a Border's Bookstore today, and there was
a copy of The Comics Journal on the magazine rack. I decided to pull up a
chair and see if the magazine was any good. It was the worst thing I had
ever read. I'm going to rant about it for a while (with all due apologies
to Dennis Miller and Dave VanDomelon [whose name I'm sure I just
butchered]), so feel free to ignore it.

Note crossposting and follow-ups.

It started with a column by Bill "Zippy" Griffith about how horrible comic
strips are today and how America is going to Hell in a handbasket for
liking Dilbert. How the only good comics out there are the ones that
appear in alternative papers like "Red Meat" or "Life in Hell," though he
reluctantly acknowledges that "Doonesbury" is sometimes good. Did I
mention that he thinks Dilbert is the Antichrist?

Now, everyone's entitled to an opinion (mine is that Dilbert makes me
laugh nine times out of ten, while I've never even smiled at a "Zippy the
Pinhead." I guess I must be some sort of a heathen). And I'll be the
first to admit that I haven't found Garfield funny in a good ten or twelve
years. But this column had way more venom than the topic merited.

Next we get to the letters column. Some fan takes Gary Groth to task for
not slamming Barry Windsow Smith hard enough for doing too much "genre"
work (I assume we should read "genre" as "mainstream") in his BWS
Storyteller. Then he talks about how Smith's contemporary, P. Craig
Russel is SO much cooler. Groth's defense appears to be that he's willing
to cut Smith some slack because Smith's got enough indy cred. Maybe I'm
reading too much into it, but Groth seems to be saying "I'd be right there
with you if it were John Byrne's Storyteller, but I like Barry, so I
went easy on him."

Then we get to the "Newsbriefs" section (or whatever they call it), where,
amid all the multicolumn newsbriefs, we get a one sentence description of
the happenings in Superman's books: "We hear Superman's got new powers
and a new costume" or something equally condescending. Geez, guys -- is
that what you hear? You're a newsmagazine. If you're going to cover the
new costume, write something up on it that tells people who, what, where,
when, why, and how. If you don't want to cover the new Superman costume
(and nobody says you have to -- I understand you're not really into the
cape and cowl set, Gary), then spare us the condescending Newsbriefs.

The breaking point for me, though, was the interview with Seth, of
"Palookaville" fame. Groth (or whoever did the layout for the article)
had put a big drop quote in one of the margins. "If I ever read any Kirby
work when I was a little kid, I don't remember it," said the quote (I'm
working from memory here, so this is a paraphrase, but I think it's
basically accurate). Intrigued, I scanned the article for the quote.
What I discovered was that one of the first comic books Seth remembers
reading was a reprint of the early Kirby X-Men books, published in the
early '70s, when Seth was about 10 years old. While he was around when
those stories were originally published in the early '60's, he tells
Groth, if he read them back then, he doesn't remember them. THAT'S what
the drop quote is saying, but by taking it out of context, Groth makes it
sound as if Seth is saying "Pfeh! To Hell with Jack Kirby!"

What was even more jarring was Groth's response to Seth's reminiscence
about the Kirby reprints. Again, I'm working from memory hear, but Groth
basically says "Yes, reprinting Kirby's work was one of the only good
things Marvel did in the 1970's. Marvel in the 1970's was, by and large,
crap, but fortunately, I, Gary Groth, saw through all that crap at the
time." Excuse me? I'm no Gary Groth scholar, but I was under the
impression that in the '70's and early '80's, Groth was a slavering Marvel
Zombie and DC Fanboy, and that it's only in the last 10-15 years that he's
become Mr. Alternative. I guess he was really some sort of undercover
agent, infiltrating the mainstream comics scene so he could later destroy
it.

My bottom line is this: Gary Groth is allowed to have whatever opinion he
wants about mainstream comics, and he can enjoy HATE or ACME NOVELTY
LIBRARY as much as he wants. And I know this has been hashed out
before on rac.* (I seem to remember one thread entitled "Gary Groth is
an asshole.") But I've never before felt so insulted by a magazine, and
I've never before had someone try to make me feel dirty for buying a copy
of "The Batman & Robin Adventures." I felt like venting my spleen.
Thanks for reading this (those of you who did), and special thanks to Dave
VanD. for forgiving me for mangling his name (you do forgive me, don't
you, Dave?).

Does anyone care to defend Gary and TCJ? Does anyone care to join me in
telling Gary "Same to you, pal!"? Does anyone care?

--
Jason Fliegel
j-fl...@uchicago.edu
1L, University of Chicago Law School

[WinningerR]

>>.Then we get to the "Newsbriefs" section (or whatever they call it),

where,
amid all the multicolumn newsbriefs, we get a one sentence description of
the happenings in Superman's books: "We hear Superman's got new powers
and a new costume" or something equally condescending. Geez, guys -- is
that what you hear? You're a newsmagazine.<<<

Actually, I think Superman's new costume deserves a condescending
dismissal. Anybody who's read more than three comics knows that somehow,
in the end, we'll see Superman's old powers and costume back again. The
whole thing is a gimmicky, over-hyped, non-event "event" -- just the sort
of thing that's responsible for the woes currently plaguing mainstream
comics.

[Tom Vincent]

In article <E7Mut...@midway.uchicago.edu>, jbfl...@midway.uchicago.edu
(Jason Fliegel) wrote:

>In article <8592291...@dejanews.com>, <sea...@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>>Neither do I. I read The Comics Journal. I guess that makes me a Satanist
>>or something. They've got such great interviews, though.
>>

I agree withthis wholeheartedly. If there is a comics industry equivilant
to "the Playboy Interview", its gotta be the Journal's interviews. On those
rare occasions I read the Journal, I always enjoy the interviews, even when
they're with people whose work I don't particularly care for.

>
>Ugh. I had some time to kill in a Border's Bookstore today, and there was
>a copy of The Comics Journal on the magazine rack. I decided to pull up a
>chair and see if the magazine was any good. It was the worst thing I had
>ever read. I'm going to rant about it for a while (with all due apologies
>to Dennis Miller and Dave VanDomelon [whose name I'm sure I just
>butchered]), so feel free to ignore it.

<big snip>

>
>My bottom line is this: Gary Groth is allowed to have whatever opinion he
>wants about mainstream comics, and he can enjoy HATE or ACME NOVELTY
>LIBRARY as much as he wants. And I know this has been hashed out
>before on rac.* (I seem to remember one thread entitled "Gary Groth is
>an asshole.") But I've never before felt so insulted by a magazine, and
>I've never before had someone try to make me feel dirty for buying a copy
>of "The Batman & Robin Adventures." I felt like venting my spleen.
>Thanks for reading this (those of you who did), and special thanks to Dave
>VanD. for forgiving me for mangling his name (you do forgive me, don't
>you, Dave?).
>
>Does anyone care to defend Gary and TCJ? Does anyone care to join me in
>telling Gary "Same to you, pal!"? Does anyone care?

I don't know Gary, so I'm not prepared to say one way or the other- that is
if he's the saving grace of comicdom or the AntiComic set to destroy the
four color universe.

I will say this- I do NOT like the attitude which has prevailed at the
Journal editorially for well over a decade, that is, comics suck, american
comics suck more, and Marvel comics suck no matter what-even if
archeologists discovered a previously unknown manuscript by Shakespear
which had been illustrated by Gustav Dore at some later date and Marvel
then published it, it would still suck because it had a Marvel logo on the
cover.

This type of press doesn't help our industry at all. This is not to say
there should not be critical evaluations in the comic industry- there
should. It's the condescending attitude I think is harmful (and personally
annoying)

When I get a call from a local newspaper wanting to interview me because I
work in comics and I'm a local guy, I set certain "ground rules" before I
agree to the interview:
I will not participate in any article which will portray the
industry in a negative
light ,
I will not participate in an article which will carry a "Bang-Pow
It's Comics" type of headline
I will not do telephone interviews- if I can 'read' through the
interviewer' s body language that he/she is going toward an exploitave
bent, the interview is over.

I know several other creatives in comics who do similar things, largely
because in the past we've unwittingly helped in casting aspersions on the
business that feeds us. It's like a form of self defense- we want to expose
comics to more people, but we don't think it will help if we reenforce
existing stereotypes.

To take these steps and precautions, and then for a high profile magazine
like the Journal have such a negative attitude towards comics as a whole
pretty much undermines everything others (myself included) have spent years
trying to accomplish: inviting people to take this form of media seriously
for not only its entertainment value, but creative and artistic value as
well.

---Tom Vincent

--
"I should tell you, that I have worked in Washington for over 25 years and
have never been shaken down by anyone before like Dan Burton's threats. No
one has ever dared to threaten me into contributing money, and no one has
ever followed through on such threats by contacting one of my clients."

Mark Siegel, formerly a lobbyist for the government of Pakistan on Rep. Dan
Burtons attempts to coerce him into raising money for Burton's reelection.
[Washington Post, 3/19/97] Republican Burton is currently leading the
charge against aleged fudraising "shakedowns" by the White House.

[Lance Visser]

In <19970326055...@ladder01.news.aol.com> winni...@aol.com (WinningerR) writes:

+>>>.Then we get to the "Newsbriefs" section (or whatever they call it),
+>where,
+>amid all the multicolumn newsbriefs, we get a one sentence description of
+>the happenings in Superman's books: "We hear Superman's got new powers
+>and a new costume" or something equally condescending. Geez, guys -- is
+>that what you hear? You're a newsmagazine.<<<

+>Actually, I think Superman's new costume deserves a condescending
+>dismissal. Anybody who's read more than three comics knows that somehow,
+>in the end, we'll see Superman's old powers and costume back again. The
+>whole thing is a gimmicky, over-hyped, non-event "event" -- just the sort
+>of thing that's responsible for the woes currently plaguing mainstream
+>comics.

The journal is supposed to have higher standards. The question becomes
why does the journal care at all about whats going on with superman. And
why doesn't the journal free up more space for covering what the journal
considers "quality" material.
The journal has always been caught between being a whiny forum
for ex-fanboy Gary Groth for the attack of superhero comics and being
an upscale review magazine for serious comic work. It would be best if
the journal would just stop paying attention to marvel/dc/image and
those type of companies.

[The comics journal]

Hi, Jason:

I enjoyed reading your vivisection of the magazine. I'm bored enough, as
we just sent off the David Mazzucchelli/Bryan Talbot issue and we're not
quite up to speed on the new one, to mount the sort of bombastic defense
for which we're known. But as you're certainly entitled to your own
opinion, I hope you don't mind if I reply to the points where I think you
may have read something differently -- or read into something differently
-- than what we intended.

In article <E7Mut...@midway.uchicago.edu>, jbfl...@midway.uchicago.edu
(Jason Fliegel) wrote:

> It started with a column by Bill "Zippy" Griffith about how horrible comic
> strips are today and how America is going to Hell in a handbasket for
> liking Dilbert. How the only good comics out there are the ones that
> appear in alternative papers like "Red Meat" or "Life in Hell," though he
> reluctantly acknowledges that "Doonesbury" is sometimes good. Did I
> mention that he thinks Dilbert is the Antichrist?
>
> Now, everyone's entitled to an opinion (mine is that Dilbert makes me
> laugh nine times out of ten, while I've never even smiled at a "Zippy the
> Pinhead." I guess I must be some sort of a heathen). And I'll be the
> first to admit that I haven't found Garfield funny in a good ten or twelve
> years. But this column had way more venom than the topic merited.

Your opinion; fair enough. Although I think that Griffith was saying that
as funny as Dilbert is, it really doesn't have the traditional strengths
of a comic strip, and as such, it's endemic of the problems with the funny
pages as a whole. I don't laugh at Zippy, either.

> Next we get to the letters column. Some fan takes Gary Groth to task for
> not slamming Barry Windsow Smith hard enough for doing too much "genre"
> work (I assume we should read "genre" as "mainstream") in his BWS
> Storyteller. Then he talks about how Smith's contemporary, P. Craig
> Russel is SO much cooler. Groth's defense appears to be that he's willing
> to cut Smith some slack because Smith's got enough indy cred. Maybe I'm
> reading too much into it, but Groth seems to be saying "I'd be right there
> with you if it were John Byrne's Storyteller, but I like Barry, so I
> went easy on him."

I think you're misreading Groth's defense in that they're aimed at the
letterwriter instead of coming out of whole cloth. Gary's saying that if
the letterwriter wishes to extol the virtues of P. Craig Russell based on
work like Salome, then the letterwriter shold extend the benefit of the
doubt to Barry Windsor-Smith based on his Studio period.

I don't know how Gary would view a John Byrne's Storyteller, but I'd sure
look at a first issue, as well as a first issue of a Gil Kane Storyteller,
a Mike Kaluta Storyteller, a Berni Wrightson Storyteller, etc.

> Then we get to the "Newsbriefs" section (or whatever they call it), where,
> amid all the multicolumn newsbriefs, we get a one sentence description of
> the happenings in Superman's books: "We hear Superman's got new powers
> and a new costume" or something equally condescending. Geez, guys -- is
> that what you hear? You're a newsmagazine. If you're going to cover the
> new costume, write something up on it that tells people who, what, where,
> when, why, and how. If you don't want to cover the new Superman costume
> (and nobody says you have to -- I understand you're not really into the
> cape and cowl set, Gary), then spare us the condescending Newsbriefs.

That was mine, along with news editor Greg Stump. The report Л
"Apparently, Superman has received a new costume and powers." Л was a
joke, a commentary on the barrage of hype that we received on what clearly
is a publicity stunt by the company. It wasn't meant to be condescending
to fans, and we actually feel that the nature of the stunt is what is
really condescending.

> The breaking point for me, though, was the interview with Seth, of
> "Palookaville" fame. Groth (or whoever did the layout for the article)
> had put a big drop quote in one of the margins. "If I ever read any Kirby
> work when I was a little kid, I don't remember it," said the quote (I'm
> working from memory here, so this is a paraphrase, but I think it's
> basically accurate). Intrigued, I scanned the article for the quote.
> What I discovered was that one of the first comic books Seth remembers
> reading was a reprint of the early Kirby X-Men books, published in the
> early '70s, when Seth was about 10 years old. While he was around when
> those stories were originally published in the early '60's, he tells
> Groth, if he read them back then, he doesn't remember them. THAT'S what
> the drop quote is saying, but by taking it out of context, Groth makes it
> sound as if Seth is saying "Pfeh! To Hell with Jack Kirby!"

That pull quote was chosen by our art director, Pat Moriarity, and wasn't
intended to mislead. It certainly wasn't the best choice, and I would
probably have Pat choose another one if I could do it again. I don't think
it's necessarily misleading in Seth's case, as one of the points he makes
about his career is that his earliest influences were strips like Peanuts
before later moving into a Kirby period.

We certainly don't mean any disrepect to Jack Kirby, whose work the
editorial staff adores, and I'm not sure the fact that a clear-line artist
like Seth didn't read any at an early age could indicate disrespect (it
would be much more startling if, say, Steve Rude said the same thing). As
far as I know, Seth is extremely happy with all phases of his interview,
and doesn't feel like he was misrepresented at any point.

The object of the pull quotes is to get someone to read into the interview
to see the context of what was being said.

> What was even more jarring was Groth's response to Seth's reminiscence
> about the Kirby reprints. Again, I'm working from memory hear, but Groth
> basically says "Yes, reprinting Kirby's work was one of the only good
> things Marvel did in the 1970's. Marvel in the 1970's was, by and large,
> crap, but fortunately, I, Gary Groth, saw through all that crap at the
> time." Excuse me? I'm no Gary Groth scholar, but I was under the
> impression that in the '70's and early '80's, Groth was a slavering Marvel
> Zombie and DC Fanboy, and that it's only in the last 10-15 years that he's
> become Mr. Alternative. I guess he was really some sort of undercover
> agent, infiltrating the mainstream comics scene so he could later destroy
> it.

No, Gary was a fanboy in the very early '70s. I know this because I
constantly kid him about it. He actually worked for Jim Steranko, and I
believe he was offered a job at Marvel assisting Roy Thomas. But he had
developed his basic attitude towards that material certainly by the time
he started working on the magazine in 1976, although age has certainly
hardened those opinions, as it hardens the opinions of a lot of people.
The Journal was notorious from the start for just such an antagonistic
attitude towards a lot of that type of material.

I don't think it's such an alarming stance to say that the best material
Marvel published in the '70s were reprints of Kirby's earlier stuff.
Kirby's earlier stuff was the best thing Marvel ever published (IMO, and
I'll defend it), and I think a reasonable person could look at the '70s
output from the company and not think well of it.

And jeez, Gary's done a really crappy job of destroying mainstream comics.

> My bottom line is this: Gary Groth is allowed to have whatever opinion he
> wants about mainstream comics, and he can enjoy HATE or ACME NOVELTY
> LIBRARY as much as he wants. And I know this has been hashed out
> before on rac.* (I seem to remember one thread entitled "Gary Groth is
> an asshole.") But I've never before felt so insulted by a magazine, and
> I've never before had someone try to make me feel dirty for buying a copy
> of "The Batman & Robin Adventures." I felt like venting my spleen.
> Thanks for reading this (those of you who did), and special thanks to Dave
> VanD. for forgiving me for mangling his name (you do forgive me, don't
> you, Dave?).

Hey, we like Batman and Robin Adventures. Just the other day we were
bemoaning the fact that beyond Staton and Templeton, there seemed to be
very few artists who really excelled at that style. And we _really_ liked
Mike Parobeck's work, to the point I commissioned a tribute to his work
that we ran alongside his obituary so that our fans completely unfamiliar
with work of that type would know how good he was. The last thing any of
us want is to make you feel dirty for reading Batman and Robin Adventures,
and I'm puzzled as to how you got there.

Jason, I'm afraid if the most insulted you've ever been by a magazine is
in disagreeing with the extent of a guest editorial, reading veiled
insults towards John Byrne and Jack Kirby, not getting the Superman news
you expected, and thinking that an interviewer was being self-serving in
something you didn't even buy, then I would have to guess you read the mag
with a bit of a chip on your shoulder.

I appreciate you giving the magazine a chance, though, and wish we could
keep you as a reader Лаyou sound almost as angry as one of our writers!

Tom Spurgeon
Managing Editor
The Comics Journal

P.S. Л That turned out a little more complete than I would have guessed.

[The comics journal]

In article <5hbhj6$b...@mikey.convex.com>, vis...@convex.com (Lance Visser)

> The journal is supposed to have higher standards. The question
becomes
> why does the journal care at all about whats going on with superman. And
> why doesn't the journal free up more space for covering what the journal
> considers "quality" material.

It was one line, Lance.

> The journal has always been caught between being a whiny forum
> for ex-fanboy Gary Groth for the attack of superhero comics and being
> an upscale review magazine for serious comic work. It would be best if
> the journal would just stop paying attention to marvel/dc/image and
> those type of companies.

Eh. I don't think that would serve our readership as well as just
approaching the medium arts-first regardless of what genres that gets us
into. I mean, I'd rather read The Essential Spider-Man than most comics
that came out that month. As far as the news goes, the maneuverings of the
various giants have a drastic impact industry-wide, and as far as the
interviews go, most of the great, interesting older artists worked in
superhero comics as did/do many of the young, interesting artists.

Tom Spurgeon
The Comics Journal

[David W. Stepp]

In article <5hbhj6$b...@mikey.convex.com>, vis...@convex.com (Lance Visser)

wrote:

> The journal is supposed to have higher standards. The question
becomes
> why does the journal care at all about whats going on with superman. And
> why doesn't the journal free up more space for covering what the journal
> considers "quality" material.

> The journal has always been caught between being a whiny forum
> for ex-fanboy Gary Groth for the attack of superhero comics and being
> an upscale review magazine for serious comic work. It would be best if
> the journal would just stop paying attention to marvel/dc/image and
> those type of companies.

A more likely truth is that without some level of support from
mainstream comics fans, TCJ wouldn't survive. The number of hardcore indy
fans probably aren't enough to support the publication. On the other hand,
Groth is likely just being contrary in an attempt to boost sales and carve
out a nitch for himself as a critic of hoi-poloi comics. How he chooses to
express it may offend die-hard super-hero fans, but then again, maybe he
intends to.

D.

[The comics journal]

Hi, Tom:

In article <tommy-ya02358000...@news.global2000.net>,
to...@global2000.net (Tom Vincent) wrote:

> To take these steps and precautions, and then for a high profile magazine
> like the Journal have such a negative attitude towards comics as a whole
> pretty much undermines everything others (myself included) have spent years
> trying to accomplish: inviting people to take this form of media seriously
> for not only its entertainment value, but creative and artistic value as
> well.

Tom, we love comics. The willingness to say something _isn't_ good has to
come with the willingness to say something is good, or the opinion is
devalued. I mean, don't you pay more attention to a Gene Siskel than you
do those people who like _every_ movie?

I think our writers love comics, too, and if last summer's essays in the
State of the Industry/State of the Art Form issue are any indication, then
our writers think that more good comics are being done right now than at
any moment in our history.

I have the latest issue in front of me: there are eight reviews, and the
overwhelming majority of them are positive:

Megan Kelso's body of work: positive.
Sanctuary, Vol. 6: positive.
It's Dark in London: negative.
Life of the Party: positive.
Giant THB Parade: positive.
Marilyn: The Story of a Woman: positive.
Industrial Gothic: positive.
Tangents: negative.

This is in addition to a Hit List section ‹ with short reviews longer than
just about anyone's long reviews ‹ that recommends Nowhere, Out There #5,
2-Way Cartoon Machine, Double Cross, the Manya books, Art and Beauty #1,
and The Sleazy Cartoons of Bill Plympton. Those by their very nature are
positive.

There's even a positive mention of Peter David's "The Gehenna Stone
Affair," in The Essential Wolverine, for pity's sake.

We're certainly positive about a whole lot of books, even Marvel books ‹ I
have nice things to say about The Essential Spider-Man in this issue
‹ when we like them. It's true that our writers sometimes disagree with
the tastes of a lot of fans, but they do so because that's what they
sincerely believe, not because they're hostile or negative towards comics
in general.

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

P.S. ‹ There was a Gustav Dore book being done at Marvel; I heard he was
kicked off and the book was outsourced to one of the Image guysŠ

[David Tallan]

Tom Vincent (to...@global2000.net) wrote:
: I will say this- I do NOT like the attitude which has prevailed at the

: Journal editorially for well over a decade, that is, comics suck, american
: comics suck more, and Marvel comics suck no matter what-even if
: archeologists discovered a previously unknown manuscript by Shakespear
: which had been illustrated by Gustav Dore at some later date and Marvel
: then published it, it would still suck because it had a Marvel logo on the
: cover.
:
: This type of press doesn't help our industry at all. This is not to say
: there should not be critical evaluations in the comic industry- there
: should. It's the condescending attitude I think is harmful (and personally
: annoying)

I must say I lost most of my respect for the journal when I saw a photo
of a group of my comic creator friends (posed outside a Big Boy restaurant
-- as I've mentioned in other posts, it's our tradition to hit Big Boy
at least once a con, generally accompanied by Matt Feazell, Sean Bieri,
and our other small press friends) with a caption describing them as
"marginally talented Canadian creators" (or something along those lines,
I'm going by memory here).

Now, while I won't necessarily agree with those who call Greg Beetham
(Xeno's Arrow), for example, "marginally talented", I have no problem
with a critical evaluation of his work. And if the Comics Journal
had backed up their epithets with such a critical evaluation of the
work of Greg and the other creators in the photo, then I would have
no complaints (disagreements, perhaps, but that's different). But
they didn't it was just a mean-spirited throwaway line. As journalism,
in my humble opinion , it stank. Professional criticism, I believe,
means saying *why* something is bad or good, not just throwing the
insults around because it makes you feel big, or you're not feeling
well today, or you once had a bad experience in Canada or at a Big Boy,
or whatever reason the caption writer had.

I've never had much of an inclination to read the Comics Journal
since then.

--
Respectfully,
David Tallan
dta...@interlog.com

[The comics journal]

Hi, David:

In article <5hbm5k$j...@news.interlog.com>, dta...@gold.interlog.com
(David Tallan) wrote:

> I must say I lost most of my respect for the journal when I saw a photo
> of a group of my comic creator friends (posed outside a Big Boy restaurant
> -- as I've mentioned in other posts, it's our tradition to hit Big Boy
> at least once a con, generally accompanied by Matt Feazell, Sean Bieri,
> and our other small press friends) with a caption describing them as
> "marginally talented Canadian creators" (or something along those lines,
> I'm going by memory here).
>
> Now, while I won't necessarily agree with those who call Greg Beetham
> (Xeno's Arrow), for example, "marginally talented", I have no problem
> with a critical evaluation of his work. And if the Comics Journal
> had backed up their epithets with such a critical evaluation of the
> work of Greg and the other creators in the photo, then I would have
> no complaints (disagreements, perhaps, but that's different). But
> they didn't it was just a mean-spirited throwaway line. As journalism,
> in my humble opinion , it stank. Professional criticism, I believe,
> means saying *why* something is bad or good, not just throwing the
> insults around because it makes you feel big, or you're not feeling
> well today, or you once had a bad experience in Canada or at a Big Boy,
> or whatever reason the caption writer had.

That was in our Viva la Comix section, which as a feature is primarily
dedicated to "jerk" humor. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. That
was one of the stupider ones, I agree. However, it's very far away from
the criticism and news sections of the magazines, and coverage of one
doesn't affect coverage of another 侠Scott McCloud and even our own parent
company Fantagraphics have been targets while receiving favorable notice
elsewhere, as have interview subjects to come like Garth Ennis and (I
hope) James Robinson.

As far as the cartoonists in questions, we've actually run some reviews of
these people's work, at least Beetham and Bieri. The Beetham review was
positive, and I believe the Bieri piece was, too 侠I personally like
Sean's work, and can't recall a bad piece in our pages.

[Jason Fliegel]

In article <fgraphic-260...@blv-pm102-ip16.halcyon.com>,

The comics journal <fgra...@halcyon.com> wrote:
>Hi, Jason:
>
>I enjoyed reading your vivisection of the magazine. I'm bored enough, as
>we just sent off the David Mazzucchelli/Bryan Talbot issue and we're not
>quite up to speed on the new one, to mount the sort of bombastic defense
>for which we're known. But as you're certainly entitled to your own
>opinion, I hope you don't mind if I reply to the points where I think you
>may have read something differently -- or read into something differently
>-- than what we intended.

Thanks for taking the time to address the issues I raise, and thanks for
not turning this into a flame war -- something which probably would have
been very easy to do given the level of vitriol in my original post. This
is my way of apologizing for my first post -- I still agree with
everything I said, but I probably should have found a nicer way to say it.

And let me reitterate that I am working from memory here; I didn't buy the
magazine, and the Web Site doesn't reprint anything which I am addressing.
Feel free to correct anything I may misremember, but please realize that
any mistakes I make are not intended maliciously.

>
>In article <E7Mut...@midway.uchicago.edu>, jbfl...@midway.uchicago.edu
>(Jason Fliegel) wrote:
>
>> It started with a column by Bill "Zippy" Griffith about how horrible comic
>> strips are today and how America is going to Hell in a handbasket for
>> liking Dilbert. How the only good comics out there are the ones that
>> appear in alternative papers like "Red Meat" or "Life in Hell," though he
>> reluctantly acknowledges that "Doonesbury" is sometimes good. Did I
>> mention that he thinks Dilbert is the Antichrist?
>>
>> Now, everyone's entitled to an opinion (mine is that Dilbert makes me
>> laugh nine times out of ten, while I've never even smiled at a "Zippy the
>> Pinhead." I guess I must be some sort of a heathen). And I'll be the
>> first to admit that I haven't found Garfield funny in a good ten or twelve
>> years. But this column had way more venom than the topic merited.
>
>Your opinion; fair enough. Although I think that Griffith was saying that
>as funny as Dilbert is, it really doesn't have the traditional strengths
>of a comic strip, and as such, it's endemic of the problems with the funny
>pages as a whole. I don't laugh at Zippy, either.
>

Griffith does not seem to think "Dilbert" is at all funny. He seems to
think it's the same two jokes over and over, day in and day out. There's
even that parody he did, which you ran at the bottom of the editorial
("Gee, my cubicle's walls sure are beige.") His point was that, with a
few notable exceptions like "Mutts," the comics page in your average daily
newspaper is crap.

While I agree that there are a lot of comic strips that aren't funny, I
think there are plenty of strips that are. Off the top of my head, in
addition to "Doonesbury" and "Mutts," which Griffith acknowledges, there's
also "Baby Blues," "Fox Trot," "Big Nate," "For Better or For Worse," "Non
Sequitor," "Ernie," "Peanuts," "Shoe," and, yes, "Dilbert."

Now, as I say, everyone's entitled to an opinion, including Bill
Griffith. But when his opinion appears to be "Newspaper editors suck
because they never print any good comics," I have to take him to task;
they print plenty of good comics (and plenty of bad ones, too). It
happens these comics are not to Griffith's taste, but that doesn't mean
they're not good, or that most of the newspaper's readers don't enjoy
them. There's a difference between "objectively bad" and "not to my
liking," but Griffith seems to equate the two.

Granted, it IS an editorial, so I shouldn't be surprised to find
opinions -- even opinions dressed up as truisms. But the editorial seemed
indicative of the attitude I got from the whole magazine -- an attitude of
"Anything mainstream is, by definition, disgusting, worthless crap (except
possibly for stuff produced by people we like)."

>> Next we get to the letters column. Some fan takes Gary Groth to task for
>> not slamming Barry Windsow Smith hard enough for doing too much "genre"
>> work (I assume we should read "genre" as "mainstream") in his BWS
>> Storyteller. Then he talks about how Smith's contemporary, P. Craig
>> Russel is SO much cooler. Groth's defense appears to be that he's willing
>> to cut Smith some slack because Smith's got enough indy cred. Maybe I'm
>> reading too much into it, but Groth seems to be saying "I'd be right there
>> with you if it were John Byrne's Storyteller, but I like Barry, so I
>> went easy on him."
>
>I think you're misreading Groth's defense in that they're aimed at the
>letterwriter instead of coming out of whole cloth. Gary's saying that if
>the letterwriter wishes to extol the virtues of P. Craig Russell based on
>work like Salome, then the letterwriter shold extend the benefit of the
>doubt to Barry Windsor-Smith based on his Studio period.
>
>I don't know how Gary would view a John Byrne's Storyteller, but I'd sure
>look at a first issue, as well as a first issue of a Gil Kane Storyteller,
>a Mike Kaluta Storyteller, a Berni Wrightson Storyteller, etc.

But Kane, Kaluta and Wrightson have all, like Smith, done some
independent work in addition to their mainstream work. Presumably, if
Peter Bagge Storyteller, featuring superheroes and space opera came out
tomorrow, Gary would cut Bagge the same slack.

My question, though, is about John Byrne Storyteller. Why is it OK to
slam that (as I assume Gary would, though I admit this is speculation on
my part)? If mainstream work is bad for the industry, or objectively bad,
or whatever, it shouldn't matter how many issues of HATE I've written --
bad is still bad. But if independent work somehow mitigates mainstream
work, then what we're saying is that we're no longer judging the work on
its own merits -- we're passing judgment on the artist. Which means that
if, hypothetically, John Byrne and Peter Bagge each produced the exact
same comic book, and that comic book was a "genre" piece, Byrne's would be
bad and Bagge's would be good.

Maybe I'm reading the letter writer's prejudices into Gary's response.
But it seems to me the letter writer is saying "We must judge artist's
present works based on how mainstream they are, but cut artists with indy
histroy some slack." Rather than respond with "How about judging
artists' present works on their own merit," Gary seems to be saying "I
agree, but I feel Smith has earned that slack."

>
>> Then we get to the "Newsbriefs" section (or whatever they call it), where,
>> amid all the multicolumn newsbriefs, we get a one sentence description of
>> the happenings in Superman's books: "We hear Superman's got new powers
>> and a new costume" or something equally condescending. Geez, guys -- is
>> that what you hear? You're a newsmagazine. If you're going to cover the
>> new costume, write something up on it that tells people who, what, where,
>> when, why, and how. If you don't want to cover the new Superman costume
>> (and nobody says you have to -- I understand you're not really into the
>> cape and cowl set, Gary), then spare us the condescending Newsbriefs.
>
>That was mine, along with news editor Greg Stump. The report Л
>"Apparently, Superman has received a new costume and powers." Л was a
>joke, a commentary on the barrage of hype that we received on what clearly
>is a publicity stunt by the company. It wasn't meant to be condescending
>to fans, and we actually feel that the nature of the stunt is what is
>really condescending.
>

The problem with a joke like that is it doesn't work in the context of the
magazine's editorial stance. To draw an analogy, I've seen gay people
call each other "faggot," hispanics call each other "spic, or black people
call each other "nigger." It's funny when a gay person A calls gay person
B "faggot," because if B is a faggot, and that is bad, what does that make
A? He's the same thing! But when I, straight person C, call gay person B
a faggot, I'm drawing a line between the two of us and implying that he's
on the wrong side of that line.

Similarly, if Wizard makes a joke about over-hyped mainstream stuff, it's
self depricating humor. If TCJ makes a joke about over-hyped mainstream
stuff, it's a gratuitous slam.

The bottom line, I guess, is that if Seth feels he wasn't misrepresented,
then he wasn't misrepresnted. But for me, as a reader, the quote seemed
to be saying one thing ("I wasn't influenced by Kirby") while the actual
text of the interview said another ("After Charles Schulz, the next artist
whose work influenced me was Jack Kirby.")

And even if Seth, in the context of a discussion of his influences, had
said, "I never read any Kirby," I wouldn't read that as disrespectful
towards Kirby. Most comic book artists were influenced, either directly or
indirectly, by Kirby, so it's worth pointing out if an artist was not
influenced by Kirby. On the other hand, if someone pulled that quote out
of context and ran it by itself, it looks a lot more like a slam, because
the reader loses the context of "who influenced this artist?" For all the
reader knows, the context is "What do you think of Kirby?" or "Which
artists do you think are not worth reading?"

>The object of the pull quotes is to get someone to read into the interview
>to see the context of what was being said.
>

It worked with me, I'll give you that! And as a former production manager
for a daily newspaper, I recognize that you have to try to find something
provocative to draw the reader in. Still, although I recognize there was
no ill-will involved, I still think the particular choice of quotes was a
mistake. (And yes, I realize it's an easier call to make now, from my
vantage point, than it was from Pat Moriarty's vantage point while he was
laying out the issue -- 20/20 hindsight, and all that).

>> What was even more jarring was Groth's response to Seth's reminiscence
>> about the Kirby reprints. Again, I'm working from memory hear, but Groth
>> basically says "Yes, reprinting Kirby's work was one of the only good
>> things Marvel did in the 1970's. Marvel in the 1970's was, by and large,
>> crap, but fortunately, I, Gary Groth, saw through all that crap at the
>> time." Excuse me? I'm no Gary Groth scholar, but I was under the
>> impression that in the '70's and early '80's, Groth was a slavering Marvel
>> Zombie and DC Fanboy, and that it's only in the last 10-15 years that he's
>> become Mr. Alternative. I guess he was really some sort of undercover
>> agent, infiltrating the mainstream comics scene so he could later destroy
>> it.
>
>No, Gary was a fanboy in the very early '70s. I know this because I
>constantly kid him about it. He actually worked for Jim Steranko, and I
>believe he was offered a job at Marvel assisting Roy Thomas. But he had
>developed his basic attitude towards that material certainly by the time
>he started working on the magazine in 1976, although age has certainly
>hardened those opinions, as it hardens the opinions of a lot of people.
>The Journal was notorious from the start for just such an antagonistic
>attitude towards a lot of that type of material.
>

True, there's the infamous Don Heck incident (which I only know of through
reading later accounts), but my understanding was that up until the mid
1980s, The Comics Journal recognized that some of DC & Marvel's Superhero
output was good stuff, and that since then, The Comics Journal has stopped
acknowledging that quality comics are published with the Marvel "M" or the
DC Bullet. Your defense of Batman & Robin Adventures, below, indicates to
me that I am, at least in part, incorrect in this assumption, so I
apologize. That said:

>I don't think it's such an alarming stance to say that the best material
>Marvel published in the '70s were reprints of Kirby's earlier stuff.
>Kirby's earlier stuff was the best thing Marvel ever published (IMO, and
>I'll defend it), and I think a reasonable person could look at the '70s
>output from the company and not think well of it.
>

My recollection (and correct me if I'm wrong) isn't that Groth said the
Kirby reprints were the best thing Marvel put out in the 1970's -- it's
that the Kirby reprints were about the ONLY good thing Marvel put out in
the 1970's. While the former is defensible, the latter is not. Just look
at Barry Windsor-Smith's "Conan," Starlin's "Warlock," Starlin's "Captain
Marvel," Gerber's "Howard the Duck," "Man-Thing," or "Defenders," Wolfman
and Colan's "Tomb of Dracula," Englehart's "Avengers," some of the
Spider-Man stuff from the early part of the decade like the death of Gwen
Stacy or the Harry Osborne Drug Issues, the Kree-Skrull War in "Avengers,"
Claremont/Cockrum "X-Men." While it's certainly not indefensible to say
that none of those matched the stuff Kirby did on the X-Men in the '60's,
it IS indefensible to say none of those were any good.

>And jeez, Gary's done a really crappy job of destroying mainstream comics.
>

It's not for lack of trying, though (at least, not as far as I can tell).

>> My bottom line is this: Gary Groth is allowed to have whatever opinion he
>> wants about mainstream comics, and he can enjoy HATE or ACME NOVELTY
>> LIBRARY as much as he wants. And I know this has been hashed out
>> before on rac.* (I seem to remember one thread entitled "Gary Groth is
>> an asshole.") But I've never before felt so insulted by a magazine, and
>> I've never before had someone try to make me feel dirty for buying a copy
>> of "The Batman & Robin Adventures." I felt like venting my spleen.
>> Thanks for reading this (those of you who did), and special thanks to Dave
>> VanD. for forgiving me for mangling his name (you do forgive me, don't
>> you, Dave?).
>
>Hey, we like Batman and Robin Adventures. Just the other day we were
>bemoaning the fact that beyond Staton and Templeton, there seemed to be
>very few artists who really excelled at that style. And we _really_ liked
>Mike Parobeck's work, to the point I commissioned a tribute to his work
>that we ran alongside his obituary so that our fans completely unfamiliar
>with work of that type would know how good he was. The last thing any of
>us want is to make you feel dirty for reading Batman and Robin Adventures,
>and I'm puzzled as to how you got there.
>

It was a mainstream book I picked at random out of the stack of mainstream
books I brought home from the comic book store this past weekend. That
TCJ likes B&RA indicates that I was, at least in part, mistaken about the
magazine's attitude towards mainstream comics -- I guess you guys don't
really think they're =ALL= crap. However, the truth is, I *did* feel like
Gary wantred me to feel dirty for reading B&RA, and Legion of Superheroes,
and Impulse, and Power of Shazam, and Untold Tales of Spider-Man. I *did*
feel like Gary would hold me in contempt for being excited about the
fact that Busiek & Perez are going to be doing the Avengers, and that
Waid/Garney might do Captain America again. That may or may not be what
Gary wants, but he should recognize that it's the message he's sending.

>Jason, I'm afraid if the most insulted you've ever been by a magazine is
>in disagreeing with the extent of a guest editorial, reading veiled
>insults towards John Byrne and Jack Kirby, not getting the Superman news
>you expected, and thinking that an interviewer was being self-serving in
>something you didn't even buy, then I would have to guess you read the mag
>with a bit of a chip on your shoulder.
>

I didn't start the magazine with a chip on my shoulder, though I admit I
had one there by the time I finished. In the end, it's your magazine, and
if you want to do a twelve-page article on why all the comics I like are
terrible, that's your right. But it's my right to take exception to what
I perceive to be gratuitous, unwarranted slams against the mainstream.

And, for the record, I didn't read any vieled insults towards John Byrne.
I just picked him as an example of an artist who has worked entirley
within the mainstream -- it could just have easily have been George Perez.

>I appreciate you giving the magazine a chance, though, and wish we could
>keep you as a reader Лаyou sound almost as angry as one of our writers!
>

Wow -- that's pretty angry! I hope you realize, though, that nothing I
wrote was intended to be malicious or vindictive. Spirited and from the
heart, yes, but not mean.

And since you asked so nicely, I'll flip through the next issue of TCJ
when I see it on the stands -- I might even buy it if I see something
interesting in it!

>Tom Spurgeon
>Managing Editor
>The Comics Journal
>
>P.S. Л That turned out a little more complete than I would have guessed.

Thanks for taking the time to address my comments.

[The comics journal]

Hi, Jason:

Here we go again!

In article <E7nyE...@midway.uchicago.edu>, jbfl...@midway.uchicago.edu
(Jason Fliegel) wrote:

> Thanks for taking the time to address the issues I raise, and thanks for
> not turning this into a flame war -- something which probably would have
> been very easy to do given the level of vitriol in my original post. This
> is my way of apologizing for my first post -- I still agree with
> everything I said, but I probably should have found a nicer way to say it.
>
> And let me reitterate that I am working from memory here; I didn't buy the
> magazine, and the Web Site doesn't reprint anything which I am addressing.
> Feel free to correct anything I may misremember, but please realize that
> any mistakes I make are not intended maliciously.

Okay.

> Griffith does not seem to think "Dilbert" is at all funny. He seems to
> think it's the same two jokes over and over, day in and day out.

You're right.

There's
> even that parody he did, which you ran at the bottom of the editorial
> ("Gee, my cubicle's walls sure are beige.") His point was that, with a
> few notable exceptions like "Mutts," the comics page in your average daily
> newspaper is crap.

> Now, as I say, everyone's entitled to an opinion, including Bill

> Griffith. But when his opinion appears to be "Newspaper editors suck
> because they never print any good comics," I have to take him to task;
> they print plenty of good comics (and plenty of bad ones, too). It
> happens these comics are not to Griffith's taste, but that doesn't mean
> they're not good, or that most of the newspaper's readers don't enjoy
> them. There's a difference between "objectively bad" and "not to my
> liking," but Griffith seems to equate the two.

No, I think Griffith holds comics to a certain standard, and that he feels
comics don't meet that standard. I would say he also believes, as do I,
that one can say "this stinks" rather than "this doesn't smell good to me"
and have it be understood that you're applying a standard that you think
should be applied and are willing to defend that standard.

> Granted, it IS an editorial, so I shouldn't be surprised to find
> opinions -- even opinions dressed up as truisms. But the editorial seemed
> indicative of the attitude I got from the whole magazine -- an attitude of
> "Anything mainstream is, by definition, disgusting, worthless crap (except
> possibly for stuff produced by people we like)."

Well, I think that's a heck of a leap in logic to make off of one (guest)
editorial, and sounds suspiciously to me like a confirmed assumption
rather than a logical step taken by an open mind ‹ particularly when we
take into account your stated general awareness of the magazine. Sorry,
Jason.

But, as you say, it's an editorial; the purpose is to make you think and
agree/disagree based on your own thoughts. I think, based on your case,
that Griffith was successful. And I'd print Scott Roberts' or Pat Brady's
reply in a minute!

> But Kane, Kaluta and Wrightson have all, like Smith, done some
> independent work in addition to their mainstream work. Presumably, if
> Peter Bagge Storyteller, featuring superheroes and space opera came out
> tomorrow, Gary would cut Bagge the same slack.

Gary _wasn't_ cutting Barry Windsor-Smith slack. He was merely pointing
out that the letterwriter was refusing to cut BWS the slame slack he cut
Russell. Gary was taking Smith entirely on his own terms.

> My question, though, is about John Byrne Storyteller. Why is it OK to
> slam that (as I assume Gary would, though I admit this is speculation on
> my part)? If mainstream work is bad for the industry, or objectively bad,
> or whatever, it shouldn't matter how many issues of HATE I've written --
> bad is still bad. But if independent work somehow mitigates mainstream
> work, then what we're saying is that we're no longer judging the work on
> its own merits -- we're passing judgment on the artist. Which means that
> if, hypothetically, John Byrne and Peter Bagge each produced the exact
> same comic book, and that comic book was a "genre" piece, Byrne's would be
> bad and Bagge's would be good.

Not at all. Again, this isn't some "mainstream"/"indy" war here, in which
one side's soliders get promoted and the other side's soldiers get
attacked. Bad work isn't mitigated by good work, it's just bad work.
Regardless of genre.

I don't think Gary cares for Jim Woodring's Aliens work _at all_. I know I
don't. But that's not because the work is genre, it's because he feels
that some of Jim Woodring's stuff is good and the Aliens stuff isn't.

> Maybe I'm reading the letter writer's prejudices into Gary's response.
> But it seems to me the letter writer is saying "We must judge artist's
> present works based on how mainstream they are, but cut artists with indy
> histroy some slack." Rather than respond with "How about judging
> artists' present works on their own merit," Gary seems to be saying "I
> agree, but I feel Smith has earned that slack."

Again, he was using Greene's own standards to point out the fallacy of his
argument. He even qualifies describing BWS' career path by saying, "For
good or illŠ" before describing the commercial/artistic parameters of it.

> The problem with a joke like that is it doesn't work in the context of the
> magazine's editorial stance.

Considering I am the magazine's day-in, day-out editorial stance, I
disagree with you.

> To draw an analogy, I've seen gay people
> call each other "faggot," hispanics call each other "spic, or black people
> call each other "nigger." It's funny when a gay person A calls gay person
> B "faggot," because if B is a faggot, and that is bad, what does that make
> A? He's the same thing! But when I, straight person C, call gay person B
> a faggot, I'm drawing a line between the two of us and implying that he's
> on the wrong side of that line.

I know what a context is; however, this is a terrible analogy.These are
derogatory names re-captured by elements of the targeted communities and
robbed of their power. The content of such a word, and our news story, is
hardly the same.

> Similarly, if Wizard makes a joke about over-hyped mainstream stuff, it's
> self depricating humor. If TCJ makes a joke about over-hyped mainstream
> stuff, it's a gratuitous slam.

I'm sorry Jason, but I think that's a reach. I see it as a pointed remark
about the sheer pointlessness of a manufactured event being hyped as news
being made by a news source reporting on that news.

Although, if I had to, I can live with it being a gratuitous slam against
DC, whom I think deserved to be slammed in this instance. Do you think
this should have been treated as seriously as Mike Diana's legal setbacks?
I don't.

And your original point, I think, was that it was somehow a slam against
you as a mainstream comics reader, which I don't think is a reasonable
reading if you didn't have some preconception of what you thought the
magazine was trying to say before you read the joke.

> The bottom line, I guess, is that if Seth feels he wasn't misrepresented,
> then he wasn't misrepresnted. But for me, as a reader, the quote seemed
> to be saying one thing ("I wasn't influenced by Kirby") while the actual
> text of the interview said another ("After Charles Schulz, the next artist
> whose work influenced me was Jack Kirby.")

For the record, the exact quote said, "If I actually read any Kirby when I
was really little, it slipped right out of my mind." Which I think speaks
directly to his development as an artist, rather than some
all-encompassing statement that Kirby was not read.

> And even if Seth, in the context of a discussion of his influences, had
> said, "I never read any Kirby," I wouldn't read that as disrespectful
> towards Kirby. Most comic book artists were influenced, either directly or
> indirectly, by Kirby, so it's worth pointing out if an artist was not
> influenced by Kirby. On the other hand, if someone pulled that quote out
> of context and ran it by itself, it looks a lot more like a slam, because
> the reader loses the context of "who influenced this artist?" For all the
> reader knows, the context is "What do you think of Kirby?" or "Which
> artists do you think are not worth reading?"

But the quote wasn't run by itself; it was run with a full interview and
lots and lots of Kirby-influenced pictures.

> It worked with me, I'll give you that! And as a former production manager
> for a daily newspaper, I recognize that you have to try to find something
> provocative to draw the reader in. Still, although I recognize there was
> no ill-will involved, I still think the particular choice of quotes was a
> mistake. (And yes, I realize it's an easier call to make now, from my
> vantage point, than it was from Pat Moriarty's vantage point while he was
> laying out the issue -- 20/20 hindsight, and all that).

Your exception to the pull quote is noted. I'm not going to submit that
particular pull quote to the Eisner committee, but I think your nuanced
reading of its implications is shaky ground on which to base 1/6th of your
arguments as to why the magazine is the worst thing you ever read.

> True, there's the infamous Don Heck incident (which I only know of through
> reading later accounts), but my understanding was that up until the mid
> 1980s, The Comics Journal recognized that some of DC & Marvel's Superhero
> output was good stuff, and that since then, The Comics Journal has stopped
> acknowledging that quality comics are published with the Marvel "M" or the
> DC Bullet. Your defense of Batman & Robin Adventures, below, indicates to
> me that I am, at least in part, incorrect in this assumption, so I
> apologize.

In addition, a closer reading of the magazine in the last two years would
show that Marv Wolfman has received more positive reviews than Chris Ware,
whatever the hell our reputation is supposed to be.

> My recollection (and correct me if I'm wrong) isn't that Groth said the
> Kirby reprints were the best thing Marvel put out in the 1970's -- it's
> that the Kirby reprints were about the ONLY good thing Marvel put out in
> the 1970's. While the former is defensible, the latter is not. Just look
> at Barry Windsor-Smith's "Conan," Starlin's "Warlock," Starlin's "Captain
> Marvel," Gerber's "Howard the Duck," "Man-Thing," or "Defenders," Wolfman
> and Colan's "Tomb of Dracula," Englehart's "Avengers," some of the
> Spider-Man stuff from the early part of the decade like the death of Gwen
> Stacy or the Harry Osborne Drug Issues, the Kree-Skrull War in "Avengers,"
> Claremont/Cockrum "X-Men." While it's certainly not indefensible to say
> that none of those matched the stuff Kirby did on the X-Men in the '60's,
> it IS indefensible to say none of those were any good.

No, Gary said, "one of the few good things."

But even if he did say it, it most certainly is defensible. Gary Groth
would defend it. The vast majority of comics artists I know would be
closer to your conception of Gary's argument than to your version of what
was good, as would I.

You may not agree with any of it, but it certainly is defensible, Jason.
Come on.

> >And jeez, Gary's done a really crappy job of destroying mainstream comics.
> >
>
> It's not for lack of trying, though (at least, not as far as I can tell).

Gary's been too busy playing with his kid to try and destroy anyone the
last couple of years. I, on the other hand, wake up every morning and say,
"MustŠ DestroyŠ MarvelŠ"

> That
> TCJ likes B&RA indicates that I was, at least in part, mistaken about the
> magazine's attitude towards mainstream comics -- I guess you guys don't
> really think they're =ALL= crap. However, the truth is, I *did* feel like
> Gary wantred me to feel dirty for reading B&RA, and Legion of Superheroes,
> and Impulse, and Power of Shazam, and Untold Tales of Spider-Man. I *did*
> feel like Gary would hold me in contempt for being excited about the
> fact that Busiek & Perez are going to be doing the Avengers, and that
> Waid/Garney might do Captain America again. That may or may not be what
> Gary wants, but he should recognize that it's the message he's sending.

If it's the message that he's sending ‹ we're sending, more properly
‹ than I think it has _so_ much more to do with what people like yourself
are reading into it than what is actually being said. Just because someone
else doesn't like something you do like is no reason to feel dirty about
reading it. That's just plain silly. If you really don't give any of his
views credence, than what could you possibly care. Worse, in this case
it's views that you _think_ he has.

It's not the message he's sending, it's the message you're receiving.

> >Jason, I'm afraid if the most insulted you've ever been by a magazine is
> >in disagreeing with the extent of a guest editorial, reading veiled
> >insults towards John Byrne and Jack Kirby, not getting the Superman news
> >you expected, and thinking that an interviewer was being self-serving in
> >something you didn't even buy, then I would have to guess you read the mag
> >with a bit of a chip on your shoulder.
> >
>
> I didn't start the magazine with a chip on my shoulder, though I admit I
> had one there by the time I finished. In the end, it's your magazine, and
> if you want to do a twelve-page article on why all the comics I like are
> terrible, that's your right. But it's my right to take exception to what
> I perceive to be gratuitous, unwarranted slams against the mainstream.

Of course, no one here's written such an article, and we certainly didn't
have on in the Seth issue. Your exceptions are noted, but I wish they had
more to do with the magazine that was published rather than the one with
these 12-page articles you seem to have read!

> And, for the record, I didn't read any vieled insults towards John Byrne.
> I just picked him as an example of an artist who has worked entirley
> within the mainstream -- it could just have easily have been George Perez.

George is a very nice guy, and he's always been very helpful to the news
editor. I believe my point stands if we put his name in or anyone else's.

> >I appreciate you giving the magazine a chance, though, and wish we could

> >keep you as a reader ‹ you sound almost as angry as one of our writers!

> >
>
> Wow -- that's pretty angry! I hope you realize, though, that nothing I
> wrote was intended to be malicious or vindictive. Spirited and from the
> heart, yes, but not mean.
>
> And since you asked so nicely, I'll flip through the next issue of TCJ
> when I see it on the stands -- I might even buy it if I see something
> interesting in it!

It has David Mazzucchelli and Bryan Talbot interviews and from what I can
remember, a spirited discussion of Jack Kirby. I wish I had it back so I
could check the pull quotes.

Thank you for the second chance.

> Thanks for taking the time to address my comments.

Well, it's slow here at work. I'm not sure I could spare this much time
away from my grad studies, though. Don't you have finals?

[David Tallan]

The comics journal (fgra...@halcyon.com) wrote:
: That was in our Viva la Comix section, which as a feature is primarily

: dedicated to "jerk" humor. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. That
: was one of the stupider ones, I agree.

: ....
: As far as the cartoonists in questions, we've actually run some reviews of

: these people's work, at least Beetham and Bieri. The Beetham review was

: positive....

So I recalled. That made it all the more ironic that he was one
of the creators insulted (actually, I don't think Sean was in the
particular photo in question, though he often accompanies us on
our traditional trips to big Boy). It seemed that the label was
being applied without even checking to see who it was being applied
to. Judging from your response, that was the case.

Let me see if I'm understanding you correctly. The Comics Journal has
a section which regularly is dedicated to "potshot" insults (insults
without knowing or caring who the recipient is and whether or not
the insulting comment is appropriate or deserved) as a form of humour?
The editorial staff runs a feature where the writers *intentionally*
behave as jerks?

Not only does my sense of humour run along different lines, so does
my sense of ethics. To each his own, I guess.

[Jason Fliegel]

In article <fgraphic-260...@blv-pm108-ip10.halcyon.com>,

The comics journal <fgra...@halcyon.com> wrote:

>Hi, Jason:
>
>Here we go again!
>

This'll be my last time, I think -- there's only so much mileage I can get
out of my admittedly cursory reading of the magazine.

>In article <E7nyE...@midway.uchicago.edu>, jbfl...@midway.uchicago.edu
>(Jason Fliegel) wrote:
>> Now, as I say, everyone's entitled to an opinion, including Bill
>> Griffith. But when his opinion appears to be "Newspaper editors suck
>> because they never print any good comics," I have to take him to task;
>> they print plenty of good comics (and plenty of bad ones, too). It
>> happens these comics are not to Griffith's taste, but that doesn't mean
>> they're not good, or that most of the newspaper's readers don't enjoy
>> them. There's a difference between "objectively bad" and "not to my
>> liking," but Griffith seems to equate the two.
>
>No, I think Griffith holds comics to a certain standard, and that he feels
>comics don't meet that standard. I would say he also believes, as do I,
>that one can say "this stinks" rather than "this doesn't smell good to me"
>and have it be understood that you're applying a standard that you think
>should be applied and are willing to defend that standard.
>

Maybe I didn't read carefully enough, or I'm misremembering the editorial,
butI don't remember Griffith setting forth a standard. It seemed to be a
lot of "Those damned newspaper editors wouldn't know a good comic strip if
it bit them on the ass! Cathy and Garfield are stale!" Lots of
complaining, but no real substance. But without actually having the
article in front of me, I can't say for certain that I'm correct in my
impression of the editorial.

>
>Not at all. Again, this isn't some "mainstream"/"indy" war here, in which
>one side's soliders get promoted and the other side's soldiers get
>attacked. Bad work isn't mitigated by good work, it's just bad work.
>Regardless of genre.
>

Then why is it relevant what Barry Windsor Smith (or P. Craig Russel or
John Byrne) did prior to Storyteller? Why didn't Gary point out to the
letter writer that Smith's Indy credentials are as relevant to a
discussion of Storyteller as is the fact that "Windsor-Smith" has twelve
letters and a hyphen (i.e. not at all).

>> Maybe I'm reading the letter writer's prejudices into Gary's response.
>> But it seems to me the letter writer is saying "We must judge artist's
>> present works based on how mainstream they are, but cut artists with indy
>> histroy some slack." Rather than respond with "How about judging
>> artists' present works on their own merit," Gary seems to be saying "I
>> agree, but I feel Smith has earned that slack."
>
>Again, he was using Greene's own standards to point out the fallacy of his
>argument. He even qualifies describing BWS' career path by saying, "For
>good or illŠ" before describing the commercial/artistic parameters of it.
>

But by accepting Greene's premises (that the value of Smith's current work
is somehow affected by what he did before), Gary validates them. Gary
seems to be saying "Your principles are correct, you've merely applied
them incorrectly," rather than "Your principles are incorrect," and this
is what bothered me.

>> The problem with a joke like that is it doesn't work in the context of the
>> magazine's editorial stance.
>
>Considering I am the magazine's day-in, day-out editorial stance, I
>disagree with you.
>

Serious (nonrhetorical) question: Did/will TCJ do a real article/review on
the Superman powers/costume change, why it happened, what motivated
Jurgens and co. to shake things up like this, where they are going with
the storyline, etc. This is big news, and while we all know it won't last
more than a year (at the most), it IS a major change in the depiction of
one of the most recognizable comic book characters. If you're not
covering this seriously, it's only because the story is outside the scope
of your magazine's editorial mission.

Below, you talk about the pointlessness of the storyline and say DC
deserved to be slammed. Is this your magazine's editorial stance? It
seems to be in accord with the sentiment I got from the Superman blurb,
which was "Ho hum, another silly, over-hyped story from DC, as if we
care." That kind of sniping seems inappropriate from a supposedly
objective magazine.

>> To draw an analogy, I've seen gay people
>> call each other "faggot," hispanics call each other "spic, or black people
>> call each other "nigger." It's funny when a gay person A calls gay person
>> B "faggot," because if B is a faggot, and that is bad, what does that make
>> A? He's the same thing! But when I, straight person C, call gay person B
>> a faggot, I'm drawing a line between the two of us and implying that he's
>> on the wrong side of that line.
>
>I know what a context is;

I didn't mean to imply otherwise.

however, this is a terrible analogy.These are
>derogatory names re-captured by elements of the targeted communities and
>robbed of their power. The content of such a word, and our news story, is
>hardly the same.
>
>> Similarly, if Wizard makes a joke about over-hyped mainstream stuff, it's
>> self depricating humor. If TCJ makes a joke about over-hyped mainstream
>> stuff, it's a gratuitous slam.
>
>I'm sorry Jason, but I think that's a reach. I see it as a pointed remark
>about the sheer pointlessness of a manufactured event being hyped as news
>being made by a news source reporting on that news.
>
>Although, if I had to, I can live with it being a gratuitous slam against
>DC, whom I think deserved to be slammed in this instance. Do you think
>this should have been treated as seriously as Mike Diana's legal setbacks?
>I don't.

Neither do I; one's the real world problems of an actual human being, the
other is about a cartoon character. That said, TCJ is a journal, and
should be held to standards of journalism. Whether you think the
storyline is overhyped or you think DC is being too restrained in its
publicity, whether you think Dan Jurgens is a hack or the next
Shakespeare, whether you think the Blue Superman story rivals the Odyssey
or is not fit to wrap fish, there is a time and a place for such comments.
In a journal, that time and place is the editorial place, and nowhere
else.

>
>And your original point, I think, was that it was somehow a slam against
>you as a mainstream comics reader, which I don't think is a reasonable
>reading if you didn't have some preconception of what you thought the
>magazine was trying to say before you read the joke.
>

If I'm excited about Superman's new look and new powers, how can I read
TCJ's blase dismissal of the storyline as anything other than a slam?

>> The bottom line, I guess, is that if Seth feels he wasn't misrepresented,
>> then he wasn't misrepresnted. But for me, as a reader, the quote seemed
>> to be saying one thing ("I wasn't influenced by Kirby") while the actual
>> text of the interview said another ("After Charles Schulz, the next artist
>> whose work influenced me was Jack Kirby.")
>
>For the record, the exact quote said, "If I actually read any Kirby when I
>was really little, it slipped right out of my mind." Which I think speaks
>directly to his development as an artist, rather than some
>all-encompassing statement that Kirby was not read.
>

I disagree. It's only once you read the interview that you realize the
key words are "really little." On its own, without context, I parsed that
sentence as "If I read any Kirby as a kid, it didn't make an impression on
me."

>> And even if Seth, in the context of a discussion of his influences, had
>> said, "I never read any Kirby," I wouldn't read that as disrespectful
>> towards Kirby. Most comic book artists were influenced, either directly or
>> indirectly, by Kirby, so it's worth pointing out if an artist was not
>> influenced by Kirby. On the other hand, if someone pulled that quote out
>> of context and ran it by itself, it looks a lot more like a slam, because
>> the reader loses the context of "who influenced this artist?" For all the
>> reader knows, the context is "What do you think of Kirby?" or "Which
>> artists do you think are not worth reading?"
>
>But the quote wasn't run by itself; it was run with a full interview and
>lots and lots of Kirby-influenced pictures.
>

It was run as a drop quote, so in a way, it did appear by itself. Drop
quotes should be able to retain their meaning without their context; to
use a quote that has one meaning in context and another outside of that
context is disingenuous.

>> It worked with me, I'll give you that! And as a former production manager
>> for a daily newspaper, I recognize that you have to try to find something
>> provocative to draw the reader in. Still, although I recognize there was
>> no ill-will involved, I still think the particular choice of quotes was a
>> mistake. (And yes, I realize it's an easier call to make now, from my
>> vantage point, than it was from Pat Moriarty's vantage point while he was
>> laying out the issue -- 20/20 hindsight, and all that).
>
>Your exception to the pull quote is noted. I'm not going to submit that
>particular pull quote to the Eisner committee, but I think your nuanced
>reading of its implications is shaky ground on which to base 1/6th of your
>arguments as to why the magazine is the worst thing you ever read.
>

Did I really say it was the worst thing I had ever read? That was a bit
of unnecessary hyperbole on my part. I've certainly read worse things in
my life.

That said, the quote was just one of the things that caught my eye and
stuck with me long enough for me to feel like writing about it. I didn't
mean to imply that I had six specific complaints about TCJ, I just meant
to write about the things that had caught my eye and irked me while I was
reading.

>> True, there's the infamous Don Heck incident (which I only know of through
>> reading later accounts), but my understanding was that up until the mid
>> 1980s, The Comics Journal recognized that some of DC & Marvel's Superhero
>> output was good stuff, and that since then, The Comics Journal has stopped
>> acknowledging that quality comics are published with the Marvel "M" or the
>> DC Bullet. Your defense of Batman & Robin Adventures, below, indicates to
>> me that I am, at least in part, incorrect in this assumption, so I
>> apologize.
>
>In addition, a closer reading of the magazine in the last two years would
>show that Marv Wolfman has received more positive reviews than Chris Ware,
>whatever the hell our reputation is supposed to be.
>

Like I said, this is the first issue I've ever read. As for Wolfman --
the only thing I remember from him in the past 2 years is the tail end of
the Titans, and I didn't think that was particularly good. Oh well -- at
least we can agree that Batman and Robin Adventures is a good book!

>> My recollection (and correct me if I'm wrong) isn't that Groth said the
>> Kirby reprints were the best thing Marvel put out in the 1970's -- it's
>> that the Kirby reprints were about the ONLY good thing Marvel put out in
>> the 1970's. While the former is defensible, the latter is not. Just look
>> at Barry Windsor-Smith's "Conan," Starlin's "Warlock," Starlin's "Captain
>> Marvel," Gerber's "Howard the Duck," "Man-Thing," or "Defenders," Wolfman
>> and Colan's "Tomb of Dracula," Englehart's "Avengers," some of the
>> Spider-Man stuff from the early part of the decade like the death of Gwen
>> Stacy or the Harry Osborne Drug Issues, the Kree-Skrull War in "Avengers,"
>> Claremont/Cockrum "X-Men." While it's certainly not indefensible to say
>> that none of those matched the stuff Kirby did on the X-Men in the '60's,
>> it IS indefensible to say none of those were any good.
>
>No, Gary said, "one of the few good things."
>
>But even if he did say it, it most certainly is defensible. Gary Groth
>would defend it. The vast majority of comics artists I know would be
>closer to your conception of Gary's argument than to your version of what
>was good, as would I.

I'm not sure what you're saying in the above sentence? Are you arguing
that most people in the comics industry would feel that most of the comics
I listed above are not good? If so, which of the above books do you feel
are not examples of good comics?

>
>You may not agree with any of it, but it certainly is defensible, Jason.
>Come on.
>

Well, anything is defensible, strictly speaking. Hitler defended the
notion that Jews are inferior to other people and worthy of extermination,
so, strictly speaking, that statement is defnsible. Not to compare Gary
Groth to Hitler, but the idea that reprints of Kirby's X-Men were one of
the only good things Marvel puts out requires some big assumptions that
I'm not sure most people would buy. Either you have to have a really big
defintion of "only" or you have to ignore most of the early work of
Starlin, Gerber, Windsor-Smith, Russell, Claremont, and Wolfman. Neither
one is an assumption I'm willing to make.

>> That
>> TCJ likes B&RA indicates that I was, at least in part, mistaken about the
>> magazine's attitude towards mainstream comics -- I guess you guys don't
>> really think they're =ALL= crap. However, the truth is, I *did* feel like
>> Gary wantred me to feel dirty for reading B&RA, and Legion of Superheroes,
>> and Impulse, and Power of Shazam, and Untold Tales of Spider-Man. I *did*
>> feel like Gary would hold me in contempt for being excited about the
>> fact that Busiek & Perez are going to be doing the Avengers, and that
>> Waid/Garney might do Captain America again. That may or may not be what
>> Gary wants, but he should recognize that it's the message he's sending.
>
>If it's the message that he's sending ‹ we're sending, more properly
>‹ than I think it has _so_ much more to do with what people like yourself
>are reading into it than what is actually being said. Just because someone
>else doesn't like something you do like is no reason to feel dirty about
>reading it. That's just plain silly. If you really don't give any of his
>views credence, than what could you possibly care. Worse, in this case
>it's views that you _think_ he has.
>

Note that I didn't say I feel dirty -- I said I feel like Gary wants me to
feel dirty. Bottom line, of course, is I'll read what I want, and I don't
care what anyone else thinks of it. Still, when someone says bad things
about what I'm reading (or if I perceive them to be saying bad things
about what I'm reading), I'm going to defend my choices.

I will also note that there were certain things I didn't see in TCJ:
reviews of any books from DC or Marvel, interviews with any of their
writers or artists, articles about any superhero comics. I really don't
think I'm making things up out of whole cloth when I say TCJ has an
editorial direction that excludes mainstream comic books.

>It's not the message he's sending, it's the message you're receiving.
>

It's not just me whose receiving this message, which leads me to believe
that maybe it is, in part, the message he's sending.

>> And since you asked so nicely, I'll flip through the next issue of TCJ
>> when I see it on the stands -- I might even buy it if I see something
>> interesting in it!
>
>It has David Mazzucchelli and Bryan Talbot interviews and from what I can
>remember, a spirited discussion of Jack Kirby. I wish I had it back so I
>could check the pull quotes.
>

I'll look for it. When's it due in the stores?

>Thank you for the second chance.
>
>> Thanks for taking the time to address my comments.
>
>Well, it's slow here at work. I'm not sure I could spare this much time
>away from my grad studies, though. Don't you have finals?
>

That was last week. I'm on spring break now. Besides, compared to the
Doctrine of Worthier Title or the Rule in Shelley's Case, this is fun!

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

dta...@gold.interlog.com (David Tallan) writes:

> Let me see if I'm understanding you correctly. The Comics Journal has
> a section which regularly is dedicated to "potshot" insults (insults
> without knowing or caring who the recipient is and whether or not
> the insulting comment is appropriate or deserved) as a form of humour?

I thought you said that this heinous crime against humanity (i. e.,
the bad joke) had made you "stop" reading the Journal? That would
seem not to be entirely true, since one has to start reading something
to stop reading something.

The Journal has a two page humour section. In it they do jokes. Some
are good, some are bad, but most are pretty mean. If you don't like
that kind of thing, you don't have to buy it. Oops. I forgot. You
never have.

--
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
la...@ifi.uio.no * Lars Ingebrigtsen

[The comics journal]

In article <5hc601$2...@news.interlog.com>, dta...@gold.interlog.com
(David Tallan) wrote:

> Let me see if I'm understanding you correctly. The Comics Journal has
> a section which regularly is dedicated to "potshot" insults (insults
> without knowing or caring who the recipient is and whether or not
> the insulting comment is appropriate or deserved) as a form of humour?

> The editorial staff runs a feature where the writers *intentionally*
> behave as jerks?

No, we have a humor spread called Viva la Comix that has a great deal of
jerk humor, which often rubs up against the people who are the targets.
Sometimes the humor is more effective and to the point that it is at other
times; that doesn't mean we're trying not to be funny when they're
written.

It's like what Pat Oliphant does, except he's a heck of a lot meaner: look
at six weeks of his cartoon, sometimes. Or when Chris Buckley's submits a
page to the New Yorker.

> Not only does my sense of humour run along different lines, so does
> my sense of ethics. To each his own, I guess.

I'm not sure how being a jerk is a violation of ethics, but, as you say,
to each his own.

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

[The comics journal]

Hi, Jason:

In article <E7oCp...@midway.uchicago.edu>, jbfl...@midway.uchicago.edu
(Jason Fliegel) wrote:

> This'll be my last time, I think -- there's only so much mileage I can get
> out of my admittedly cursory reading of the magazine.

My last time, too.

> >No, I think Griffith holds comics to a certain standard, and that he feels
> >comics don't meet that standard. I would say he also believes, as do I,
> >that one can say "this stinks" rather than "this doesn't smell good to me"
> >and have it be understood that you're applying a standard that you think
> >should be applied and are willing to defend that standard.

> Maybe I didn't read carefully enough, or I'm misremembering the editorial,
> butI don't remember Griffith setting forth a standard. It seemed to be a
> lot of "Those damned newspaper editors wouldn't know a good comic strip if
> it bit them on the ass! Cathy and Garfield are stale!" Lots of
> complaining, but no real substance. But without actually having the
> article in front of me, I can't say for certain that I'm correct in my
> impression of the editorial.

Well, I think a standard clearly comes through, both for individual comics
and the comics page.

> Then why is it relevant what Barry Windsor Smith (or P. Craig Russel or
> John Byrne) did prior to Storyteller? Why didn't Gary point out to the
> letter writer that Smith's Indy credentials are as relevant to a
> discussion of Storyteller as is the fact that "Windsor-Smith" has twelve
> letters and a hyphen (i.e. not at all).

> But by accepting Greene's premises (that the value of Smith's current work

> is somehow affected by what he did before), Gary validates them. Gary
> seems to be saying "Your principles are correct, you've merely applied
> them incorrectly," rather than "Your principles are incorrect," and this
> is what bothered me.

Gary's not validating anything. He's pointing that Greene isn't applying
his standard uniformly and that this proves the more general argument that
Greene is motivated by an irrational hatred of BWS.

> Serious (nonrhetorical) question: Did/will TCJ do a real article/review on
> the Superman powers/costume change, why it happened, what motivated
> Jurgens and co. to shake things up like this, where they are going with
> the storyline, etc. This is big news, and while we all know it won't last
> more than a year (at the most), it IS a major change in the depiction of
> one of the most recognizable comic book characters. If you're not
> covering this seriously, it's only because the story is outside the scope
> of your magazine's editorial mission.

Well, the substance of such an editorial change, as per your description,
is certainly outside of our interest (as would a "Buddy Bradley to live in
Jersey, leech off parents" story). The fact that such a change may be an
important business move would be more in our range of interest. The fact
that DC seems to do this a lot would lessen our interest.

> Below, you talk about the pointlessness of the storyline and say DC
> deserved to be slammed. Is this your magazine's editorial stance? It
> seems to be in accord with the sentiment I got from the Superman blurb,
> which was "Ho hum, another silly, over-hyped story from DC, as if we
> care." That kind of sniping seems inappropriate from a supposedly
> objective magazine.

We believe that objectivity of that kind is a myth, Jason, just as the the
view you propose when you say the story is big news is a subjective view.

> Neither do I; one's the real world problems of an actual human being, the
> other is about a cartoon character. That said, TCJ is a journal, and
> should be held to standards of journalism. Whether you think the
> storyline is overhyped or you think DC is being too restrained in its
> publicity, whether you think Dan Jurgens is a hack or the next
> Shakespeare, whether you think the Blue Superman story rivals the Odyssey
> or is not fit to wrap fish, there is a time and a place for such comments.
> In a journal, that time and place is the editorial place, and nowhere
> else.

And I'm certainly not going to let the DC marketing department dictate
what's news, Jason. In running a newspaper, you make decisions like this
all of a kind, and you should remember that: what runs on the front page,
what doesn't; do we go with this story, do we not.

I believe that a discussion of the content of DC's latest publicity move
really isn't news. Neither was the content of Marvel's recent decision to
kill their Ben Reilly character. I think that sort of news stance is
actually fairly common in magazine: Film Comment doesn't do in-depth
profiles of the changes made in the Pierce Brosnan James Bond, for
instance.

> If I'm excited about Superman's new look and new powers, how can I read
> TCJ's blase dismissal of the storyline as anything other than a slam?

You can read it as our point of view, decide we're wrong/understand where
we're coming from, and move on. I read stuff I disagree with all the time.

> I disagree. It's only once you read the interview that you realize the
> key words are "really little." On its own, without context, I parsed that
> sentence as "If I read any Kirby as a kid, it didn't make an impression on
> me."

And I read that sentence as "if I read any Kirby as I was really little, I
soon forgot it."

> It was run as a drop quote, so in a way, it did appear by itself. Drop
> quotes should be able to retain their meaning without their context; to
> use a quote that has one meaning in context and another outside of that
> context is disingenuous.

Ah, but I think it did; obviously, you didn't.

> Did I really say it was the worst thing I had ever read? That was a bit
> of unnecessary hyperbole on my part. I've certainly read worse things in
> my life.

Thank God.

> That said, the quote was just one of the things that caught my eye and
> stuck with me long enough for me to feel like writing about it. I didn't
> mean to imply that I had six specific complaints about TCJ, I just meant
> to write about the things that had caught my eye and irked me while I was
> reading.

Well, I will admit that every so often there's a pull quote or two which
it's possible could be read another way.

> Like I said, this is the first issue I've ever read. As for Wolfman --
> the only thing I remember from him in the past 2 years is the tail end of
> the Titans, and I didn't think that was particularly good. Oh well -- at
> least we can agree that Batman and Robin Adventures is a good book!

One of my reviewers said that Night Force #1 was entertaining; I didn't
like it at all. But that's why we run criticism from different reviewers.

> I'm not sure what you're saying in the above sentence? Are you arguing
> that most people in the comics industry would feel that most of the comics
> I listed above are not good? If so, which of the above books do you feel
> are not examples of good comics?

I'm saying that one can certainly mount a defense of Gary's actual
statement, that it was one of the _few_ good things they did, and that one
could also mount a defense of your reading of Gary's statement, that it
was the only good thing they did.

As far as other cartoonists, I was pointing out that any number of
alternative/underground cartoonists would hold closer to Gary's statement
than yours. So that's another group that would see his statement as
defensible.

I don't really care for any of the comics you mention, Jason. I just
deleted your list, but from what I remember I will tell you that I think
that Howard the Duck hasn't aged well, the Defenders was never any more
than a mediocre book, and that Englehart's Avengers were saddled with
non-distinguished art and really continuity-obsessed, boring storylines.
IMO.

> Well, anything is defensible, strictly speaking. Hitler defended the
> notion that Jews are inferior to other people and worthy of extermination,
> so, strictly speaking, that statement is defnsible. Not to compare Gary
> Groth to Hitler, but the idea that reprints of Kirby's X-Men were one of
> the only good things Marvel puts out requires some big assumptions that
> I'm not sure most people would buy. Either you have to have a really big
> defintion of "only" or you have to ignore most of the early work of
> Starlin, Gerber, Windsor-Smith, Russell, Claremont, and Wolfman. Neither
> one is an assumption I'm willing to make.

I've been editing interviews here for a while, and while many artists have
mentioned Kirby and Ditko, none have mentioned any work by the artists you
mention. Trust me, Gary and I are not the only people who feel this.

> Note that I didn't say I feel dirty -- I said I feel like Gary wants me to
> feel dirty. Bottom line, of course, is I'll read what I want, and I don't
> care what anyone else thinks of it. Still, when someone says bad things
> about what I'm reading (or if I perceive them to be saying bad things
> about what I'm reading), I'm going to defend my choices.

I still have yet to see the relationship between what you've said and
feeling dirty reading B&RA.

> I will also note that there were certain things I didn't see in TCJ:
> reviews of any books from DC or Marvel, interviews with any of their
> writers or artists, articles about any superhero comics. I really don't
> think I'm making things up out of whole cloth when I say TCJ has an
> editorial direction that excludes mainstream comic books.

There was a big fat article about Marvel in that issue, Jason. We just
interviewed Carmine Infantino in #191, and in our discussion with David
Mazzucchelli we do a whole lot of yakking about Daredevil.

As far as the magazine having an editorial direction that excludes
mainstream comic books, well, we have an art-first editorial direction,
and as that leads us into superheroes it leads us into superheroes, and as
it doesn't it doesn't. We don't see genre first. Or sales.

> It's not just me whose receiving this message, which leads me to believe
> that maybe it is, in part, the message he's sending.

I believe that there are lot of people who see any negative mention of a
superhero comic as an attack on all superhero comics and therefore are
receiving the same message. I find it odd that many of these same people
say that we're the ones not open to new ideas.

> >It has David Mazzucchelli and Bryan Talbot interviews and from what I can
> >remember, a spirited discussion of Jack Kirby. I wish I had it back so I
> >could check the pull quotes.
> >
>
> I'll look for it. When's it due in the stores?

Two weeks.

> That was last week. I'm on spring break now. Besides, compared to the
> Doctrine of Worthier Title or the Rule in Shelley's Case, this is fun!

Huh. It's given me a migraine.

Thanks,

[Neil McAllister]

In article <E7Mut...@midway.uchicago.edu>, jbfl...@midway.uchicago.edu
(Jason Fliegel) wrote:

> Ugh. I had some time to kill in a Border's Bookstore today, and there was
> a copy of The Comics Journal on the magazine rack. I decided to pull up a
> chair and see if the magazine was any good. It was the worst thing I had
> ever read. I'm going to rant about it for a while (with all due apologies
> to Dennis Miller and Dave VanDomelon [whose name I'm sure I just
> butchered]), so feel free to ignore it.

[snip]

> It started with a column by Bill "Zippy" Griffith about how horrible comic
> strips are today and how America is going to Hell in a handbasket for
> liking Dilbert. How the only good comics out there are the ones that
> appear in alternative papers like "Red Meat" or "Life in Hell," though he
> reluctantly acknowledges that "Doonesbury" is sometimes good. Did I
> mention that he thinks Dilbert is the Antichrist?

I didn't read it as "America is going to hell in a handbasket for liking
Dilbert", so much as "the newspaper comics page is going to hell in a
handbasket and it's a damn shame". I, like you, have been known to laugh
at Dilbert. I have also about run up to the point where Dilbert roughly
equates to Garfield, to me. I rarely smile at Zippy, but the cartoon TCJ
printed at the bottom of Griffith's editorial fucking cracked me up.
"Cubicles are beige... really, really beige... (ha ha ha) ... laughter
will get us through the day! (ha ha ha)" Hilarious. If I see one more
Dilbert desktop calendar I'll scream. Scott Adams may have an amusing
point of view, but he's no cartoonist. Griffith's point about the quality
strips that appear in weeklies (such as "Juilius Knipl: Real Estate
Photographer", a longtime favorite of mine that nobody else I know reads)
but which are ignored by the "mainstream" newspaper press is totally
valid. And he's right that no newspaper is likely to ever carry comics of
that quality again. The only complaint I'd have about the editorial is
that it's all been said before, and Griffith probably should have used the
forum to advocate a better venue for distributing comics to the consumer
than apathetic newspapers and shoddy, fanboyish comics stores, rather than
just proclaiming doom.

> Next we get to the letters column. Some fan takes Gary Groth to task for
> not slamming Barry Windsow Smith hard enough for doing too much "genre"
> work (I assume we should read "genre" as "mainstream") in his BWS
> Storyteller. Then he talks about how Smith's contemporary, P. Craig
> Russel is SO much cooler. Groth's defense appears to be that he's willing
> to cut Smith some slack because Smith's got enough indy cred. Maybe I'm
> reading too much into it, but Groth seems to be saying "I'd be right there
> with you if it were John Byrne's Storyteller, but I like Barry, so I
> went easy on him."

I also felt like Gary was a little easy on BWS in that interview, mainly
because he failed to address the whole "Windsor-Smith Studio" thing.
Barry quit comics in disgust, started his own press to publish his prints,
and then we find him reappearing with a "studio" of lackeys pumping out
superhero product for Image, Malibu and Marvel... in effect, being Neal
Adams. I like genre content, but I also find Barry's genre work to be
pretty uninspired.

But on the other hand, the letter-writer was so venomous and closed-minded
that it was hard not to agree with Gary's response, either. The
letter-writer incessantly hyping Craig Russel over Smith seemed
particularly pointless and rambling... as was his insistence on jumping on
the tired old subject of Eros Comics and Groth's "hypocrasy". I'm so sick
of so-called "alternative comics" fans waving the flag of free speech and
new ideas and "against the mainstream"... and then in the same breath
dismissing comics that portray graphic sex with some kind of dumb "fuck
book" put-down. Considering the size of the market for "adult" comics and
their long history, as well as the fact that a lot of the porn material
Eros publishes is better-drawn and more intruiging story-wise than
anything Marvel has produced in 10 years, any art-wank "alternative
cartoonist" who dismisses the genre -- or treats the fact that someone
publishes porn material as if it was some kind of Scarlet Letter -- is an
idiot. Or maybe just overly repressed.

> Then we get to the "Newsbriefs" section (or whatever they call it), where,
> amid all the multicolumn newsbriefs, we get a one sentence description of
> the happenings in Superman's books: "We hear Superman's got new powers
> and a new costume" or something equally condescending. Geez, guys -- is
> that what you hear? You're a newsmagazine. If you're going to cover the
> new costume, write something up on it that tells people who, what, where,
> when, why, and how. If you don't want to cover the new Superman costume
> (and nobody says you have to -- I understand you're not really into the
> cape and cowl set, Gary), then spare us the condescending Newsbriefs.

Thought it was funny as hell. Who CARES about Superman's "new costume and
powers"? They were satirizing the idea that the "event" was even
newsworthy. You know damn well it's another meaningless DC publicity
ploy.

> The breaking point for me, though, was the interview with Seth, of
> "Palookaville" fame. Groth (or whoever did the layout for the article)
> had put a big drop quote in one of the margins. "If I ever read any Kirby
> work when I was a little kid, I don't remember it," said the quote (I'm
> working from memory here, so this is a paraphrase, but I think it's
> basically accurate).

This led me to believe the wrong thing, too. But isn't grabbing attention
what drop quotes are for? Made me read the article, where otherwise I'm
not much interested in Seth's work, to tell the truth.

> I've never before had someone try to make me feel dirty for buying a copy
> of "The Batman & Robin Adventures."

Does Groth dislike "Batman and Robin Adventures"? Not that everything in
TCJ's pages represents Groth's opinion, but I believe that book has gotten
favorable reviews (or at least mention) in the Journal in the past.
(Superman's latest bondage power-fetish rubber bodysock cannot say same,
unfortunately.)

> Does anyone care to defend Gary and TCJ? Does anyone care to join me in
> telling Gary "Same to you, pal!"? Does anyone care?

Love the magazine, have been buying it since about June of '94, will
continue to buy every issue, am disappointed on the occasions I miss an
issue. No other publication in existence consistently puts the lie to the
lazy, lackadaisical marketing hype-driven "fandom" in this industry and
replaces it with an honest attempt to inspire critical thought about the
medium, and the work that comes out of it.

Here's a clue for everybody: you don't have to agree with everything the
Journal says to enjoy the experience of reading it. Part of being a
thoughtful, intelligent, rational adult is making critical judgements on
your own, rather than just reading some Wizard-style blurb and either
nodding or shaking your head. If something in the Journal pisses you off,
I'd still say that's more valuable than anything you receive from the
fanboy comics press -- where the worst you can say of an "article" is that
it failed to market the product effectively. (But if you're honest with
yourself, you may find yourself agreeing with some of the criticisms the
Journal makes of your favorite comics and creators. Maybe the fact that
TCJ's contributors seem to strike a nerve so often is the reason the
magazine is so despised?)

NEIL

[Tom Galloway]

In article <fgraphic-260...@blv-pm105-ip19.halcyon.com> fgra...@halcyon.com (The comics journal) writes:
>No, we have a humor spread called Viva la Comix that has a great deal of
>jerk humor, which often rubs up against the people who are the targets.
>Sometimes the humor is more effective and to the point that it is at other
>times; that doesn't mean we're trying not to be funny when they're
>written.

And, frankly, that's one of the two major problems I have with the Journal.
On the one hand, it tries to be equated with a critical journal by taking
comics seriously, addressing and reviewing non-mainstream comics, and
generally trying to portray comics as an artform worthy of thought and
high level commentary.

On the other hand, it just has to toss in features of sophmoric or worse
humor which serve to severely undercut the first goal. And all too often,
these come across as unwarranted personal attacks. Unwarranted in the sense
that they clearly attack the person rather than their work, and that all too
often, they just happen to match up against people Gary Groth is feuding
with. Yes, I know the Journal has printed positive reviews of work by people
Groth doesn't like and negative reviews of work by people he does, but
there still is a strong impression created of various people being on
Groth & Thompson's shit list and then getting a fair number of personal
attacks made on them in the pages of the Journal.

When the Journal sticks to the first goal, it's a very interesting and
worthwhile publication which can raise a number of questions worth
discussing and viewpoints worth debating. When, as it seems to do
every issue or two, it lapses into the "humor", I find it devalues
the first and since more often than not I happen to like the person
being attacked I'm not willing to support the Journal by buying it on
a regular basis.

Right now, the Journal is a strange hybrid of a journal and a sophmoric
fanzine. I'd strongly advise dropping the sophmoric fanzine elements,
as they're weakening the primary goal of being a respected journal.

tyg t...@netcom.com

[Denise L. Voskuil]

On Thu, 27 Mar 1997 04:26:59 GMT, t...@netcom.com (Tom Galloway) wrote:

>Right now, the Journal is a strange hybrid of a journal and a sophmoric
>fanzine. I'd strongly advise dropping the sophmoric fanzine elements,
>as they're weakening the primary goal of being a respected journal.

I really _hate_ to make a "me too"-style post, but tyg's entire post
is exactly what I had wanted to write, and using far better phrasing.
Re. the personal attacks, I find myself laughing at some of them, but
more often than not, it's because I can't believe that TCJ is stooping
to this level. Really, you guys do great work, and I find myself
enjoying the articles and analysis, even though I don't always agree
with it (and that's fine and even desired). Then I read some
gratuitous insult towards some creator, mainstream or not, and I can't
figure out why you're doing it. Please, much of that isn't funny,
even the barbs aimed at people I don't personally like; it's childish
and only serves (in my estimation) to turn readers off of the
magazine.

- Denise

--
Denise Voskuil= dvoskuil@: mcs.com/eden.com/uic.edu
*Remove the "NO_ADS" in my E-mail address to reply*
Hepcats: http://www.mcs.net/~dvoskuil/hepcats/
Empty Love Stories: http://www.redweb.com/emptylove/

[scandalous]

On 26 Mar 1997, David Tallan wrote:

> The comics journal (fgra...@halcyon.com) wrote:
> : That was in our Viva la Comix section, which as a feature is primarily
> : dedicated to "jerk" humor. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. That
> : was one of the stupider ones, I agree.
>

> Let me see if I'm understanding you correctly. The Comics Journal has
> a section which regularly is dedicated to "potshot" insults (insults
> without knowing or caring who the recipient is and whether or not
> the insulting comment is appropriate or deserved) as a form of humour?
> The editorial staff runs a feature where the writers *intentionally*
> behave as jerks?

God!, I agree. I get the sense that the people at TCJ are so disappointed
with the medium, it makes me question why they all work for the magazine.
I mean, write about something that doesn't continually let you down.

Matthew
http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/msdolbow

[patdo...@aol.com]

In article <fgraphic-260...@blv-pm105-ip19.halcyon.com>, fgra...@halcyon.com (The comics journal) writes:

>> Below, you talk about the pointlessness of the storyline and say DC
>> deserved to be slammed. Is this your magazine's editorial stance? It
>> seems to be in accord with the sentiment I got from the Superman blurb,
>> which was "Ho hum, another silly, over-hyped story from DC, as if we
>> care." That kind of sniping seems inappropriate from a supposedly
>> objective magazine.
>
>We believe that objectivity of that kind is a myth, Jason, just as the the
>view you propose when you say the story is big news is a subjective view.
>
>

And therein lies the real problem with the Journal. Once you believe
objectivity is a myth, it becomes open season on anything you dislike,
anywhere in the magazine, from the editorial page to the news reports.

Best, Pat

The words and opinions expressed are those of Patrick Daniel O'Neill and do not represent the opinions or policies of WIZARD: THE GUIDE TO COMICS.

[Pedro Dias]

Distribution:

The comics journal (fgra...@halcyon.com) wrote:

: In article <5hc601$2...@news.interlog.com>, dta...@gold.interlog.com
: (David Tallan) wrote:

: > Let me see if I'm understanding you correctly. The Comics Journal has

: > a section which regularly is dedicated to "potshot" insults (insults
: > without knowing or caring who the recipient is and whether or not
: > the insulting comment is appropriate or deserved) as a form of humour?
: > The editorial staff runs a feature where the writers *intentionally*
: > behave as jerks?

: No, we have a humor spread called Viva la Comix that has a great deal of

: jerk humor, which often rubs up against the people who are the targets.
: Sometimes the humor is more effective and to the point that it is at other
: times; that doesn't mean we're trying not to be funny when they're
: written.

: It's like what Pat Oliphant does, except he's a heck of a lot meaner: look

: at six weeks of his cartoon, sometimes. Or when Chris Buckley's submits a
: page to the New Yorker.

No, not really. The difference is that both of them take shots *up* the
power gradient. You take potshots at people below you on the comics
ladder(much as I don't understand it, you do have a standing in the comics
community at large)

: > Not only does my sense of humour run along different lines, so does

: > my sense of ethics. To each his own, I guess.

: I'm not sure how being a jerk is a violation of ethics, but, as you say,
: to each his own.

Taking a shot at people weaker than you and not in a position to retaliate
is the purest variety of evil. Not Big Evil, just little petty evil.
Still...

: Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

Actually, my only problem with TCJ is that their aesthetic purview is so
incredibly narrow they seem unable to enjoy anything but the same four or
five comics month-in, month-out. Mostly it's sort of sad. There's so much
fun stuff out there they seem oblivious to...
Not sad enough to make me spend $3.95 or whatever, but sad. :-)

[Moreno Roncucci]

Well, I don't like everything I find inside the covers of "The Comics
Journal".

But, tell me, there is another magazine about comics where I could
find that in-depth news, criticism, and interviews?

I heard someone say "wizard"? :-))))))

/\/\oreno.

(please remove NOSPAM from email address to write me.)
(per ottenere il mio vero indirizzo e-mail, togliete NOSPAM)

[bart]

In article <tommy-ya02358000...@news.global2000.net>,

to...@global2000.net (Tom Vincent) wrote:
>I will say this- I do NOT like the attitude which has prevailed at the
>Journal editorially for well over a decade, that is, comics suck, american
>comics suck more, and Marvel comics suck no matter what-

I'm not sure what you're talking about because the Comics Journal holds
none of these opinions.

-The Journal surely doesn't think "comics suck" because the majority of
their reviews are positive, even if we were to omit the Hit List reviews
which are all positive.

-The Journal doesn't think "American comics suck" since most of the
positive reviews that they run are for American comics. In the last issue
one of the few negatvie reviews was for an English translation of a Spanish
book (Prado's _Tangents_)

-The Journal certainly doesn't think that "Marvel comics suck no matter
what" since they have run positive reviews of Marvel comics in each of the
past two issues, including positive notices on Heroes Reborn and the
Essential Wolverine.

More importantly, the Journal doesn't really think anything. The Journal is
a collection of writers, many of whom vehemently disagree with each other.
There is no unifying voice that I've ever encountered.

>To take these steps and precautions, and then for a high profile magazine
>like the Journal have such a negative attitude towards comics as a whole
>pretty much undermines everything others (myself included) have spent years
>trying to accomplish: inviting people to take this form of media seriously
>for not only its entertainment value, but creative and artistic value as
>well.

I would say that the Journal is one of the only outlets in the
English-speaking world which takes comics seriously for their creative and
artistic value. For a long time they were probably the only one.

bart

[bart]

In article <E7oCp...@midway.uchicago.edu>,

jbfl...@midway.uchicago.edu (Jason Fliegel) wrote:
>Serious (nonrhetorical) question: Did/will TCJ do a real article/review on
>the Superman powers/costume change, why it happened, what motivated
>Jurgens and co. to shake things up like this, where they are going with
>the storyline, etc.

I really hope not. What would be the reason? This is a temporary storyline
development which DC marketing is trying to make more important (and
interesting) than it really is. Where's the substance? DC does this sort of
thing every year, often more than once a year. What's to report?

>This is big news, and while we all know it won't last
>more than a year (at the most), it IS a major change in the depiction of
>one of the most recognizable comic book characters.

But it's not big news. What does it affect? Mike Diana is big news because
his case has potentially wide-ranging repercussions, Diamond doings are big
news because their policies affect the day to day operations of publishers
and retailers, Marvel's reorganization could affect hundreds of jobs.
Superman's new costume affects no one really, except perhaps the
colorists...

>It was run as a drop quote, so in a way, it did appear by itself. Drop
>quotes should be able to retain their meaning without their context; to
>use a quote that has one meaning in context and another outside of that
>context is disingenuous.

I really think you're making far too much of this drop quote. Neither Seth
nor Groth has anything against Kirby, both praised the man in that very
interview! Groth has, from what I can tell, an enormous appreciation for
Kirby's talents and the Journal's coverage of Kirby at various points of
his life and death has always been tremendously respectful.

>Bottom line, of course, is I'll read what I want, and I don't
>care what anyone else thinks of it. Still, when someone says bad things
>about what I'm reading (or if I perceive them to be saying bad things
>about what I'm reading), I'm going to defend my choices.

As well you should. But in that defense it would be great if you had your
facts together and on the majority of points I don't think that you did.
You're incorrect about Groth's feelings about Kirby and the magazine's
critical stance towards Marvel and DC, for instance. When the Journal says
negative things about a comics at least they try to get the facts straight.

>I will also note that there were certain things I didn't see in TCJ:
>reviews of any books from DC or Marvel, interviews with any of their
>writers or artists, articles about any superhero comics.

There was a three page review of Marvel books on page 120 of the issue
you're complaining about. It was positive, btw.

>I really don't
>think I'm making things up out of whole cloth when I say TCJ has an
>editorial direction that excludes mainstream comic books.

Yes you are.

bart

[bart]

In article <E7nyE...@midway.uchicago.edu>,

jbfl...@midway.uchicago.edu (Jason Fliegel) wrote:
>my understanding was that up until the mid
>1980s, The Comics Journal recognized that some of DC & Marvel's Superhero
>output was good stuff, and that since then, The Comics Journal has stopped
>acknowledging that quality comics are published with the Marvel "M" or the
>DC Bullet.

This just isn't true. In the issue that we're discussing there were
positive reviews of DC and Marvel books (Industrial Gothic, and Marvel's
Essential reprint series). Almost every issue of the Journal has a positive
review of either a Marvel or a DC book.

bart

[IHCOYC XPICTOC]

: We believe that objectivity of that kind is a myth, Jason, just as the the

: view you propose when you say the story is big news is a subjective view.

Objectivity is not a "myth." It is an ideal. It may be a particularly
hard ideal to actually put into practice, and attempts to do so may be
subject to endless second-guessing. This in and of itself is not an
argument against holding it out to -be- an ideal.

The way I see it, for a magazine to call itself "The Comics Journal" and
be editorially hostile to superheroes, or to Marvel, DC, and Image,
presents rather the same paradox as if a magazine called itself "TV Guide"
but was editorially hostile to sitcoms, or to ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.

There isn't anything wrong with disliking superheroes. (For that matter,
I generally find nothing entertaining in network television.) I am
suspicious, though, of the pose of the aesthetic or literary hipster.
Smugness and superiority appear to be occupational hazards. The greatest
works in comics history, at least, the greatest works IMO, are full of an
atmosphere of innocent patriotism that probably strikes hipster attitudes
as naive. They might accept the historical examples as "quaint," while
maintaining a dismissive attitude towards those who work to carry on those
traditions today. Merely carrying on one's craft in a craftsmanlike
manner is anathema to vanguardists who are always looking for the next
boundary to be broken. This may work in other fields of artistic
endeavour, though I suspect it grows tiresome even there. But for those
interested in -comics-, it seems especially contrarian to me.

Because of this, I cannot help but feel that hipsters are -especially-
blinkered, and their avant-gardism -especially- destructive, when the
medium of comics is concerned. The largest problem is the conviction that
comics are something you "outgrow." Hipsterism is especially problematic
in a work of comics journalism, because it appears to agree in large
measure with the attitudes of those who dismiss all comics as a whole.

--
_______I'll_have_you_know_I_studied_mad_science_at_HARVARD,_you_oaf!______
IHCOYC XPICTOC http://members.iglou.com/gustavus gust...@iglou.com
+ Nisi titulum villae mihi des, ad viam ferream te alligabo! +
**** This message has been placed here by the Tijuana Bible Society ****

[David W. Stepp]

In article <E7prM...@iglou.com>,
gustavus.REMOVE....@iglou.com (IHCOYC XPICTOC) wrote:

(Big snip of Gus' defense of objectivism and TCJ)

To follow-up, the problem is not IMO that TCJ is anti-superhero. The
problem (for TCJ) is that being anti-superhero trivializes them. This is
not a problem for me because I had already decided TCJ was trivial. The
problem (the original point of this post) is that what is needed is a
solid comics source that is good for all fans. CBG has traditionally tried
to do this but has faltered in it's lack of embrace initially, of the
speculator craze, but of late, of anything. It still preaches a broad
message and I think has the right mindset to be the premiere comics
publication. It has the structure (aging though it is), the staff and the
connections. Wizard has long been, and continues to be, the representative
of the soup-of-the-day. It's narrow vision, in a sense, is as damning to
it as TCJs. If TCJ would whore itself as readily as Wizard, it would be
hard to distinguish the two in size. However, TCJ prefers to shun what
Wizard does and as a result, exiles itself into obscurity. We don't need
either of these options. We need something that is diverse, interactive,
accurate and current. CBG has the best chance of any of them of being
that. But it won't happen without support. Hence, the original call to
throw our weight behind it rather than spreading ourselves so thin that
comics mag that survives becomes a random process.

D.

[Arqueille]

patdo...@aol.com wrote:

>And therein lies the real problem with the Journal. Once you believe
>objectivity is a myth, it becomes open season on anything you dislike,
>anywhere in the magazine, from the editorial page to the news reports.

Some relevant points to make here: One, Gary Groth stated rather
explicitly that the Journal embraces "advocacy" journalism. This was
about fifteen years ago in an editorial about Marvel's obligation to
return
Jack Kirby his original artwork, but it was a clear and explicit statement

of intent on Groth's part, one that he never rescinded.

Two, most journalists regard objectivity as an unattainable ideal. I've
tried
to write an objective news story before and am convinced that it can't be
done.
Even a dry recitation of indisputible facts involves a screening process
of selectively deciding which of the thousands of facts involved is truly
relevant
or has a place in a ten-inch piece intended for publication.

I haven't read _Wizard_ lately, so maybe someone could enlighten me:
What's their objective coverage of the Mike Diana trial like?

--Bob Kennedy
Washington, DC

[David Tallan]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen (la...@trym.ifi.uio.no) wrote:
: dta...@gold.interlog.com (David Tallan) writes:
:

: > Let me see if I'm understanding you correctly. The Comics Journal has
: > a section which regularly is dedicated to "potshot" insults (insults
: > without knowing or caring who the recipient is and whether or not
: > the insulting comment is appropriate or deserved) as a form of humour?
:

: I thought you said that this heinous crime against humanity (i. e.,

: the bad joke) had made you "stop" reading the Journal? That would
: seem not to be entirely true, since one has to start reading something
: to stop reading something.

I think I said that after being made aware of the joke in question I
lost interest in purchasing the publication, not that I ceased
purchasing it. I'm really just getting into reading comics (again) and
collecting them (for the first time). I find that a lot of the comics
I read are of the more "alternative" (or "real" maintream) variety --
Palookaville, for example, and that may have evntually led me to
purchase the Journal on a more or less regular basis.

I don't think that there is anything wrong with bad jokes. I certainly
don't remember ever calling them "heinous crimes against humanity".
Perhaps you could remind me where I said that. I admit I do think
that "mean" (to use the word you use below) humour is wrong and I
try not to use it or support it. You have every right to believe
differently. I think that there is more than enough "meanness"
going around without our trying to add to it. You are entitled to
your different opinion. A mean joke is not a huge crime against
humanity but the world is not so black and white that everything
must be either one hundred percent ethically OK or a heinous crime
against humanity. Things can be a little bit bad. That's the
category I'd put mean jokes in and have put them in ever since I was
exposed to them as a kid by the bullies in the schoolyard. You are,
of course, entitled to a different opinion.
:
: The Journal has a two page humour section. In it they do jokes. Some

: are good, some are bad, but most are pretty mean. If you don't like

: that kind of thing, you don't have to buy it. Oops. I forgot. You
: never have.

That's exactly right. And I don't think it's a "heinous crime against
humanity" to suggest the consider rethinking their policy of publishing
jokes of which "most are pretty mean". It's not like there isn't
enough non-mean humour to go around.

Once again, that's just my opinion and you're entitled to yours.

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

dta...@gold.interlog.com (David Tallan) writes:

> You are entitled to your different opinion.

Thanks!

> That's exactly right. And I don't think it's a "heinous crime against
> humanity" to suggest the consider rethinking their policy of publishing
> jokes of which "most are pretty mean". It's not like there isn't
> enough non-mean humour to go around.

So now this isn't about questionable ethics any more?

Obviously, you're not a Journal reader, and you didn't grok the fact
that you were reading a joke feature. Fine. I find it bizarre that
this joke feature would dissuade you from buying the only serious
publication about comics published today. It's like not buying your
local newspaper because it runs "Cathy", and you find that strip
not very funny (as most sane people do). Or throwing out your TV
because the cable company carries MTV.

Many people don't like the Journal, and the most common reason they
don't like the Journal is because the Journal has standards. In an
industry where virtually everything produced is pubescent shit, that's
bound to be very unpopular. This hissy-fit about the joke feature is
just smoke and mirrors.

[WinningerR]

>>> Merely carrying on one's craft in a craftsmanlike
manner is anathema to vanguardists who are always looking for the next
boundary to be broken. This may work in other fields of artistic
endeavour, though I suspect it grows tiresome even there. But for those
interested in -comics-, it seems especially contrarian to me. <<<

I think the JOURNAL's big beef is that most of today's superhero creators
don't even "carry on one's craft in a craftsmanlike manner."

It looks like your post is predicated on the assumption that superhero
comics make up a vast majority of the "comics" scene and it is therefore
editorially irresponsible to publish a comics journal that ignores
superheroes. Unfortunately, this assumption is false. If you look at
comics as a global phenomenon (as the JOURNAL does), superheroes make up
only a small percentage of the annual output (they're almost exclusive to
the US). Even within the US, superheroes are a much smaller piece of the
comics pie than you might imagine -- "Dilbert" has far more readers than
even X-Men.

In any case, by this same argument, any textbook on cinematic technique is
guilty of gross negligence unless it includes a chapter on ACE VENTURA:
PET DETECTIVE, just as any review of contemporary American literature is
inadequate unless it devotes a whole section to Star Trek novels.

[C.]

On 27 Mar 1997 20:34:30 +0100, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
<la...@trym.ifi.uio.no> wrote:

>> You are entitled to your different opinion. (*)
>
>Thanks!

(* No matter how stupid)

>> That's exactly right. And I don't think it's a "heinous crime against
>> humanity" to suggest the consider rethinking their policy of publishing
>> jokes of which "most are pretty mean". It's not like there isn't
>> enough non-mean humour to go around.
>
>So now this isn't about questionable ethics any more?

Yeah, it still is. However, as David mentioned it's degrees of ethics.
I mean sure, they're not putting people into the showers in
concentration camps or anything, but they're still assholes.

>Obviously, you're not a Journal reader, and you didn't grok the fact
>that you were reading a joke feature. Fine. I find it bizarre that
>this joke feature would dissuade you from buying the only serious
>publication about comics published today. It's like not buying your
>local newspaper because it runs "Cathy", and you find that strip
>not very funny (as most sane people do). Or throwing out your TV
>because the cable company carries MTV.

BULLSHIT. People protest things all the time. International Telephone
& Telecomunication funds gorilla wars in south-american countries. I
don't support the local branch, which happens to be AT&T. Your analogy
is false and simplistic, because you're talking about disregarding the
medium because of certain faults in it. David isn't. David is still
very much a part of the medium, he just stays away from it. I think a
more correct analogy would be "that's like not reading the 'Cathy'
comic strip because it's anti-semetic". (*) He still reads the rest of
the paper, even the comics section just not 'Cathy'. However, to give
you a bit of leeway, it is a lot easier to make a point when your
analogies are false, so I understand where you're coming from.

(*) Note: The comic strip 'Cathy' is not, to the best of my knowledge,
anti-semetic. However, it does suck ass.

>Many people don't like the Journal, and the most common reason they
>don't like the Journal is because the Journal has standards. In an
>industry where virtually everything produced is pubescent shit, that's
>bound to be very unpopular. This hissy-fit about the joke feature is
>just smoke and mirrors.

The Journal is taking a stand against "pubescent shit" by running two
pages of jokes which are pubescent shit?

From all accounts it seems that the Journal is simply catering to a
different type of pubescent shithead...

C.

+I Can Be Contacted At....
+cr...@servtech.com
+http://www.servtech.com/public/cro2
+or lean out your window and scream.
+I'll hear.

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

cr...@servtech.com (C.) writes:

> Yeah, it still is. However, as David mentioned it's degrees of ethics.

"Degrees of ethics"?

> Your analogy is false and simplistic, because you're talking about
> disregarding the medium because of certain faults in it. David
> isn't. David is still very much a part of the medium, he just stays
> away from it.

I'm sure you think that that means something, but I sure can't work it
out.

> I think a more correct analogy would be "that's like not reading the
> 'Cathy' comic strip because it's anti-semetic". (*) He still reads
> the rest of the paper, even the comics section just not 'Cathy'.

No, he says he doesn't read the Journal because one feature carries
jokes he doesn't like.

This is, of course, *totally* unlike not reading the newspaper because
it carries one comic strip he doesn't like.

Duh.

> (*) Note: The comic strip 'Cathy' is not, to the best of my knowledge,
> anti-semetic.

Well, it's hard to say, because I have no idea what being
"anti-semetic" would be.

> The Journal is taking a stand against "pubescent shit" by running two
> pages of jokes which are pubescent shit?

No, the Journal does that on the other 118 pages published every
month.

Do try to read for content, dear.

[Geoffrey Dow]

Oh for Christ's sake, it's like an editorial cartoon (and a non-venomous
one at that)!

Geoff
scandalous (msdo...@midway.uchicago.edu) wrote:
: On 26 Mar 1997, David Tallan wrote:

: > The comics journal (fgra...@halcyon.com) wrote:
: > : That was in our Viva la Comix section, which as a feature is primarily

: > : dedicated to "jerk" humor. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. That
: > : was one of the stupider ones, I agree.

: >
: > Let me see if I'm understanding you correctly. The Comics Journal has
: > a section which regularly is dedicated to "potshot" insults (insults
: > without knowing or caring who the recipient is and whether or not
: > the insulting comment is appropriate or deserved) as a form of humour?

: > The editorial staff runs a feature where the writers *intentionally*
: > behave as jerks?

: God!, I agree. I get the sense that the people at TCJ are so disappointed

: with the medium, it makes me question why they all work for the magazine.
: I mean, write about something that doesn't continually let you down.

: Matthew
: http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/msdolbow

--

[The comics journal]

Hi, Tom:

In article <tygE7o...@netcom.com>, t...@netcom.com (Tom Galloway) wrote:

> And, frankly, that's one of the two major problems I have with the Journal.
> On the one hand, it tries to be equated with a critical journal by taking
> comics seriously, addressing and reviewing non-mainstream comics, and
> generally trying to portray comics as an artform worthy of thought and
> high level commentary.
>
> On the other hand, it just has to toss in features of sophmoric or worse
> humor which serve to severely undercut the first goal. And all too often,
> these come across as unwarranted personal attacks. Unwarranted in the sense
> that they clearly attack the person rather than their work, and that all too
> often, they just happen to match up against people Gary Groth is feuding
> with. Yes, I know the Journal has printed positive reviews of work by people
> Groth doesn't like and negative reviews of work by people he does, but
> there still is a strong impression created of various people being on
> Groth & Thompson's shit list and then getting a fair number of personal
> attacks made on them in the pages of the Journal.

I know the impression exists, but I don't think it's confirmed in reality.
I'm a real big fan of Chris Oliveros, and the most brutal Viva! thing
we've run in the last year was #192's excerpts from a interview he did.

> When the Journal sticks to the first goal, it's a very interesting and
> worthwhile publication which can raise a number of questions worth
> discussing and viewpoints worth debating. When, as it seems to do
> every issue or two, it lapses into the "humor", I find it devalues
> the first and since more often than not I happen to like the person
> being attacked I'm not willing to support the Journal by buying it on
> a regular basis.
>

> Right now, the Journal is a strange hybrid of a journal and a sophmoric
> fanzine. I'd strongly advise dropping the sophmoric fanzine elements,
> as they're weakening the primary goal of being a respected journal.

As a great number of our readers dearly love Viva la Comix!, as do the
pros that send us those under-the-table suggestions, and I think that
humor serves a function in the industry, I think I'll just try to make the
humor sections better and less sophomoric in the future. How's that?

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

[The comics journal]

In article <5hco22$f...@netnews.upenn.edu>, pd...@dept.english.upenn.edu
(Pedro Dias) wrote:

> No, not really. The difference is that both of them take shots *up* the
> power gradient. You take potshots at people below you on the comics
> ladder(much as I don't understand it, you do have a standing in the comics
> community at large)

I don't think editorial cartoonists or satirists limit themselves to
taking shots up the power gradient at all, and examples should spring
easily to everyone's mind. A lot of satirists ЛаLetterman, Stern, for
example Лаare incredibly well-off white men in a much securer position of
prestige and power than 98% of their targets.

> Taking a shot at people weaker than you and not in a position to retaliate
> is the purest variety of evil. Not Big Evil, just little petty evil.
> Still...

I'll run any letter from anyone who wants to call me and the Viva!
contributors evil bozos, and a lot of people respond elsewhere when they
think they've been mistreated. I thought more of you people were Garth
Ennis fans!

By the way, the point of the cartoon in question wasn't a pot shot, it was
a comment within the cartoon. It was poorly edited, and I've admitted as
such. I think that calling someone marginally talented in the course of
making a point is about as offensive as calling someone's actions evil.
Which is to say not very.

> Actually, my only problem with TCJ is that their aesthetic purview is so
> incredibly narrow they seem unable to enjoy anything but the same four or
> five comics month-in, month-out. Mostly it's sort of sad. There's so much
> fun stuff out there they seem oblivious to...

Now there's a challenge! I don't feel I'm oblivious to anything, and I
hereby challenge any magazine in the comics industry to provide a list of
coverage that touches our in breadth. As far as a narrow aesthetic
purvies, the hit list I just sent out ranges from a mini from a company
called "Doot Doot" to a 1000-page volume from The Library of America!

Tom Spurgeon
The Comics Journal

P.S. Л Seriously, though, if anyone feels we're missing something, feel
free to e-mail me directly. I'd love to hear about it.

[The comics journal]

In article
<Pine.GSO.3.95.970326...@woodlawn.uchicago.edu>,

scandalous <msdo...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:

> God!, I agree. I get the sense that the people at TCJ are so disappointed
> with the medium, it makes me question why they all work for the magazine.

Because we love comics. It's certainly not for the dough or, as you can
see, to make friends!

> I mean, write about something that doesn't continually let you down.

In my life experience, that would beŠ umŠ my two dearest friends and pizza.

Anyone want to pre-subscribe?

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

[The comics journal]

In article <dstepp-2703...@d558-1.phys.mcw.edu>,

I agree with your reading that we have in the past tended to marginalize
ourselves by failing to engage readers at the point that many fans of the
medium enter the form. In a way, TCJ's coverage has echoed that of comics
in that a lucky generation of us (those of us in our late-20s) seemingly
had "hot" comics that spoke to our interests for every stage of our lives:
I know that I went from Byrne/Claremont X-Men to Rude/Baron Nexus to
McCloud to Love and Rockets and Chester Brown as I moved through my teens.

I have tried to find ways to engage 90% of American output in our pages,
mostly by paying attention to what's going on in them (I read Marvel, DC
and Image output monthly, believe it or not) and by giving some of our
pages over to them (Ray Mescallado's column). But it's hard, and I haven't
been satisfied with the results any way I look at it. I've been thinking
about other ways to do it, including a new on-line version of Amazing
Heroes, but I'm not sure how. Oh well, that's probably more than you
wanted to hear.

I would say that I believe that our news coverage is across-the-board and
catholic, and that it's only critically I believe this difference exists,
so I disagree with you there.

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

>
> D.

[IHCOYC XPICTOC]

WinningerR (winni...@aol.com) wrote:

: >>> Merely carrying on one's craft in a craftsmanlike

: manner is anathema to vanguardists who are always looking for the next
: boundary to be broken. This may work in other fields of artistic
: endeavour, though I suspect it grows tiresome even there. But for those
: interested in -comics-, it seems especially contrarian to me. <<<

: I think the JOURNAL's big beef is that most of today's superhero creators
: don't even "carry on one's craft in a craftsmanlike manner."

Some may not be; I generally wouldn't read -them- myself. Others still
are, IMO.

FWIW, I would be happy to see more comics that were not superheroes, or at
least not superheroes strictly defined. If they were well written and
well drawn, I would read other sorts of heroic adventure comics as well:
jungle heroines, sword and sorcery, optimistic science fiction, perhaps
even a western. I would naturally prefer titles whose scripts present
positive ideals and are free from obliquity, and art that carries on the
great tradition started in the 1930's adventure strips, as modified by
Kirby, and that supports the story told clearly and without excessive
artsiness.

The problems with superheroes today are the result of yesterday's broken
boundaries. In the 1980s, traditional values about the heroes' characters
were tarnished, and the taboos against murder and excessive violence were
"challenged." In the 1990s, anatomy was "challenged" in an attempt to
infuse the violent books with visual excitement, leading to exaggerated
mannerisms in drawing styles. These resulting books fail to entertain me
as well, I cheerfully confess. I do not reject the concept of the
superhero itself on that account, howevermuch uninteresting -some- current
manifestations of the heroes are to me.

: It looks like your post is predicated on the assumption that superhero

: comics make up a vast majority of the "comics" scene and it is therefore
: editorially irresponsible to publish a comics journal that ignores
: superheroes.

They certainly make up a -significant- sector; percentages are going to
vary, natch, with what you first put into the pie, as well as how you cut
it. They moreover represent an important aspect of the -tradition- of
comics, even if you consider most contemporary superhero books to be
artistically decadent.

: In any case, by this same argument, any textbook on cinematic technique is

: guilty of gross negligence unless it includes a chapter on ACE VENTURA:
: PET DETECTIVE, just as any review of contemporary American literature is
: inadequate unless it devotes a whole section to Star Trek novels.

I generally avoid "cinema," and prefer movies myself; and movies are not
complete without car chases, gunplay, monsters, and explosions AFAIAC.
The chief difference seems to me, that more people voluntarily choose to
read Star Trek novels than the kinds of fiction that are noticed by the
New York Times book review.

And comics --- even the best of them --- are more akin to Star Trek novels
than the other thing. Which is not to say that comics, or for that matter
Star Trek novels, cannot be art. But the art has to come from -within-
the confines of a classical form. It's like rock and roll, another art
form that is bounded by classical forms. You can introduce twelve-tone
rows and perform on balalaikas, but there comes a point where you have to
conclude, that ain't rock and roll no more.

The artistry of comics, like the artistry of rock musicians, has to
develop within the tradition, rather than from trying to break out of the
confines that make it recognizable. As such it represents a true
-challenge- to creative minds, rather than the pointless novelties admired
by vanguardists. There are certain contemporary received ideas about art
that give some people problems in dealing with this, I know. But those
fixed ideas, that make vanguardism seem so obsessive/compulsive, are by no
means self-evident truths.

--
__________________________________________________________________________

IHCOYC XPICTOC http://members.iglou.com/gustavus gust...@iglou.com

+ Ecce domina qu‘ fidet omnis nitor aureus esse, et scalam in c‘los emit.+

[The comics journal]

In article <E7prM...@iglou.com>,
gustavus.REMOVE....@iglou.com (IHCOYC XPICTOC) wrote:

> : We believe that objectivity of that kind is a myth, Jason, just as the the

> : view you propose when you say the story is big news is a subjective view.
>

> Objectivity is not a "myth." It is an ideal. It may be a particularly
> hard ideal to actually put into practice, and attempts to do so may be
> subject to endless second-guessing. This in and of itself is not an
> argument against holding it out to -be- an ideal.

HmmmŠ well, I said that the kind of objectivity that Jason holds out as an
example is a myth. I think that I agree with you that you should seek to
remain
objective in reporting news, and all that.

> The way I see it, for a magazine to call itself "The Comics Journal" and
> be editorially hostile to superheroes, or to Marvel, DC, and Image,
> presents rather the same paradox as if a magazine called itself "TV Guide"
> but was editorially hostile to sitcoms, or to ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.

But we're not editorially hostile to superheroes. Some of our writers are
critically hostile to what they consider to be bad art, and as an
editorial staff we're more in favor of looking at the medium art-first,
and if this doesn't reflect well on superhero comics then we're sorry but
our aim is elsewhere. Trust me, I'm as familiar with superhero comics as I
am any other marketing designation.

> There isn't anything wrong with disliking superheroes. (For that matter,
> I generally find nothing entertaining in network television.) I am
> suspicious, though, of the pose of the aesthetic or literary hipster.
> Smugness and superiority appear to be occupational hazards. The greatest
> works in comics history, at least, the greatest works IMO, are full of an
> atmosphere of innocent patriotism that probably strikes hipster attitudes
> as naive. They might accept the historical examples as "quaint," while
> maintaining a dismissive attitude towards those who work to carry on those

> traditions today. Merely carrying on one's craft in a craftsmanlike

> manner is anathema to vanguardists who are always looking for the next
> boundary to be broken. This may work in other fields of artistic
> endeavour, though I suspect it grows tiresome even there. But for those
> interested in -comics-, it seems especially contrarian to me.

Having met most of our writers, I'd have to say as a group we are about as
hip as Huey Lewis. The only one that may be cool enough to talk his way
backstage at a club is Nick Hasted, but he's over in England.

I think we've shown a great appreciation for craft...

> Because of this, I cannot help but feel that hipsters are -especially-
> blinkered, and their avant-gardism -especially- destructive, when the
> medium of comics is concerned. The largest problem is the conviction that
> comics are something you "outgrow." Hipsterism is especially problematic
> in a work of comics journalism, because it appears to agree in large
> measure with the attitudes of those who dismiss all comics as a whole.

... as well as an appreciation for gentleman from Gil Kane to R. Crumb who
are putting together a lifetime of work.

I disagree with you that The Comics Journal's critical approach agrees
in large measure with the attitudes of those who dimiss all comics as a
whole, but mostly because our general critical approach agrees with a
large portion of American culture as a whole.

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

[The comics journal]

In article <19970327130...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
patdo...@aol.com wrote:

> In article <fgraphic-260...@blv-pm105-ip19.halcyon.com>,
fgra...@halcyon.com (The comics journal) writes:
>
> >> Below, you talk about the pointlessness of the storyline and say DC
> >> deserved to be slammed. Is this your magazine's editorial stance? It
> >> seems to be in accord with the sentiment I got from the Superman blurb,
> >> which was "Ho hum, another silly, over-hyped story from DC, as if we
> >> care." That kind of sniping seems inappropriate from a supposedly
> >> objective magazine.
> >

> >We believe that objectivity of that kind is a myth, Jason, just as the the
> >view you propose when you say the story is big news is a subjective view.
> >
> >
>

> And therein lies the real problem with the Journal. Once you believe
> objectivity is a myth, it becomes open season on anything you dislike,
> anywhere in the magazine, from the editorial page to the news reports.

Oh hush, Pat. There is just as much subjective reasoning that goes into
preparing a news column for Wizard and even the front pages of the local
paper as there is in anything in the Journal. Realizing that attempting to
remove all "points of view" from a news article is as much a point of view
as anything else is hardly "open season" on everything we dislike. And
that doesn't even begin to cover the decision-making process as to what to
cover, how much space to give it, where to put it in relation to other
news stories, whether or not to run art with it, and everything else that
affects the story's impact.

You can be rigorous and fair without being objective.

Hey, if the Journal was open season on everything I disliked, only one of
last issue's positive reviews would have been published. And if it were
open season on everything Gary hated, would two positive mentions of Peter
David had gotten in? Hardly.

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

[The comics journal]

In article <333b5d4b...@news.servtech.com>, cr...@servtech.com (C.) wrote:

> Yeah, it still is. However, as David mentioned it's degrees of ethics.
> I mean sure, they're not putting people into the showers in
> concentration camps or anything, but they're still assholes.

We're not Nazis, we're assholes! Sounds like next issue's motto to me.

I'd love for someone to hold my hand through the ethical violation here.

> (*) Note: The comic strip 'Cathy' is not, to the best of my knowledge,

> anti-semetic. However, it does suck ass.

Good Lord. This is better than calling someone marginally talented?

> The Journal is taking a stand against "pubescent shit" by running two
> pages of jokes which are pubescent shit?

No, we run 118-126 pages of advocacy news, critical reviews, international
features, and in-depth interviews as a stand against pubescent shit. And
pre- and post- pubescent shit, too.

The two pages of jokes ‹ sometimes more ‹ are meant to be satirical
commentary on the industry and medium. I think that satire serves a
purpose.

> From all accounts it seems that the Journal is simply catering to a
> different type of pubescent shithead...

Our readers are post-pubescent shitheads, if our Reader's Survey is an
indication. And we don't cater to anyone. Case in point: we're running a
cover feature on Tom Toles next issue ‹ years after his stint on X-Men!

That's a joke. Mr. Toles is an editorial cartoonist.

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

[The comics journal]

In article <fgraphic-280...@0.0.0.0>, fgra...@halcyon.com (The
comics journal) wrote:

> I disagree with you that The Comics Journal's critical approach agrees
> in large measure with the attitudes of those who dimiss all comics as a
> whole, but mostly because our general critical approach agrees with a
> large portion of American culture as a whole.

Disagrees.

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

[The comics journal]

In article <E7qpqy.99...@torfree.net>, cb...@torfree.net (Geoffrey
Dow) wrote:

> Oh for Christ's sake, it's like an editorial cartoon (and a non-venomous
> one at that)!
>

My thought exactly. And no one's said anything about our special
"all-positive" edition of Viva la Comix! in issue #193.

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

[The comics journal]

In article <E7otx...@midway.uchicago.edu>, jbfl...@midway.uchicago.edu
(Jason Fliegel) wrote:

> There's nothing wrong with TCJ deciding that mainstream comics are outside
> its purview. What I object to is TCJ claiming to be an objective magazine
> which focuses on alternative comics, yet attacking mainstream comics. If
> I read Tom Spurgeon's comments correctly, TCJ neither claims to be
> objective nor attacks "mainstream comics" (as a whole -- as opposed to
> individual mainstream comics).

You're right in that we don't claim to be an objective magazine
侠particularly in the sense that you seem to imply one should be
objective.

You're wrong in that we claim to be a magazine whose focus has anything to
do with the tags mainstream and alternative, except as a consequence of
its approach.

We also, IMO, really don't attack anyone, except as the occasional
satirical commentary can be seen as an attack.

> This is contrary to the impression I got
> from my reading of the magazine, but I'm the first to admit that my
> reading was very cursory.
> At this point, I'm shutting up until the next issue of TCJ comes out. At
> that point, I'll buy the thing, read it cover to cover, and speak up
> again. I still think Starlin's Warlock stuff was better than Kirby's
> X-Men, though.

I'd rather look at _anything_ Kirby ever drew than even the best thing
Starlin worked on. Which was probably that serialized thing he did in Epic
with the thinly-veiled "war is bad" message. The "Dreadstar" prequel.

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

[The comics journal]

In article <E7rHB...@iglou.com>,
gustavus.REMOVE....@iglou.com (IHCOYC XPICTOC) wrote:

> The chief difference seems to me, that more people voluntarily choose to
> read Star Trek novels than the kinds of fiction that are noticed by the
> New York Times book review.

More phaser battles, too.

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

[C.]

On Thu, 27 Mar 1997 13:37:45 -0500, dst...@post.its.mcw.edu (David W.
Stepp) wrote:
>We need something that is diverse, interactive,
>accurate and current. CBG has the best chance of any of them of being
>that. But it won't happen without support. Hence, the original call to
>throw our weight behind it rather than spreading ourselves so thin that
>comics mag that survives becomes a random process.

See, I thought Overstreet's Fan was pretty good. Sure, it was
"Wizard-y" at points, but they also did some good small-press, indy,
and Manga stuff almost consistantly. I never saw TOO much blatent
ass-kissing either. I dunno, I thought it was a good, all around
magazine.

So of course they went broke.

[The comics journal]

In article <333e0649...@news.servtech.com>, cr...@servtech.com (C.) wrote:

> Well, David used the Journal "joke" section as being indicative of the
> general tone of the publication. David doesn't read the Journal
> because he dislikes the general tone of the paper, and offered up a
> specific example of this. The other examples presented in the original
> message, such as in-accurate pull-quotes, Groth's duplicity and
> hypocriscy (not even touching the Eros stuff), etc, David pretty much
> agreed in principal to in the first couple of lines of his message.

No one here's made the Eros argument, and if David is agreeing with the
original criticisms then he is as wrong-headed as the original poster was.

> Therefore, instead of rushing to defend the paper, go back, and read
> what David is saying. David does not like the Journal. Here is reason
> A, B, C, D, E, and F, being the unfunny jokes section.

David's also said that he lost interest in reading the magazine after
reading that specific joke. Not the "inaccurate pull-quotes," or other
choices A-E.

> Actually, David seemed to object to the whole section, nevermind the
> general tone of obnoxiousness and self-importance.

We're sometimes obnoxious, and really not that self-important. It's hard
to be self-important when your college classmates are buying homes and
you're walking to work to save on gas money. It _is_ funnybooks, after
all.

>Why by a newspaper
> when you hate the whole entertainment section, and you can get the
> news off the Interent for free?

If you really feel that way, there is no reason for you to buy the
magazine. Particularly if you feel you're getting the news on the
Internet.

> >No, the Journal does that on the other 118 pages published every
> >month.
>

> Oh! So it's a ratio thing. If I wanted, I could go drag up some
> pubescent shit _articles_ for you, bring the total up to maybe 10
> pages of pubescent shit. Would that be enough? Obviously not, you
> strike me as a bit of a zombie for the Journal. Hmm. How about this?

If he's a zombie, please tell him to drop his brain-eating self by the
home office and clean our darkroom.

> Any magazine that goes out of it's way to attack creators on a
> consistant basis, whether in "fun" or as a "serious" "critisism" is
> nothing but pubescent.

We don't go out of our way to do anything ‹ we're too busy. Nor do we
attack people on a consistent basis. I think it's much closer to the truth
to say we don't "attack" anyone at all unless you define certain kinds of
humor, satire and criticism of work as attacks. As we've seen in the
thread-starter, some people do.

> There's nothing wrong with commentary, or
> reviews, or even serious critisism (as opposed to "serious"
> "critisism"), but if your magazine has a bare minimum of 2 pages a
> month dedicated to attacking people, well, I mean, why pretend that
> you're a serious publication? They're just Wizard on another extreme.

We don't have a two-page spread dedicated to attacking people two pages a
month. We have a two-page spread dedicated to humor, and some of that
humor can admittedly get a little rough. Sometimes we run satirical
features: three since I've been here. I think satire has a purpose both in
general and certainly in the context of the comics industry. Most major
newspapers, and magazines like the New Yorker, agree with me on the former
statement.

I do, however, think that in many ways we're the extreme opposite of
Wizard. Pay rate, for one.

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

[The comics journal]

> You're wrong in that we claim to be a magazine whose focus has anything to
> do with the tags mainstream and alternative, except as a consequence of
> its approach.

"nothing to do"

I suck today.

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

[David W. Stepp]

In article <fgraphic-280...@0.0.0.0>, fgra...@halcyon.com (The
comics journal) wrote:

I've been thinking
> about other ways to do it, including a new on-line version of Amazing
> Heroes, but I'm not sure how. Oh well, that's probably more than you
> wanted to hear.

How serious is this? I am currently discussing this with several of the
cognoscenti of the GCD re: an online fanzine. There interests and mine are
pretty focal and probably don't merit an entire web space. My interest is
in tracking character appearances of the major and forming best fit
biographies of those characters. Their interest is largely in older
independents (I mean like Quality) and they have interest in tracking
older art forms. Others have lists of certain artists which could make for
interesting articles. Also, a reliable way to get Diamond's sales numbers
every month (i.e. like Matt High's site) and some interpretation of those
numbers (i.e. check out the trends of suer-hero comics I like at)

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/6680/SALESFIG.html

I think that's it. Sprinkle all this with some opinion peices, editorials,
etc and you could have a decent online rag. Someone needs to do this badly
and so far none of the likely options sound good. This rung a bell because
when you mentioned Amazing Heroes, it reminded me of the effort. Amazing
Heroes is probably the biggest loss in comics Fanzines in my history of
the hobby. Anyway, It's worth considering.

D.

[C.]

On 28 Mar 1997 09:03:45 +0100, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
<la...@trym.ifi.uio.no> wrote:

>> Yeah, it still is. However, as David mentioned it's degrees of ethics.
>

>"Degrees of ethics"?

Please be a dear and tell me that your ethics are exactly the same as
someone else's, or that your ethics are any better than anyone elses,
so I have a reason to flame you. However, until you do, that's what I
meant by "degrees" of ethics. David draws his line in the sand at,
obviously, a different place than you.

>I'm sure you think that that means something, but I sure can't work it
>out.

I forgot two words. "David is still very much a part of the medium, he
just stays away from (certain parts) of it." He isn't giving up the
medium, he's giving up publications in the medium.

>> I think a more correct analogy would be "that's like not reading the
>> 'Cathy' comic strip because it's anti-semetic". (*) He still reads
>> the rest of the paper, even the comics section just not 'Cathy'.
>
>No, he says he doesn't read the Journal because one feature carries
>jokes he doesn't like.

Well, David used the Journal "joke" section as being indicative of the

general tone of the publication. David doesn't read the Journal
because he dislikes the general tone of the paper, and offered up a
specific example of this. The other examples presented in the original
message, such as in-accurate pull-quotes, Groth's duplicity and
hypocriscy (not even touching the Eros stuff), etc, David pretty much
agreed in principal to in the first couple of lines of his message.

Therefore, instead of rushing to defend the paper, go back, and read

what David is saying. David does not like the Journal. Here is reason
A, B, C, D, E, and F, being the unfunny jokes section.

>This is, of course, *totally* unlike not reading the newspaper because

>it carries one comic strip he doesn't like.
>
>Duh.

Actually, David seemed to object to the whole section, nevermind the
general tone of obnoxiousness and self-importance. Why by a newspaper

when you hate the whole entertainment section, and you can get the
news off the Interent for free?

>> The Journal is taking a stand against "pubescent shit" by running two

>> pages of jokes which are pubescent shit?
>

>No, the Journal does that on the other 118 pages published every
>month.

Oh! So it's a ratio thing. If I wanted, I could go drag up some
pubescent shit _articles_ for you, bring the total up to maybe 10
pages of pubescent shit. Would that be enough? Obviously not, you
strike me as a bit of a zombie for the Journal. Hmm. How about this?

Any magazine that goes out of it's way to attack creators on a

consistant basis, whether in "fun" or as a "serious" "critisism" is

nothing but pubescent. There's nothing wrong with commentary, or

reviews, or even serious critisism (as opposed to "serious"
"critisism"), but if your magazine has a bare minimum of 2 pages a
month dedicated to attacking people, well, I mean, why pretend that
you're a serious publication? They're just Wizard on another extreme.

C.

>Do try to read for content, dear.

No. I'm trying not to read things that drag me into pointless
arguments with zombies...

Oh wait...

shucks. Did it again.

[Lee Randall]

In <fgraphic-280...@blv-pm105-ip9.halcyon.com>

fgra...@halcyon.com (The comics journal) writes:

>My thought exactly. And no one's said anything about our special
>"all-positive" edition of Viva la Comix! in issue #193.

That's because no one knew what to think!

Bill
(on Lee's account)

[Denise L. Voskuil]

In article <fgraphic-280...@blv-pm105-ip9.halcyon.com>,
fgra...@halcyon.com says...

>And no one's said anything about our special
>"all-positive" edition of Viva la Comix! in issue #193.

I couldn't figure out if you were being sarcastic or not. :)

- Denise

--
Denise L. Voskuil - dvoskuil@: uic.edu/mcs.com/eden.com
**Please remove the _delete_ in my address to reply via E-mail;
I'm sick of spammers grabbing my address off of Usenet.**
I'm too low in the hierarchy here to officially even
*have* an opinion.

[Bill Spencer]

Pedro Dias wrote:

> Actually, my only problem with TCJ is that their aesthetic purview is so
> incredibly narrow they seem unable to enjoy anything but the same four or
> five comics month-in, month-out. Mostly it's sort of sad. There's so much
> fun stuff out there they seem oblivious to...

My impression is that they have no understanding of the importance
of "suspension of desbelief" in reading a story. *Any* story can be
bad if you're critical enough (i.e. anything not by Fantagraphics).

It's been years since I looked at it.

Bill

[Tom Galloway]

In article <fgraphic-280...@blv-pm105-ip9.halcyon.com> fgra...@halcyon.com (The comics journal) writes:
>We don't go out of our way to do anything ‹ we're too busy. Nor do we
>attack people on a consistent basis. I think it's much closer to the truth
>to say we don't "attack" anyone at all unless you define certain kinds of
>humor, satire and criticism of work as attacks. As we've seen in the
>thread-starter, some people do.

Sorry, but I have to disagree with this one. As mentioned, I've gotten
the impression that the Journal does fairly often attack people, rather
than work. Or, if it attacks work by certain people, it does so in terms
of attacking work that otherwise wouldn't be covered by the Journal.

But to say the Journal doesn't attack people is to me a pretty clear
redefinition of the work attack. I'll pull two examples out of my memory,
both if I recall correctly by Gary Groth. One was the forged Peter David
letter which was sent to the Journal and resulted in a long tirade which
certainly attacked Peter all over the place, and as I recall even went
way beyond anything from the letter itself. While a retraction was made
in the following issue after the letter was shown to be a forgery, the
retraction was very specific in its limitations, and suddenly had
"the editors" referenced instead of Groth.

The other was the piece on Carol Kalish after her sudden and unexpected
death. It was a major attack on her and, frankly, her friends and family
who were still alive, and effectively attacked them for mourning her.

Admittedly, these are pretty extreme instances and don't pop up every issue.
But they do often enough to create an impression of mean-spiritness and
the feeling that if Groth & Thompson don't like you, there will be personal
slams directed at you. Similarly, with Harlan Ellison it seems clear to
me (and I'll admit to being a friend of Harlan's) that it seems since
Groth started feuding with him there's been a lot more coverage of Harlan
himself than Harlan and any comics projects he's been working on, and said
coverage is pretty consistently negative.

I do think there's a place for satire. I would've loved to have seen
**n* *n*o (I believe Tom will know what I'm refering to here from a mailing
list we're both on, but the writer of it has requested some degree of privacy
about this specific thing) in the Journal as it was both hysterical and
a general satire of the industry. But it also didn't seem mean-spirited
in terms of someone having a personal grudge against the individuals
whose work was satirized.

tyg t...@netcom.com

[The comics journal]

In article <dstepp-2803...@d558-1.phys.mcw.edu>,

dst...@post.its.mcw.edu (David W. Stepp) wrote:

Well, if I can stand it from a workload standpoint, we're going to launch
an on-line version of the magazine called "TCJ On-Line" by summer. I
thought about launching a smaller version under the Amazing Heroes imprint
at the same time.

So I guess I am pretty serious.

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

> D.

[Scott Dutton]

Y'know -

I'm all for the free flow of ideas, an' all that junk, but it kind of
flabbergasts me that people will spend thousands of words on saying that
something really sucks, rather than just exercising their right to just
not buy it if it offends them so.

And Tom, m'boy, I'm sure you'd rather just work on the latest issue of
TCJ, making sure that informative rag stays (somewhat) on schedule.

Damn the torpedoes! Publish young man!

Scott Dutton
Three & the Historical Society
The Big Mini-Comics List (former keeper)
The Global Gazette
United Fanzine Organization

[David Tallan]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen (la...@trym.ifi.uio.no) wrote:

: > That's exactly right. And I don't think it's a "heinous crime against
: > humanity" to suggest the consider rethinking their policy of publishing
: > jokes of which "most are pretty mean". It's not like there isn't
: > enough non-mean humour to go around.
:
: So now this isn't about questionable ethics any more?

Sure it is. It's about the ethics of posting jokes "most of which
are pretty mean" specifically without regard to whether the people
at whose expense the jokes are told deserve to be the targets of
"mean" humour. Ethics (to me) is about right and wrong and my
ethics tell me that being mean is wrong.

Occasionally it can be right to tell "mean" jokes. If people in
power are abusing that power, satire can be a powerful weapon against
such abuses. That wasn't the case in the joke I was referring to.
Someone else, whom I believe has seen more of the Journal than I,
seemed to suggest that most of the jokes are aimed at the less
powerful rather than the more powerful. I think that's questionable
ethics, if it's true. Of course, different people have different
ethical beliefs. The people made fun of in the joke I know best
from the journal were not major industry professionals puffed
up with pride needing to have their pomposity punctured. Rather
what I saw was people trying to pick themselves off the ground
getting kicked in the face.

: Obviously, you're not a Journal reader, and you didn't grok the fact
: that you were reading a joke feature. Fine. I find it bizarre that
: this joke feature would dissuade you from buying the only serious
: publication about comics published today. It's like not buying your
: local newspaper because it runs "Cathy", and you find that strip
: not very funny (as most sane people do). Or throwing out your TV
: because the cable company carries MTV.

It wasn't a question of the joke not being funny, as I thought
I said in a previous message, it was a question of the joke
being "pretty mean". I generally don't think being mean is a good
thing, especially being mean to those less powerful, and don't
like to support it.

Lets say that my local newspaper had a joke of the day feature
that commonly told jokes that were antisemitic or homophobic.
Such jokes would not be heinous crimes against humanity but I
might very well decide not to continue buying the paper and get
my news from other sources, even if the jokes were funny. Note:
I'm not saying that the humour in the Journal is racist, homophobic,
or antisemitic. But it was you that told me that they are generally
pretty mean. I have no problem with the Journal having a humour
section. God knows, we need as much humour as we can get. I do
have a problem with the Journal being mean spirited in their
humour section (which you tell me is generally the case) and
with that humour being used to target the less powerful (which
someone else tells me is generally the case). I think there
is too much mean-spiritedness and picking on the weaker in this
world. That's why we need more humour. Humour shouldn't add to
the problem.

These are just my opinions. I'm not organizing a boycott here.
I haven't told anyone to stop buying the Journal. In a thread
about what is good and bad about the Journal I mention something
that made me less inclined to buy the publication. I admit that
it was, in part, because I know that at least one Journal editor
reads this forum and I was hoping that it might cause him to
pause before publishing thoughtless insults in the future
(thoughtful insults, backed with reasons, I have much less problem
with).

: Many people don't like the Journal, and the most common reason they
: don't like the Journal is because the Journal has standards. In an
: industry where virtually everything produced is pubescent shit, that's
: bound to be very unpopular. This hissy-fit about the joke feature is
: just smoke and mirrors.

If you think that I raised the issue because I'm really a big
Liefield fan and they've been knocking my hero, you are mistaken.
I am *glad* the Journal has standards. Standards are a *good* thing.
Like some of the other posters in this thread, I wish they were
applied to the joke section. Jokes are rarely taken seriously by
the people who tell them ("It was only a joke"). Something I learned
many years ago is that generally they are noticed by the people
who are the butts of the jokes (my friends in this case). So I
think it behooves people who publish that type of joke to ensure
that the targets are deserving targets. That's just my opinion and
if you and/or the Journal editorial staff want to disagree with
my opinion, that's your right. But if you challenge it publicly, I'll
defend it.

--
Respectfully,
David Tallan
dta...@interlog.com

[David Tallan]

The comics journal (fgra...@halcyon.com) wrote:

> In article <333e0649...@news.servtech.com>,
> cr...@servtech.com (C.) wrote:

> > Well, David used the Journal "joke" section as being indicative of the
> > general tone of the publication. David doesn't read the Journal
> > because he dislikes the general tone of the paper, and offered up a
> > specific example of this. The other examples presented in the original
> > message, such as in-accurate pull-quotes, Groth's duplicity and
> > hypocriscy (not even touching the Eros stuff), etc, David pretty much
> > agreed in principal to in the first couple of lines of his message.

> No one here's made the Eros argument, and if David is agreeing with the
> original criticisms then he is as wrong-headed as the original poster was.

I don't believe I ever mentioned Eros or Groth or Superman's new
costume or Dilbert or most of what the original poster said, so to
assume (as the "enigmatic C" seems to (judging by the attributions
above), that I've agreed in principle is, I believe, an unwarranted
leap. I originally said that a particular photo and caption seemed
to be bad criticism. After it was explained that the photo and caption
were a joke, I said that the joke seemed to me to be (in the words
of a defender) "mean" and suggested that the Journal should consider
printing humour that wasn't "mean" (and that the "meanness" was
unwarranted). I didn't complain about the quality of the joke. In
fact, several times I said that the quality of the joke wasn't at
issue. Jokes can be mean and funny or non-mean and unfunny. I just
don't think jokes should be mean unless the target is deserving (as
is the case in good satire).In my opinion.

> > Therefore, instead of rushing to defend the paper, go back, and read
> > what David is saying. David does not like the Journal. Here is reason
> > A, B, C, D, E, and F, being the unfunny jokes section.

> David's also said that he lost interest in reading the magazine after
> reading that specific joke. Not the "inaccurate pull-quotes," or other
> choices A-E.

The inaccurate pull quotes, etc. didn't bother me. I hadn't read them.
It was that joke (and what it seemed to imply about a journal that
would print it).

> > Actually, David seemed to object to the whole section, nevermind the
> > general tone of obnoxiousness and self-importance.

> We're sometimes obnoxious, and really not that self-important. It's hard
> to be self-important when your college classmates are buying homes and
> you're walking to work to save on gas money. It _is_ funnybooks, after
> all.

I objected to the whole section after being told it was a "jerk" section.
I think that people should at least try not to be "jerks" (or mean, as
someone else described it) and that there are better ways to be funny.

Since people are discussing my opinions, I thought i'd better
clarify what they were. I'll take this opportunity to apologize
that my writing was sufficiently unclear as to allow them to be
misinterpreted. Heaven knows there is enough disagreement with
what I said. Let's limit what I have to defend to that.

[Arqueille]

>Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

Did you buy back the _Amazing Heroes_ name, or did it just lapse into
public domain through lack of use?

> D.
-----------------------------
Bob Kennedy
Washington, DC
"'Stupid?' HA! I don't know the meaning of the word!"

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

cr...@servtech.com (C.) writes:

> Please be a dear and tell me that your ethics are exactly the same as
> someone else's, or that your ethics are any better than anyone elses,
> so I have a reason to flame you. However, until you do, that's what I
> meant by "degrees" of ethics.

I think the word you're looking for is "relative". HTH.

> Well, David used the Journal "joke" section as being indicative of the
> general tone of the publication. David doesn't read the Journal
> because he dislikes the general tone of the paper, and offered up a
> specific example of this. The other examples presented in the original
> message, such as in-accurate pull-quotes, Groth's duplicity and
> hypocriscy (not even touching the Eros stuff), etc, David pretty much
> agreed in principal to in the first couple of lines of his message.

No, he didn't.

Look, David is obviously someone who is eminently capable of defending
his own statements. Putting forth your own muddled agenda here
doesn't help much.

> >Do try to read for content, dear.
>
> No. I'm trying not to read things that drag me into pointless
> arguments with zombies...
>
> Oh wait...
>
> shucks. Did it again.

And such *biting* wit, too.

--
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
la...@ifi.uio.no * Lars Ingebrigtsen

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

dta...@gold.interlog.com (David Tallan) writes:

> Sure it is. It's about the ethics of posting jokes "most of which
> are pretty mean" specifically without regard to whether the people
> at whose expense the jokes are told deserve to be the targets of
> "mean" humour. Ethics (to me) is about right and wrong and my
> ethics tell me that being mean is wrong.
>
> Occasionally it can be right to tell "mean" jokes. If people in
> power are abusing that power, satire can be a powerful weapon against
> such abuses. That wasn't the case in the joke I was referring to.
> Someone else, whom I believe has seen more of the Journal than I,
> seemed to suggest that most of the jokes are aimed at the less
> powerful rather than the more powerful. I think that's questionable
> ethics, if it's true. Of course, different people have different
> ethical beliefs. The people made fun of in the joke I know best
> from the journal were not major industry professionals puffed
> up with pride needing to have their pomposity punctured. Rather
> what I saw was people trying to pick themselves off the ground
> getting kicked in the face.

Ok, I now understand what you were objecting to. I'm sorry for
misreading you.

> I do have a problem with the Journal being mean spirited in their
> humour section (which you tell me is generally the case) and with
> that humour being used to target the less powerful (which someone
> else tells me is generally the case).

If indeed this was the case, you would definitely have a valid point.

Let me clarify what I meant by "mean". The –iva la Comix! is usually
mostly a collection of (often uncommented) quotes from industry
professionals. (For instance, "We're doing Chayefsky --
dramatically..." -- Spider-Man cartoon producer John Semper on his TV
show.) Along with these, there's a topical editorial cartoon, a
"swipe file", and various other satirical stuff. This isn't Garfield
humor, to put it that way.

The feature does absolutely not target the less powerful specifically.
The people poked must fun at are people from Image/Marvel/DC, but it
seems like everybody is covered.

> If you think that I raised the issue because I'm really a big
> Liefield fan and they've been knocking my hero, you are mistaken.

That is indeed what I was thinking. Sorry for jumping the gun.

Your dismissal of the Journal still seems premature to me.

[C.]

On Fri, 28 Mar 1997 08:53:22 -0800, fgra...@halcyon.com (The comics
journal) wrote:

>In article <333b5d4b...@news.servtech.com>, cr...@servtech.com (C.) wrote:
>
>> Yeah, it still is. However, as David mentioned it's degrees of ethics.

>> I mean sure, they're not putting people into the showers in
>> concentration camps or anything, but they're still assholes.
>
>We're not Nazis, we're assholes! Sounds like next issue's motto to me.
>I'd love for someone to hold my hand through the ethical violation here.

Shall I walk you through it? Sigh. Getting back to the semi-original
poster, David thought/thinks that mean humour is useless, has no real
place, and is unethical. There. Maybe doing what you do doesn't
violate your own personal ethics/morals, but if David was in your
place it would.

And if that quote could make the next cover, I'd be very happy.

>> (*) Note: The comic strip 'Cathy' is not, to the best of my knowledge,
>> anti-semetic. However, it does suck ass.
>
>Good Lord. This is better than calling someone marginally talented?

No. It's a pubescent pot-shot. Just because I stuck up for David, whom
I think was being mis-understood doesn't mean I agree with him. Mean
humour has it's place. Personally, a newsmagazine shouldn't be that.
Usenet most certainly is.

>> The Journal is taking a stand against "pubescent shit" by running two
>> pages of jokes which are pubescent shit?
>

>No, we run 118-126 pages of advocacy news, critical reviews, international
>features, and in-depth interviews as a stand against pubescent shit. And
>pre- and post- pubescent shit, too.

There ya go. Although I can't nail you on the pubescent shit comment
(it isn't your quote), it is rather hypocrtical to wail on fanboys and
pre-pubescent comics when you're all fanboys who do pubescent
"editorial cartoons". No matter the ratio.

>The two pages of jokes ‹ sometimes more ‹ are meant to be satirical
>commentary on the industry and medium. I think that satire serves a
>purpose.

Well, aside from pissing off people I think it also displays a real
lack of how satire and editorial cartoons actually _work_. Dictionary
definitions aside, what exactly is "Marginally talented Canadian
Creators" satirizing? What kind of point were you trying to make with
the that editorial cartoon...? Heh. It serves to illustrate perhaps
that the marginally talented, or marginally _bright_ people are
writing and editing that section...

>Our readers are post-pubescent shitheads, if our Reader's Survey is an
>indication. And we don't cater to anyone. Case in point: we're running a
>cover feature on Tom Toles next issue ‹ years after his stint on X-Men!
>
>That's a joke. Mr. Toles is an editorial cartoonist.
>
>Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

Sorry, you've just convinced me. TCJ is just Wizard all over. Wizard
attracts people by doing cool Chromium Cards, you attract them by
belittling others. Neither of you are any worse, to be honest...

[The comics journal]

In article <333C6C...@rising-edge.com>, Bill Spencer
<bspe...@rising-edge.com> wrote:

As a group, suspension of disbelief we have no problem with. In the
strictest sense, most of our critics have written favorably about some
fantasy comic sometime in their critical careers.

I'm sure that any story could be criticized if standards are at a certain
point, but that doesn't really reflect either my understanding of our
writers or the evidence of tons of postive reviews in the magazine.

And the implication that there's some sort of coddling of FBI product
isn't supported by the facts, by the way. But of course, as you tell us,

> It's been years since I looked at it.

Tom Spurgeon
The Comics Journal

[The comics journal]

In article <5hheqb$13f6$1...@piglet.cc.uic.edu>, dvoskuil@_delete_uic.edu
(Denise L. Voskuil) wrote:

> In article <fgraphic-280...@blv-pm105-ip9.halcyon.com>,
> fgra...@halcyon.com says...
> >And no one's said anything about our special
> >"all-positive" edition of Viva la Comix! in issue #193.
>
> I couldn't figure out if you were being sarcastic or not. :)

I thought it would be funnier and more unsettling if I were actually sincere.

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

[The comics journal]

In article
<Pine.A32.3.93.970328...@srv1.freenet.calgary.ab.ca>,
Scott Dutton <dut...@freenet.calgary.ab.ca> wrote:

> Y'know -
>
> I'm all for the free flow of ideas, an' all that junk, but it kind of
> flabbergasts me that people will spend thousands of words on saying that
> something really sucks, rather than just exercising their right to just
> not buy it if it offends them so.

Actually, I'd say the overwhelming majority of comics fans exercises that
right every single month.

> And Tom, m'boy,

Is that you, Gil?

> I'm sure you'd rather just work on the latest issue of
> TCJ, making sure that informative rag stays (somewhat) on schedule.

Well, we're staying on schedule about a month behind right now, which we
should make up in May. The holidays were a bigger bitch than usual this
year.

But that's the art department! I'm actually working ahead. We thought at
one point about getting the massive issue #200 out for San Diego, but
after my art director actually cried in my presence at the thought, we're
going to release it in September. The San Diego issue will probably be
Milo Manara/Hunt Emerson, although it might be the writer's issue.

> Damn the torpedoes! Publish young man!

Aye aye, sir.

Hey, does that mean I have to go down with the ship?

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

[Tom Vincent]

In article <AF600D0E9...@198.168.189.23>, bbe...@po-box.mcgill.ca
(bart) wrote:

>In article <tommy-ya02358000...@news.global2000.net>,
>to...@global2000.net (Tom Vincent) wrote:
>>I will say this- I do NOT like the attitude which has prevailed at the
>>Journal editorially for well over a decade, that is, comics suck, american
>>comics suck more, and Marvel comics suck no matter what-
>
>I'm not sure what you're talking about because the Comics Journal holds
>none of these opinions.
>
>-The Journal surely doesn't think "comics suck" because the majority of
>their reviews are positive, even if we were to omit the Hit List reviews
>which are all positive.

Back in the mid-late 80's. I was on the Fantagraphics comp. list. I guess
at the time most freelancers doing substantial volumes of work were on it,
I don't know .(It was a laudible thing to do, BTW)

Anyway, I'd get comp copies of both the Journal and Amazing Heroes. I found
the dichotomy of the two interesting- AH often had a kind of "fanboy"
quality to it, while TCJ had a much more critical approach. Often a bit too
critical to my thinking, but what the hell? (To keep this in perspective, I
had not yet done any work for Marvel at this point- my bread and butter was
the old Comico, back when they were in Norristown PA and Diana Schutz was
editing stuff like Mage, Grendel, Fish Police and Elementals )

What struck me was the percentage of Fantagraphics material getting
reviewed in TCJ (better than half of the reviews, it seems), and how other
comics would find themselves compared to the "superior" Fantagraphics
output ( i.e. "xyz comic makes a lame attempt at cutting edge artwork and
wry humor, something that [Fantagraphics published comic] does much
better."

Consequently, when I got notice from Fantagraphis that they had to
discontinue sending out comp. copies industrywide to comics professionals,
I had no burning desire to pay to subscribe. Why pay for someone's self
promotion? It's like paying for a t shirt with a corporate logo on it- "
You mean you want *me* to pay for the privilege of being a walking
billboard for Nike? Bwahahaha!"

>-The Journal doesn't think "American comics suck" since most of the
>positive reviews that they run are for American comics. In the last issue
>one of the few negatvie reviews was for an English translation of a Spanish
>book (Prado's _Tangents_)

Okay. I'll admit to not having read the last issue, so I'll accept your
statement. Over the past ten years or so, I've read very few. It depends on
the content: I buy when Crumb is featured or interviewed; I think you did a
bit on Basil Wolverton a few years back; same with Robert Williams and Joe
Coleman (let me add here, Fantagraphics shoud be lauded for having the
balls to publish _Cosmic Retribution_. I for one believe that Coleman is a
true genius. Twisted, but a genius nonetheless)
>
>-The Journal certainly doesn't think that "Marvel comics suck no matter
>what" since they have run positive reviews of Marvel comics in each of the
>past two issues, including positive notices on Heroes Reborn and the
>Essential Wolverine.

Bart, trust me- I won't sit here and try to tell you that Marvel's output
over the past few years has been stellar- it hasn't. Most of it (including
most of what I worked on) has been an embarrasment. Having said that, there
has been some stuff Marvel (or Epic) has done over the past ten years which
I truly believe to be milestones in the history of comics (Hundall &
Ortez's SINKING for one) completely overlookked by TCJ, which was too
preoccupied at the time with slamming The New Warriors or something.

>More importantly, the Journal doesn't really think anything. The Journal is
>a collection of writers, many of whom vehemently disagree with each other.
>There is no unifying voice that I've ever encountered.

You mean there is no editorial "position"? Bart, with all due respect, I
find this impossible to believe. This is as much a fantasy as the fantasy
of oblectivity.

>I would say that the Journal is one of the only outlets in the
>English-speaking world which takes comics seriously for their creative and
>artistic value. For a long time they were probably the only one.

You're absolutely right, which is why it's so disappointing to see (at
least from my pov) to see aspersions continually being cast on the
industry.

On the one hand, the Journal can do something like give Joe Coleman
exposure, or teach us a little more about someone like Jules Pheiffer, or
shine some light on the fact that Seinkevich (or however you spell it) got
his best licks in ELEKTRA-ASSASIN from Ralph Steadman, something those fans
who came the generation after _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_ was
published would otherwise never know.

On the other hand, the overwhelming negativity and venom which is in
evidence in most of the Journals I've read in the past ten years
(admittedly few- could probably count em all on my fingers) doesn't do
anything at all to help widen our shrinking audience.

---Tom Vincent

--
"I should tell you, that I have worked in Washington for over 25 years and
have never been shaken down by anyone before like Dan Burton's threats. No
one has ever dared to threaten me into contributing money, and no one has
ever followed through on such threats by contacting one of my clients."

Mark Siegel, formerly a lobbyist for the government of Pakistan on Rep. Dan
Burtons attempts to coerce him into raising money for Burton's reelection.
[Washington Post, 3/19/97] Republican Burton is currently leading the
charge against aleged fudraising "shakedowns" by the White House.

[The comics journal]

I'll gladly throw in news coverage that comes out unfavorably and the
occasional opinion piece where the opinion is not favorable to a person.

Speaking briefly to the three instances you mention: Groth wrote an
opinion piece based on a forged letter. He got screwed, and is responsible
for some of that screwing by not having in place solid procedures to
double-check the veracity of received letters. The Editors apologized
because The Editors screwed up; the managing editor handles all of the
letters.

Gary has disagreed with that reading of the Carol Kalish editorial by
saying that he pointed out both good and bad aspects of her professional
career and commented on what he thought was extremely excessive public
displays of grief about her passing.

As for Mr. Ellison, there certainly hasn't been much coverage of Ellison
since I've been here. The only thing I can remember is coverage of his
speech in Chicago last summer. As I was there, I can tell you that's
justified because the room was packed. The writer described him in a
complimentary fashion, as I recall. Ellison seems to be a big deal to a
lot of people in comics so I can see why he would be covered, but as that
whole thing bores me to weeping, I don't share that opinion.

I am certainly aware that people have an impression that we're
horrifically mean-spirited. I think in trying to have a rigorous,
opinionated magazine, you sometimes fall into that trap. I know that I
look back and say, "Eee-yikes" every now and then. But I think the attempt
serves a purpose.

I also think the fact that some people read either pretty gentle ribbing,
critical disagreement or even pull quote content as some sort of sneaky,
underhanded attack speaks to the culture of the industry as much as it
does to the magazine. I still maintain I've read more brutal comments in
The New Yorker than I've read in the Journal, and that doesn't begin to
examine the theater, music or movie industry equivalents.

It's possible for us to both as opinionated as we are and still treat
people fairly; we prove we do with a number of people who are razzed one
month and featured prominently a few months later.

> I do think there's a place for satire. I would've loved to have seen
> **n* *n*o (I believe Tom will know what I'm refering to here from a mailing
> list we're both on, but the writer of it has requested some degree of privacy
> about this specific thing) in the Journal as it was both hysterical and
> a general satire of the industry. But it also didn't seem mean-spirited
> in terms of someone having a personal grudge against the individuals
> whose work was satirized.

Oh, but the author will tell us that a whole hell of a lot of people
complain about that feature anyway.

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

[The comics journal]

In article <19970329033...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
arqu...@aol.com (Arqueille) wrote:

> fgra...@halcyon.com (The comics journal) wrote:
>

> >Well, if I can stand it from a workload standpoint, we're going to launch
> >an on-line version of the magazine called "TCJ On-Line" by summer. I
> >thought about launching a smaller version under the Amazing Heroes
> imprint
> >at the same time.
>
> >So I guess I am pretty serious.
>
> >Tom Spurgeon/TCJ
>
> Did you buy back the _Amazing Heroes_ name, or did it just lapse into
> public domain through lack of use?

From my understanding, the deal was never completed financially. So FBI
still holds the rights.

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

[Elayne Wechsler-Chaput]

Tom Spurgeon (fgra...@halcyon.com) wrote:

: > The other was the piece on Carol Kalish after her sudden and unexpected

: > death. It was a major attack on her and, frankly, her friends and family
: > who were still alive, and effectively attacked them for mourning her.

: Gary has disagreed with that reading of the Carol Kalish editorial by

: saying that he pointed out both good and bad aspects of her professional
: career and commented on what he thought was extremely excessive public
: displays of grief about her passing.

Excuse me, how can public displays of grief over someone's death be
"extremely excessive?" I mean, where does anyone come off passing that
kind of judgement, Tom?

: I am certainly aware that people have an impression that we're
: horrifically mean-spirited.

Yeah, well, about THAT, absolutely-- not to mention disrespectful.

- Elayne
--
"The kiss originated when the first male reptile licked the first female
reptile, implying in a subtle, complimentary way that she was as succulent
as the small reptile he had for dinner the night before."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald

[IHCOYC XPICTOC]

Scott Dutton (dut...@freenet.calgary.ab.ca) wrote:

: I'm all for the free flow of ideas, an' all that junk, but it kind of

: flabbergasts me that people will spend thousands of words on saying that
: something really sucks, rather than just exercising their right to just
: not buy it if it offends them so.

It all comes down to a matter of mistaking your personal tastes for moral
truths.

Believing that superheroes are "immature" and therefore inferior
entertainment is one example.

Debating the political appropriateness of jokes is another.

Ideological objections to female pinup art is another.

All these three, and anything else that looks like 'em, are examples of
this initial mistake. Now, some of us may question TCJ's editorial
stance. I think it boils down to an accusation of this mistake: they have
their own preferences and dislikes, but they seem occasionally to attach
too great a cosmic significance to them, and adopt too evangelical an
attitude about 'em. But if you are going to criticize them, it is
important not to fall into the same error.

--
__________________________________________________________________________
IHCOYC XPICTOC http://members.iglou.com/gustavus gust...@iglou.com
+ Ecce domina qu‘ fidet omnis nitor aureus esse, et scalam in c‘los emit.+
**** This message has been placed here by the Tijuana Bible Society ****

[damon-boppe]

The comics journal wrote:
>
> Hi, Tom:

>
> In article <tommy-ya02358000...@news.global2000.net>,
> to...@global2000.net (Tom Vincent) wrote:
>

> > To take these steps and precautions, and then for a high profile magazine
> > like the Journal have such a negative attitude towards comics as a whole
> > pretty much undermines everything others (myself included) have spent years
> > trying to accomplish: inviting people to take this form of media seriously
> > for not only its entertainment value, but creative and artistic value as
> > well.
>
> Tom, we love comics. The willingness to say something _isn't_ good has to
> come with the willingness to say something is good, or the opinion is
> devalued.

the one issue i read of the journal wasn't like that exactly--
it was more or less cultivating an attitude that to me
seemed to be 'sucking up' the the teat of the 'legitimate
art' world; a culture whoch i think should be ignored as much as
possible.

I mean, don't you pay more attention to a Gene Siskel than you
> do those people who like _every_ movie?

well, the problem i have with many reviewers is that they seem
to miss out on the material a lot.--
i find gene siskel's evaluations of films to be shortsighted
and narrowminded.

odd thing is, i just reread a dave sim interview in amazing heroes,
and he mentioned that the same sort of review happened with
him in jaka's story, where the journal gave a negative review based
on conclusions or suppositions that were [according to sim]
unwarranted based on the whole story, as opposed
to the partial story that sim had published at the time.

> I have the latest issue in front of me: there are eight reviews, and the
> overwhelming majority of them are positive:

> Industrial Gothic: positive.

i just thought i'd mention that this is the only one i read, and that
i thought it pretty much sucked.

--
"I still do not know how successful the kindly ones was... Still,
it's the heaviest of all these volumes, and thus, in hardback at
least, could undoubtedly be used to stun a burglar; which has
always been my definition of real art." Neil Gaiman

[Denise L. Voskuil]

I'm unsettled just thinking about where you're going to wear all of
those _Hate_ tattoos that were mentioned. :)

- Denise

--
Denise Voskuil= dvoskuil@: mcs.com/eden.com/uic.edu
*Remove the "NO_ADS" in my E-mail address to reply*
Hepcats: http://www.mcs.net/~dvoskuil/hepcats/
Empty Love Stories: http://www.redweb.com/emptylove/

[Elayne Wechsler-Chaput]

IHCOYC XPICTOC (gustavus.REMOVE....@iglou.com) wrote:
: Scott Dutton (dut...@freenet.calgary.ab.ca) wrote:

: : I'm all for the free flow of ideas, an' all that junk, but it kind of
: : flabbergasts me that people will spend thousands of words on saying that
: : something really sucks, rather than just exercising their right to just
: : not buy it if it offends them so.

: It all comes down to a matter of mistaking your personal tastes for moral
: truths.

: Believing that superheroes are "immature" and therefore inferior
: entertainment is one example.

: Debating the political appropriateness of jokes is another.

: Ideological objections to female pinup art is another.

Mistaking people's personal tastes vis a vis such art for ideological
objections, as you seem to do consistently, is surely another.

[Lance Visser]

In <fgraphic-290...@blv-pm103-ip29.halcyon.com> fgra...@halcyon.com (The comics journal) writes:

+>Speaking briefly to the three instances you mention: Groth wrote an
+>opinion piece based on a forged letter. He got screwed, and is responsible
+>for some of that screwing by not having in place solid procedures to
+>double-check the veracity of received letters. The Editors apologized
+>because The Editors screwed up; the managing editor handles all of the
+>letters.

When Groth decided to write an opinion piece based on the letter,
under any sort of journalistic ethics, he took responsibility for checking
out the letter. The apology looked to all the world like Gary blaming
other people for his actions.

+>Gary has disagreed with that reading of the Carol Kalish editorial by
+>saying that he pointed out both good and bad aspects of her professional
+>career and commented on what he thought was extremely excessive public
+>displays of grief about her passing.

There are very few people inhuman enough to run around telling
people that they are greving excessivly and to attack someone who
has just died. Most people would just keep slient and let them greve
as they wanted.

+>As for Mr. Ellison, there certainly hasn't been much coverage of Ellison
+>since I've been here. The only thing I can remember is coverage of his
+>speech in Chicago last summer. As I was there, I can tell you that's
+>justified because the room was packed. The writer described him in a
+>complimentary fashion, as I recall. Ellison seems to be a big deal to a
+>lot of people in comics so I can see why he would be covered, but as that
+>whole thing bores me to weeping, I don't share that opinion.

Anyone outside of gary-land who was reading the journal could
see the hate start coming off the page when his fued with gary started.
Gary used to droll all over Ellison and the journal seemed to consider
him a huge deal for years. Then suddenly Gary doesn't get along with
him anymore and that all changes. And following right behind gary
everyone at the journal suddenly is all negative toward him.

I never liked Ellison or his work and yet when I see the
journal attacking him, I see them going after someone on Gary Groth
doesn't like personally. The quality of his work or what he is saying
doesn't really matter. The Journal's opinion is going to be the opinion
of Gary Groth. It shows the non-existant "standards" of the journal
that they can go from one extreme to the other without even blinking.

+>I am certainly aware that people have an impression that we're
+>horrifically mean-spirited. I think in trying to have a rigorous,
+>opinionated magazine, you sometimes fall into that trap. I know that I
+>look back and say, "Eee-yikes" every now and then. But I think the attempt
+>serves a purpose.

The more serious impression is that you are specifically mean-sprited
toward people who don't get along with gary. Dave Sim gets into an arguement
over self-publishing with Gary Groth and suddenly he is on the back cover,
is being compared to historical monsters, is being drawn has running a
concentration camp, and has the journal running around trying to organiize
some sort "shunning" of him by other pros based on the
content of one issue. And when the pros don't go along, the journal attacks
them via distorted strip-quoting.

Gary's dispute with him is over self-publishing. The journal is
"concerned" about his "misogynist" attitude. And yet, the capton on the
back cover comes out "misogynist guru of self-publishing". Why mention
self-publishing at all if the journal story is about misogynist attitudes.

And beyond that, the journal's concern about misogynist attidues
never seemed to extend beyond sim. Nobody was asking the feminists
doing the slamming of Sim to review the "girl 'n apes" cover of that issue
or the ad the journal took that issue for "the piercing of brenda"
porfollio. The journal's "concern" never reappeared after that issue.

[Mathew bopo Calvert]

In article <E7prM...@iglou.com>,
IHCOYC XPICTOC <gustavus.REMOVE....@iglou.com> wrote:

[snip]

>The way I see it, for a magazine to call itself "The Comics Journal" and
>be editorially hostile to superheroes, or to Marvel, DC, and Image,
>presents rather the same paradox as if a magazine called itself "TV Guide"
>but was editorially hostile to sitcoms, or to ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.

There is no paradox here at all. You make the mistake of believing that
content defines medium. It is perfectly consistent to love the medium of
comics yet believe that 95% of todays comics are crap. The same goes with
television, film, music, sculpture, etc. To condemn the message is not
always to condemn the messenger.

>There isn't anything wrong with disliking superheroes. (For that matter,
>I generally find nothing entertaining in network television.) I am
>suspicious, though, of the pose of the aesthetic or literary hipster.
>Smugness and superiority appear to be occupational hazards. The greatest
>works in comics history, at least, the greatest works IMO, are full of an
>atmosphere of innocent patriotism that probably strikes hipster attitudes
>as naive. They might accept the historical examples as "quaint," while
>maintaining a dismissive attitude towards those who work to carry on those
>traditions today. Merely carrying on one's craft in a craftsmanlike
>manner is anathema to vanguardists who are always looking for the next
>boundary to be broken. This may work in other fields of artistic
>endeavour, though I suspect it grows tiresome even there. But for those
>interested in -comics-, it seems especially contrarian to me.
>
>Because of this, I cannot help but feel that hipsters are -especially-
>blinkered, and their avant-gardism -especially- destructive, when the
>medium of comics is concerned. The largest problem is the conviction that
>comics are something you "outgrow." Hipsterism is especially problematic
>in a work of comics journalism, because it appears to agree in large
>measure with the attitudes of those who dismiss all comics as a whole.

Are you even talking about the Journal here? At no time has the Journal
said "Well, here's what we think is the cream of the crop, but let's be
serious, you'd be much better off reading a Camus novel."

______________________________________________________________
/ Mathew "bopo" Calvert \
| k93...@kzoo.edu |
| "Pretty rowdy behavior for Jesus. He used to get a buzz off |
| the beer and go squealing out of the parking lot." |
| -an employee at a Waco bar on David Koresh. |
\______________________________________________________________/

[Elayne Wechsler-Chaput]

IHCOYC XPICTOC (gustavus.REMOVE....@iglou.com) wrote:
: Elayne Wechsler-Chaput (fire...@panix.com) wrote:

: : : Ideological objections to female pinup art is another.

: : Mistaking people's personal tastes vis a vis such art for ideological
: : objections, as you seem to do consistently, is surely another.

: Touché.

Hee! That's why I like you, Steve. :)

: IMO it goes to the heart of the matter, though, in terms of the problems
: some folks have with CBJ. It might be that I have indeed on occasion
: mistaken objections based on personal tastes to, for example, pinup art
: for suspicious ideological drumbeating.

: How can you ultimately tell? how can you know what is going on in other
: people's minds? When people feel a need to, for example, page through
: -Previews- looking for bad-girl art and are moved to tell the world about
: it, when they post (in jest) reviews of books full of perhaps tongue in
: cheek ideological rhetoric, miscues in communication occasionally happen.

Only when certain people have no sense of humor. Honestly, Steve, just
lie back and enjoy it. :) :) :)

[Martin Wisse]

On Fri, 28 Mar 1997 10:44:16 -0800, fgra...@halcyon.com (The comics
journal) wrote:

>In article <E7qpqy.99...@torfree.net>, cb...@torfree.net (Geoffrey
>Dow) wrote:
>
>> Oh for Christ's sake, it's like an editorial cartoon (and a non-venomous
>> one at that)!
>>
>
>My thought exactly. And no one's said anything about our special

>"all-positive" edition of Viva la Comix! in issue #193.

I would love to, if the damn thing had actually arrived at my local
store when it should; the Comics Journal is chronically late around
here.

Martin Wisse

[patdo...@aol.com]

In article <fgraphic-280...@0.0.0.0>, fgra...@halcyon.com (The comics journal) writes:

>Oh hush, Pat. There is just as much subjective reasoning that goes into
>preparing a news column for Wizard and even the front pages of the local
>paper as there is in anything in the Journal. Realizing that attempting to
>remove all "points of view" from a news article is as much a point of view
>as anything else is hardly "open season" on everything we dislike. And
>that doesn't even begin to cover the decision-making process as to what to
>cover, how much space to give it, where to put it in relation to other
>news stories, whether or not to run art with it, and everything else that
>affects the story's impact.
>
>You can be rigorous and fair without being objective.
>
>

Horse hockey. You cannot be "fair" if you are not also objective (or at least
trying to be). If you go into an investigation with a preconceived notion about
one of the parties (whether positive or negative), you cannot be fair in
judging the evidence.

And if the editorial standard of a publication is advocacy, then how can
the reader trust that its news reports are not skewed to support the
positions it advocates?

Best, Pat

The words and opinions expressed are those of Patrick Daniel O'Neill and do not represent the opinions or policies of WIZARD: THE GUIDE TO COMICS.

[richm...@aol.com]

Okay, there's no way I want to get in the middle of a discussion between Tom and Pat, particularly one where Tom says,

>>Oh hush, Pat.

and Pat replies:

>Horse hockey.

That said, I want to address one question from Pat:

>And if the editorial standard of a publication is advocacy, then how can
>the reader trust that its news reports are not skewed to support the
>positions it advocates?

The real answer, of course, is that the reaer can't really 'trust' anything. A quick review of Hearst's career will establish that. But we expect that editors with even the slightest sense of
journalistic ethics will distinguish between news and editorial. The Wall Street Journal clearly has a conservative editorial policy; the Boston Globe a liberal one. But it's reasonable to presume
the articles on both of their front pages are researched and contain facts that the editors perceive to be true. Both papers agree that the Balanced Budget Amendment fails; the Journal's 'back
page' calls that 'a blow for irresponsibility,' and the Globe's 'a blow for democracy.' They're both telling truths and seasoning with opinion.

Hey, even "Apparently, Superman has a new costume and powers" contains no factual inaccuracies.

That's all. Please do not tell me to buzz off or call me a poo poo face.

Ian

[IHCOYC XPICTOC]

Elayne Wechsler-Chaput (fire...@panix.com) wrote:

: : It all comes down to a matter of mistaking your personal tastes for moral
: : truths.

: : Believing that superheroes are "immature" and therefore inferior
: : entertainment is one example.

: : Debating the political appropriateness of jokes is another.

: : Ideological objections to female pinup art is another.

: Mistaking people's personal tastes vis a vis such art for ideological
: objections, as you seem to do consistently, is surely another.

Touché.

IMO it goes to the heart of the matter, though, in terms of the problems

some folks have with CBJ. It might be that I have indeed on occasion
mistaken objections based on personal tastes to, for example, pinup art
for suspicious ideological drumbeating.

How can you ultimately tell? how can you know what is going on in other
people's minds? When people feel a need to, for example, page through
-Previews- looking for bad-girl art and are moved to tell the world about
it, when they post (in jest) reviews of books full of perhaps tongue in
cheek ideological rhetoric, miscues in communication occasionally happen.

A seeming desire to Change the World raises suspicion. It makes folks
like myself more zealous to leap to the defence of the Great Tradition of
pinup art.

And it's the same way with the editorial stance of Mr. Groth and the
Journal. I find the publication occasionally interesting, quite often
informative, and annoying enough that I don't make it anything more than
an occasional pickup, based usually on an interview with somebody whose
art I am interested in. The anti-superhero stance is "thought provoking,"
at least in that it makes me want to think up reasons why it's wrong; and
my own reasons, at least, help me to go to the heart of my assumptions,
and perhaps some other people's, about art and culture. This is a good
thing. It keeps everybody's pencils sharp. It's like reading the Wall
Street Journal leader page. It doesn't do my blood pressure any good, but
it lets me know where the other side is coming from.

But it also makes me wonder whether TCJ is on some kind of crusade to
change the world; and whether someone with such a deep apparent
dissatisfaction with the status quo of the American comics industry is
really its friend or not.

--
__________________________________________________________________________
IHCOYC XPICTOC http://members.iglou.com/gustavus gust...@iglou.com

+ Ecce domina quĹ fidet omnis nitor aureus esse, et scalam in cĹlos emit.+

[IHCOYC XPICTOC]

Mathew bopo Calvert (k93...@hobbes.kzoo.edu) wrote:

: There is no paradox here at all. You make the mistake of believing that

: content defines medium. It is perfectly consistent to love the medium of
: comics yet believe that 95% of todays comics are crap.

. . .

: Are you even talking about the Journal here? At no time has the Journal

: said "Well, here's what we think is the cream of the crop, but let's be
: serious, you'd be much better off reading a Camus novel."

Isn't this in some sense implied, though, by believing that "95% of
today's comics are crap?" I mean, it's one thing to distinguish between
what entertains and what fails to entertain, assuming a commonality of
shared tastes and interests between critic and reading public. It's
another thing entirely to condemn the tastes of the reading public and
what they would prefer to read.

--
__________________________________________________________________________
IHCOYC XPICTOC http://members.iglou.com/gustavus gust...@iglou.com

+ Ecce domina qu‘ fidet omnis nitor aureus esse, et scalam in c‘los emit.+

[The comics journal]

Hi, Tom:

In article <tommy-ya02358000...@news.global2000.net>,
to...@global2000.net (Tom Vincent) wrote:

> Anyway, I'd get comp copies of both the Journal and Amazing Heroes. I found
> the dichotomy of the two interesting- AH often had a kind of "fanboy"
> quality to it, while TCJ had a much more critical approach. Often a bit too
> critical to my thinking, but what the hell? (To keep this in perspective, I
> had not yet done any work for Marvel at this point- my bread and butter was
> the old Comico, back when they were in Norristown PA and Diana Schutz was
> editing stuff like Mage, Grendel, Fish Police and Elementals )
>
> What struck me was the percentage of Fantagraphics material getting
> reviewed in TCJ (better than half of the reviews, it seems), and how other
> comics would find themselves compared to the "superior" Fantagraphics
> output ( i.e. "xyz comic makes a lame attempt at cutting edge artwork and
> wry humor, something that [Fantagraphics published comic] does much
> better."

Since I was in high school at the time you're talking about, it's hard for
me to look back and contradict your impression. But I think a factual
examination of the magazine content shows that such a pattern doesn't
exist, particularly in the present for which you originally claimed. For
instance, if you look at FBI's best sellers 侠Clowes, Bagge, Ware 侠that
group has received three negative reviews and one positive review. As I've
said before, Marv Wolfman has received more positive reviews in the
Journal than Clowes and Ware combined. This is hardly pushing one's
product. I have more examples if you want them.

> >-The Journal doesn't think "American comics suck" since most of the
> >positive reviews that they run are for American comics. In the last issue
> >one of the few negatvie reviews was for an English translation of a Spanish
> >book (Prado's _Tangents_)
>
> Okay. I'll admit to not having read the last issue, so I'll accept your
> statement. Over the past ten years or so, I've read very few. It depends on
> the content: I buy when Crumb is featured or interviewed; I think you did a
> bit on Basil Wolverton a few years back; same with Robert Williams and Joe
> Coleman (let me add here, Fantagraphics shoud be lauded for having the
> balls to publish _Cosmic Retribution_. I for one believe that Coleman is a
> true genius. Twisted, but a genius nonetheless)
> >
> >-The Journal certainly doesn't think that "Marvel comics suck no matter
> >what" since they have run positive reviews of Marvel comics in each of the
> >past two issues, including positive notices on Heroes Reborn and the
> >Essential Wolverine.
>
> Bart, trust me- I won't sit here and try to tell you that Marvel's output
> over the past few years has been stellar- it hasn't. Most of it (including
> most of what I worked on) has been an embarrasment. Having said that, there
> has been some stuff Marvel (or Epic) has done over the past ten years which
> I truly believe to be milestones in the history of comics (Hundall &
> Ortez's SINKING for one) completely overlookked by TCJ, which was too
> preoccupied at the time with slamming The New Warriors or something.

We don't get everything, and saying that we've missed the one or two
pieces you find laudable in Marvel's output when we have obviously
reviewed other Marvel Comics positively is hardly evidence that we feel
"Marvel Comics suck no matter what."

Whether or not you think the majority of Marvel's output is good isn't the
point. I agree with you, by the way.

> >More importantly, the Journal doesn't really think anything. The Journal is
> >a collection of writers, many of whom vehemently disagree with each other.
> >There is no unifying voice that I've ever encountered.
>
> You mean there is no editorial "position"? Bart, with all due respect, I
> find this impossible to believe. This is as much a fantasy as the fantasy
> of oblectivity.

I think there's a wider gulf between the tastes of Ray Mescallado and Bart
Beaty than exists between two prominent reviewers at any other comics
magazine.

I reject just as many articles that seek to ape what people perceive as
our position as I do anything else.

> >I would say that the Journal is one of the only outlets in the
> >English-speaking world which takes comics seriously for their creative and
> >artistic value. For a long time they were probably the only one.
>
> You're absolutely right, which is why it's so disappointing to see (at
> least from my pov) to see aspersions continually being cast on the
> industry.
> On the one hand, the Journal can do something like give Joe Coleman
> exposure, or teach us a little more about someone like Jules Pheiffer, or
> shine some light on the fact that Seinkevich (or however you spell it) got
> his best licks in ELEKTRA-ASSASIN from Ralph Steadman, something those fans
> who came the generation after _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_ was
> published would otherwise never know.
>
> On the other hand, the overwhelming negativity and venom which is in
> evidence in most of the Journals I've read in the past ten years
> (admittedly few- could probably count em all on my fingers) doesn't do
> anything at all to help widen our shrinking audience.

I would, in general, disagree.

Happy Easter,

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

[The comics journal]

In article <5hjki8$5...@panix.com>, fire...@panix.com (Elayne
Wechsler-Chaput) wrote:

> Tom Spurgeon (fgra...@halcyon.com) wrote:
>
> : > The other was the piece on Carol Kalish after her sudden and unexpected

> : > death. It was a major attack on her and, frankly, her friends and family
> : > who were still alive, and effectively attacked them for mourning her.
>

> : Gary has disagreed with that reading of the Carol Kalish editorial by

> : saying that he pointed out both good and bad aspects of her professional
> : career and commented on what he thought was extremely excessive public
> : displays of grief about her passing.
>

> Excuse me, how can public displays of grief over someone's death be
> "extremely excessive?" I mean, where does anyone come off passing that
> kind of judgement, Tom?

I'm not in any way going to defend every single editorial decision ever
made by the magazine and its writers since its publication. My point was
that there was an impetus other than willful attack in the writing of the
editorial, no matter the success, disrespectfulness, etc. many feel was
the end result.

I will point out, however, that I've seen these kinds of articles on other
subjects, particularly Al Gore's speechmaking and the fans of the singer
Selena.

> : I am certainly aware that people have an impression that we're
> : horrifically mean-spirited.
>
> Yeah, well, about THAT, absolutely-- not to mention disrespectful.

Sure, but for the most part I think the impression is misguided or fails
to give a full accounting of all of the motivations involved. It is an
occupational hazard, though, and I imagine will always be there.

Happy Easter,

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

[The comics journal]

Hi:

In article <333DBC...@po.cwru.edu>, db...@po.cwru.edu wrote:

> The comics journal wrote:
> >
> > Hi, Tom:
> >
> > In article <tommy-ya02358000...@news.global2000.net>,
> > to...@global2000.net (Tom Vincent) wrote:
> >

> > > To take these steps and precautions, and then for a high profile magazine
> > > like the Journal have such a negative attitude towards comics as a whole
> > > pretty much undermines everything others (myself included) have
spent years
> > > trying to accomplish: inviting people to take this form of media seriously
> > > for not only its entertainment value, but creative and artistic value as
> > > well.
> >
> > Tom, we love comics. The willingness to say something _isn't_ good has to
> > come with the willingness to say something is good, or the opinion is
> > devalued.
>
>
> the one issue i read of the journal wasn't like that exactly--
> it was more or less cultivating an attitude that to me
> seemed to be 'sucking up' the the teat of the 'legitimate
> art' world; a culture whoch i think should be ignored as much as
> possible.

That's Dave Sim's criticism, too. Well, one of many.

> I mean, don't you pay more attention to a Gene Siskel than you
> > do those people who like _every_ movie?
>
> well, the problem i have with many reviewers is that they seem
> to miss out on the material a lot.--
> i find gene siskel's evaluations of films to be shortsighted
> and narrowminded.

I dislike the body of Siskel's work, too. The point is that he's more
credible because his thumb works both way, as opposed to the people you
see in your newspaper raving about even the worst movies on earth.

> odd thing is, i just reread a dave sim interview in amazing heroes,
> and he mentioned that the same sort of review happened with
> him in jaka's story, where the journal gave a negative review based
> on conclusions or suppositions that were [according to sim]
> unwarranted based on the whole story, as opposed
> to the partial story that sim had published at the time.

This is a completely different issue, but I think you can review segments
of a story that are being published as such, as long as you let people
know that you're reviewing part, be careful with your suppositions, and
let people know that the suppositions you do make are false.

According to Dave, all reviews to date would be that way, no?

> > I have the latest issue in front of me: there are eight reviews, and the
> > overwhelming majority of them are positive:
>
> > Industrial Gothic: positive.
>
> i just thought i'd mention that this is the only one i read, and that
> i thought it pretty much sucked.

Me, too. Ron Evry thought differently, though, and I'm not going to stand
in the way of a writer of Ron's quality to hold forth positively on any
comic, even if it's one from the The Beast Time Warner.

Happy Easter,

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

[The comics journal]

In article <19970330011...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
patdo...@aol.com wrote:

> In article <fgraphic-280...@0.0.0.0>, fgra...@halcyon.com
(The comics journal) writes:
>
> >Oh hush, Pat. There is just as much subjective reasoning that goes into
> >preparing a news column for Wizard and even the front pages of the local
> >paper as there is in anything in the Journal. Realizing that attempting to
> >remove all "points of view" from a news article is as much a point of view
> >as anything else is hardly "open season" on everything we dislike. And
> >that doesn't even begin to cover the decision-making process as to what to
> >cover, how much space to give it, where to put it in relation to other
> >news stories, whether or not to run art with it, and everything else that
> >affects the story's impact.
> >
> >You can be rigorous and fair without being objective.
> >
> >
>
> Horse hockey.

Bull Nuggets! Mosquito Pus! Hamster Droppings!

> You cannot be "fair" if you are not also objective (or at least
> trying to be). If you go into an investigation with a preconceived
notion about
> one of the parties (whether positive or negative), you cannot be fair in
> judging the evidence.

Right. But your example is so extreme, it's ridiculous. Certainly everyone
is filled with some semblance of preconceived notions that result from
life experiences that are handled by such methods as rigorous attention to
detail and pursuing the facts and double checking.

But the most important thing to point out is that I wasn't saying that you
can be fair by running into a story with preconceived notions. In fact, I
was careful not to say that. You should certainly be as fair as possible
in judging the evidence, and can do so, as you can seek to be objective,
while realizing that the end result Л no matter how you do it Лаis really
not going to be objective.

Objectivity isn't even-handedness.

> And if the editorial standard of a publication is advocacy, then how can
> the reader trust that its news reports are not skewed to support the
> positions it advocates?

They can read it and use their brain, just like all thinking persons
should do when they read everything.

Better that than go into a magazine's section believing everything is
objective and just sucking down the objective stories offered. As well as
believing the stories offered are the only stories, the order they're in
are the most important, etc. etc. etc.

Happy Easter,

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

[David Tallan]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen (la...@trym.ifi.uio.no) wrote:
: cr...@servtech.com (C.) writes:
:
: > Yeah, it still is. However, as David mentioned it's degrees of ethics.
:
: "Degrees of ethics"?

OK. How about degrees of rightness and wrongness? All good deeds and
all bad deeds are not equal. Just because making fun of the handicapped
isn't as bad as rounding them up and killing them, for example, doesn't
make it a fine thing to do. At least in my opinion. Yours may differ.
But I sure as heck hope not.

--
Respectfully,
David Tallan
dta...@interlog.com

[The comics journal]

Hi, Lance:

In article <5hkphf$q...@mikey.convex.com>, vis...@convex.com (Lance Visser)
wrote:

> In <fgraphic-290...@blv-pm103-ip29.halcyon.com>

fgra...@halcyon.com (The comics journal) writes:
>
>

> +>Speaking briefly to the three instances you mention: Groth wrote an
> +>opinion piece based on a forged letter. He got screwed, and is responsible
> +>for some of that screwing by not having in place solid procedures to
> +>double-check the veracity of received letters. The Editors apologized
> +>because The Editors screwed up; the managing editor handles all of the
> +>letters.
>
> When Groth decided to write an opinion piece based on the letter,
> under any sort of journalistic ethics, he took responsibility for checking
> out the letter. The apology looked to all the world like Gary blaming
> other people for his actions.

Well, not my corner of the world. As a reader, I thought it looked like
the editorial staff protecting whoever really screwed up.

Whether or not that was a screw-up in journalistic ethics, journalistic
process, and where that screw-up existed I'm certainly not going to argue
with you here ‹ we can elsewhere, if you'd like ‹ because it is beside the
original point: whether or not this occurred because it was an attack on
the editorial staff's part.

> +>Gary has disagreed with that reading of the Carol Kalish editorial by
> +>saying that he pointed out both good and bad aspects of her professional
> +>career and commented on what he thought was extremely excessive public
> +>displays of grief about her passing.
>
> There are very few people inhuman enough to run around telling
> people that they are greving excessivly and to attack someone who
> has just died. Most people would just keep slient and let them greve
> as they wanted.

Again, not to get into this extremely old business that's been argued up
and down, my point was that Gary didn't feel it was an attack as was
alleged and had what he felt were legitimate reasons for writing the
editorial.

> Anyone outside of gary-land who was reading the journal could
> see the hate start coming off the page when his fued with gary started.
> Gary used to droll all over Ellison and the journal seemed to consider
> him a huge deal for years. Then suddenly Gary doesn't get along with
> him anymore and that all changes. And following right behind gary
> everyone at the journal suddenly is all negative toward him.

I'm not negative towards Harlan Ellison at all.

> I never liked Ellison or his work and yet when I see the
> journal attacking him, I see them going after someone on Gary Groth
> doesn't like personally. The quality of his work or what he is saying
> doesn't really matter. The Journal's opinion is going to be the opinion
> of Gary Groth. It shows the non-existant "standards" of the journal
> that they can go from one extreme to the other without even blinking.

Or it shows that the standards are in a different place which judge people
differently at different times.

> The more serious impression is that you are specifically mean-sprited
> toward people who don't get along with gary. Dave Sim gets into an arguement
> over self-publishing with Gary Groth and suddenly he is on the back cover,
> is being compared to historical monsters, is being drawn has running a
> concentration camp, and has the journal running around trying to organiize
> some sort "shunning" of him by other pros based on the
> content of one issue. And when the pros don't go along, the journal attacks
> them via distorted strip-quoting.

First, I don't remember our organizing a shunning, although it sounds
very, very Amish. And the impetus for the back cover of #172 wasn't
self-publishing ‹ which I support, and whose practitioners have been
fairly and thoroughly covered in our magazine - but obviously issue #186.

> Gary's dispute with him is over self-publishing. The journal is
> "concerned" about his "misogynist" attitude. And yet, the capton on the
> back cover comes out "misogynist guru of self-publishing". Why mention
> self-publishing at all if the journal story is about misogynist attitudes.

Because one point of the article is that Dave was sort of the leader of a
movement ‹ you'll remember Spirits of Independence ‹ where a bunch of
people were saying they absolutely hated the content of what he wrote but
had no problem doing business with him and appearing on tour. I still
think that's weird. It's also a clear identifier for Sim. And there was
really no heated evil planning about the cover at all. As a matter of
fact, it was going to be "Dave Sim: Our Farrakhan," but we were afraid
that no one would no who Farrakhan was. Now that I write it, I still like
that one better.

> And beyond that, the journal's concern about misogynist attidues
> never seemed to extend beyond sim. Nobody was asking the feminists
> doing the slamming of Sim to review the "girl 'n apes" cover of that issue
> or the ad the journal took that issue for "the piercing of brenda"
> porfollio. The journal's "concern" never reappeared after that issue.

Wrong. We've run articles from people slamming pornography and misogynous
attitudes in both art and in industry behavior. We also feature articles
from critics who are very concerned about such issues in their writing,
like Chris Brayshaw and (to my reading) Ng Suat Tong.

But the key word you use is "concern." I see you fail to mention that
we've since done a 65,000-word interview with Sim which concentrated
solely on his work, which would be evidence against our "concern" if there
ever was any ‹ I mean, why the hell feature a misogynous beast in a cover
interview if we're fighting against him? (Not sales, the issues all sell
about the same.) But of course, not only does this contradict your entire
thesis that we hate everything about Dave Sim and plot against him, the
fact is that the article was based not so much on our "concern" as it was
on a clearly newsworthy and interesting event which should be covered,
just as Dave's work is a clearly worthy and interesting even which should
be covered.

Happy Easter,

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

[Ken Arromdee]

fgra...@halcyon.com (The comics journal) wrote:

]> When Groth decided to write an opinion piece based on the letter,

]> under any sort of journalistic ethics, he took responsibility for checking
]> out the letter. The apology looked to all the world like Gary blaming
]> other people for his actions.
]Well, not my corner of the world. As a reader, I thought it looked like
]the editorial staff protecting whoever really screwed up.
]Whether or not that was a screw-up in journalistic ethics, journalistic
]process, and where that screw-up existed I'm certainly not going to argue
]with you here ‹ we can elsewhere, if you'd like ‹ because it is beside the
]original point: whether or not this occurred because it was an attack on

]> There are very few people inhuman enough to run around telling

]> people that they are greving excessivly and to attack someone who
]> has just died.

]Again, not to get into this extremely old business that's been argued up

]and down, my point was that Gary didn't feel it was an attack as was
]alleged and had what he felt were legitimate reasons for writing the
]editorial.

You will pardon me if I am not impressed when you refute accusations of
attacks by claiming that they were not attacks, but merely other things which
are as bad.

This is like claiming that you couldn't have robbed a bank because you were
off robbing a jewelry store at the same time. It certainly clears you of the
charge of robbing the bank--but not of the larger charge that you are a
criminal.
--
Ken Arromdee (arro...@randomc.com, karr...@nyx.nyx.net,
http://www.randomc.com/~arromdee)

"2000 members of the vegetable kingdom and I have to work with _tomatoes_!"

[C.]

On Sat, 29 Mar 1997 14:43:04 GMT, rog...@prefect.com (Rogers
Cadenhead) wrote:

>>Shall I walk you through it? Sigh. Getting back to the semi-original
>>poster, David thought/thinks that mean humour is useless, has no real
>>place, and is unethical. There. Maybe doing what you do doesn't
>>violate your own personal ethics/morals, but if David was in your
>>place it would.
>
>And Tom thinks there's a place for the kind of humor that the two-page
>section represents, and Lars thinks David can probably speak for
>himself. Tony has yet to register an opinion either way.

Well, Tom is one of the ones in the driver's seat, so, I guess then
that what he thinks goes! Good for him! Why should the outpouring of
"wow, that viva la comix section sucks" comments faze him at all!?
Next, what Lars thinks compared to Tom is inconsequential, and in
reading his posts what he thinks means very little to me either. So...
Tony who?

>As for me, I agree with Lars.

In what? That David can speak for himself? Or that Viva La Comix is
not a hypocritical, unfunny, and purile piece of garbage?

C.
Ps: Canadian creators just worship unwarranted attacks. Thanks TCJ!

+I Can Be Contacted At....
+cr...@servtech.com
+http://www.servtech.com/public/cro2
+or lean out your window and scream.
+I'll hear.

[C.]

On Sat, 29 Mar 1997 14:46:32 GMT, rog...@prefect.com (Rogers
Cadenhead) wrote:

>Speaking on behalf of all sophomores, I would hate to see the Journal
>change that section. Most of the people here wouldn't read the
>magazine if !Viva La Comix! was kid tested and mother approved.
>
>Rogers

What are you saying here?

That if one section of the magazine didn't meet your approval, you'd
just abandon the whole thing?

Or that the pubescent garbage of that section, (which is incidentally
the same pubescent garbage the Journal takes a stand against) is the
only thing worth reading in the magazine? So all this bitching about
it being the last great bastion of standards in the industry is just
bullshit?

Are you trying to say that if Viva La Comix wasn't as offensive as it
is, there'd be no point to reading the Journal?

Heh. Well, I'm glad you agree with Lars then.

C.

[cantina]

Moreno Roncucci wrote:
>
> Well, I don't like everything I find inside the covers of "The Comics
> Journal".
>
> But, tell me, there is another magazine about comics where I could
> find that in-depth news, criticism, and interviews?
>
> I heard someone say "wizard"? :-))))))
>
HA AHA AHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHA AH HA HA HA ! RIGHT?

z.s.

[janis berzins]

The comics journal wrote:
>
> I'm sure that any story could be criticized if standards are at a certain
> point, but that doesn't really reflect either my understanding of our
> writers or the evidence of tons of postive reviews in the magazine.
>
> And the implication that there's some sort of coddling of FBI product
> isn't supported by the facts, by the way. But of course, as you tell us,
>

Been watching for a while and decided to throw $.02(American) into the wishing well.

There was a time when TCJ was my only regular industry magazine. I like the scrappy
editorial viewpoint (ala' Ben Hecht) and agreed with the premise that comics could be
held to a standard of criticism higher than just "funny books" would warrent.
However, I too stopped reading regularly about ten years ago when it seemed to me
that personalities were becoming too much of an issue. IMHO the industry really
needs the journal, or something like it, but to work as literary criticism the
reviewer has to stay focused on the work.

We need somebody to say the emperor has no clothes from time to time. But I think TCJ
reminds more folks of the little boy who cried wolf, nowadays.

--
bber...@dekalb.net

"They say time is the fire in which we burn."

Please visit my NEW electronic portfolio at

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/4697/

[patdo...@aol.com]

In article <19970330030...@ladder01.news.aol.com>, richm...@aol.com writes:

>That said, I want to address one question from Pat:
>

>>And if the editorial standard of a publication is advocacy, then how can
>>the reader trust that its news reports are not skewed to support the
>>positions it advocates?
>

>The real answer, of course, is that the reaer can't really 'trust' anything.
>A quick review of Hearst's career will establish that. But we expect that
>editors with even the slightest sense of
>journalistic ethics will distinguish between news and editorial.

But that's exactly the problem--publications (such as the Journal) that
espouse "advocacy journalism" make no such distinction. Their goal is
to advocate for a certain point of view, and they see the news pages as
just as correct a place to perform that advocacy as the editorial pages.

[Brian Phillips]

> Moreno Roncucci wrote:

Actually, I enjoy reading Wizard for the news and stuff in it . . . I read
Combo too. I just wish the two didn't have all that price guide stuff
stuck in the middle and instead devoted the PG pages to more news and
features and the like. Yeah, the folks whining about the Overstreet
prices probably don't get it, but there are folks who buy or are
interested in comics not for their collectable value but for their
intrinsic entertainment value.

Now, the reason I read these two and nothing else is because (1) these are
the only two comics-related magazines in English available in any of the
book stores I frequent (I live in Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China - the
other one, not the big red one) - which puzzles me to no end since
English language comics are not readily available here and the Chinese
ones are usually translations of Japanese manga with very very little
being translated from English and that usually falls flat on its face in
this market, and (2) I've no idea what else is available in the U.S.

I hadn't heard of The Comics Journal until I saw this thread.

So, if someone could answer the question a little more seriously (with
contact info and the like), I for one would appreciate it.

Peace,
Brian David Phillips [Meiguo Langren Zai Taibei]
phil...@cc.nccu.edu.tw [An American Werewolf in Taipei]
Shakespeare Eclectic Science Fiction Interactive Theatre
Freeform/Live Role Playing Game Scenario Archive
http://www.rpg.net/larp

[The comics journal]

Hi, Ken:

In article <5hm80i$h...@nyx.cs.du.edu>, karr...@nyx.cs.du.edu (Ken
Arromdee) wrote:

> You will pardon me if I am not impressed when you refute accusations of
> attacks by claiming that they were not attacks, but merely other things which
> are as bad.

I'm not here to impress people, I'm here to further discussion. And since
we were speaking to the specific subject of attacks, I think my reply was
entirely appropriate.

> This is like claiming that you couldn't have robbed a bank because you were
> off robbing a jewelry store at the same time.

No, your example of two instances of robbing would be appropriate if I
claimed that Gary did not try to attack one person but was in fact trying
to attack another. What I was speaking to, directly, was the charge that
these were attacks in the first place. My position is that they weren't
intended as attacks at all 侠speaking to motivation 侠and the fact that
they were seen as attacks is one of the consequences of writing
editorials. In comics, it's also a consequence of making evaluations of
work, or, as we've seen, not covering stories in a perceived evenhanded
way, which I attribute in part to industry culture, a point I buttressed
by pointing out similar editorials/comments made elsewhere.

>It certainly clears you of the
> charge of robbing the bank--but not of the larger charge that you are a
> criminal.

Thank you for admitting it clears him of the charge. You'll pardon me for
actually speaking to the charge being made than reading into it your
conception of a larger charge which has been beaten to absolute death over
and over again in threads much more appropriately focused on that topic.

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

[The comics journal]

In article <19970331135...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
patdo...@aol.com wrote:

> But that's exactly the problem--publications (such as the Journal) that
> espouse "advocacy journalism" make no such distinction.

No, we do.

> Their goal is
> to advocate for a certain point of view,

No, it's not.

> and they see the news pages as
> just as correct a place to perform that advocacy as the editorial pages.

No, we don't.

Tom Spurgeon/TCJ

[bart]

In article <5hkphf$q...@mikey.convex.com>,
vis...@convex.com (Lance Visser) wrote:
>The Journal's opinion is going to be the opinion
>of Gary Groth.

This is quite simply not true. Moreover it's one of the most common lies
about the Journal, and one that particularly irks me because one would
think that it's so transparent that people would stop voicing it.

Journal writers do not write criticism at the behest of Gary Groth. Nor, to
my knowledge, do they write to please his sensibilities. I have had a half
dozen pieces published in the Journal but I have never met Gary Groth,
spoken to him, received email from him or had a psychic connection with
him.

More to the point, when Groth functions as a critic (something that he does
exceedingly rarely in the past few years) I disagree with him as often as I
agree with him. I would think that he disagrees with me more often than he
agrees with me, particularly in relation to the relative merits of European
and American cartooning.

Of course that really doesn't matter in the end because the Journal is not
simply Groth's mouthpiece and no unitary point of view dominates the
magazine.

bart