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Wednesday, October 27, 2010

NON, NON, SHAENON! (PART 1)

Over on Comixology Shaenon Garrity has written an essay, "Ten Things to Know About the Future of Comics," which bears the subtitle:

"Being a Manifesto Based on Talking About Comics with the Young People of Today, Sometimes in the Classroom, Usually Not, Occasionally Sober."

Naturally, since all of Garrity's conclusions are derived from talking to "young people of today," I'm happy to show off my moldyoldiness by spoofing her with a reference to a play/film which no one under 30 will recognize.

It's my intention here to demonstrate some major flaws in Garrity's recent essay, but in passing I'll note that on one other occasion I've butted heads with Garrity. The incident involved Garrity's writing a scathing essay about Comicon.con and other comics-forums. In her essay she mentioned me rather prominently, and I found this a fairly distasteful experience since I've tried to distance myself from Comicon.com for the last three years, and I thought (and still think) that Garrity's essay was (to put it mildly) off base. I may deal with that earlier essay in a future posting; for now, I'll just deal with one of those ten things.

The gist of Garrity's essay is to demonstrate current attitudes of the under-30 crowd as culled by her through (I guess) personal interactions of some sort. I'd be the last to dismiss anecdotal evidence, but I do think that in this format it's subject to a certain amount of intepretative abuse. I have no reason to think Garrity abuses her evidence quite as much as the inimitable Frederic Wertham, Master of the Invidious Anecdote. However, there's one major exception, and therefore I'm going to jump over her first five "things" in order to get to the major weirdness of Thing Number Six.

6. Superheroes are not comic-book characters. They're characters in movies and TV shows. If superheroes or superhero-like characters appear in a comic, that's cool, but it's not what comics are generally about. The Umbrella Academy, for example, is a fantasy story, kind of a goth Harry Potter, about a group of kids born with strange powers who are trained to use those powers at a private school run by a mysterious old man. It's not a superhero comic. The X-Men? Oh, I used to love that show!


Now, most of Garrity's "things," while arguable, are probably at least debate-worthy, maybe even when one is "sober." But this one reads like something cooked up in the local drunk-tank.

Pause while I change to address-mode.

Ms. Garrity, I can easily believe that your underthirties (whatever their range of ages may be) may be totally uninterested in any comics aside from a small number that comprise what you call their "canon," presumably one assembled by word-of-mouth.

I can easily believe that none of them follow superhero comics, which (as many hardcore fans agree) are off-putting to the casual browser, as well as being prohibitively expensive.

I can easily believe that few if any of these potential readers are even interested in superheroes in their mainstream manifestation. I can believe that in many cases they may see movie-adaptations of particular superheroes and not realize that a movie like MEN IN BLACK or maybe even IRON MAN is based on a comic-book franchise.

What I do NOT believe is the notion that they have come to associate superheroes more with "movies and TV shows" than with comic books. The only way I could believe this would be if all those surveyed had possessed the incredible luck never to have encountered floppy comic books or trades thereof, AND never saw an article anywhere that started with the infamous phrase:

"POW! ZAP! COMICS AREN'T FOR KIDS ANYMORE!"

Either that, or all those surveyed are incredibly stupid.

(End address-mode.)

OR-- they told the surveyor what the surveyor wanted to hear. How many kids who testified, "Yeah, Batman and Robin were gay and we all knew it," were doing anything but telling Good Doc Wertham what he wanted to hear?

And why might Garrity have "wanted" to hear it? Well, there's a virulent strain of comics-readers who, not satisfied with the very real cultural marginality of mainstream comic books, are determined to make said comics even more marginal than they are. Is Garrity one of these? I cannot say at present, but maybe I'll figure it out in future installments.

"Shhh-- be vewwwy vewwy quiet. We're hunting ewitists."

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