Saturday, May 29, 2010

WHY ASK WHY

In this blogpost Tom Spurgeon argued that comics-fans needed some "new" arguments to replace the worn-out ones. Of the three he listed, I thought only one was even close to being new, or at least not often circulated: the one pertaining to the morality of reprinting archival material. I doubt that it's going to ever become a popular topic in future, though it's at least an interesting one. The other two, though, are old as the hills, as someone who once edited the JOURNAL should know. Critiques of both direct-sales comics shops and of what superhero comics are "really saying" were practically the JOURNAL's rhetorical bread-and- butter during the 80s and 90s, though I can't speak for the "oughts" as I don't think I bought any of the ones from the pre-digital incarnation.

On THE BEAT 5-27-10 I replied to the third question only:

There’s nothing “new” about the question of what superheroes mean, as it goes back to the first hostile commentaries on the genre by Sterling North, Gershon Legman and Doctor You Know Who (no relation to Doctor Who). What WOULD be novel would be to frame the question of what their stories mean in terms of genre considerations, as [other guy who posted on THE BEAT] did above. One can get somewhere by saying that you prefer the way prose sci-fi treats fantasy-concepts to the way superhero comics treat them; that’s a starting-point. But when Spurgeon says that superheroes are being justified only in terms of their profitablity, that’s just a baseless assertion, unless he wants to point to specific comments by fans (“I sure am happy Marvel’s mid-year report was positive!”)


Now, I will qualify the above by saying that though Spurgeon's argument is poorly expressed, I don't interpret his remarks as coming from the old "let's hate superheroes" elitist place. For instance, he says:

Some characters also embody abstract principles that are frequently betrayed by the soap opera elements of twist, turn, shock and surprise. When characters that extol the virtues of great responsibility act in an irresponsible fashion and are rewarded in some way, that can confuse the effectiveness of an idea you're foisting on people as a core strength of said character. If you really think your characters have cultural power, or even iconic status, switching up what makes them that way for some sort of temporary oomph in this year's mega-crossover just weakens your ability to communicate those primary ideas over the long term.


The worst thing about the above passage-- which is pretty much how all the rest of the piece is written-- is the lack of concrete examples to illustrate what he means by "abstract principles," "irresponsible fashion," and "core strength." The rhetorical advantage of providing no examples, of course, is that when one chooses an example, one forfeits generalizing power. If one says, "A good example of this is Ron Marz's GREEN LANTERN," then a respondent can immediately reply that Ron Marz's GREEN LANTERN is more the exception than the rule. Then Spurgeon would presumbaly be caught in a game of "dueling examples" in which, to pursue his paradigm, he'd have to prove that Marz's trashing of GREEN LANTERN is statistically the dominant paradigm.

But though I can understand why Spurgeon might have chosen to avoid getting drawn into this sort of paradigm measuring competition, his argument still collapses if he doesn't provide specifics. Anyone can garner a lot of agreement if he stands in the street and yells, "Things are worse today than they've ever been, right?" But if you want a coherent back-and-forth, you simply have to define terms, no matter how much extra trouble it may be.

Still, in the above quote Spurgeon at least allows for the possibility that superhero stories may actually *possess* "core strength" or "cultural power," which distances him somewhat from the more extreme elitist position of, say, Gary Groth. But here too one needs definition of terms. Spurgeon's next few sentences come closest to doing so:

Santa always stays on message. Superman might consider following Santa's lead.


This isn't much of a definition, of course, though it seems to suggest that Spurgeon associates a character's "core strength" with lack of change of the kind brought on by "twist, turn, shock and surprise." Of course neither Superman or Santa have ever been been icons of Parmenidean constancy; it's just that their changes as icons have been "slow and steady," evolving with the cultural moment, rather than imposed on them by changes in artistic or editorial influences.

Here Spurgeon seems to advocating the tortoise over the hare, just as I showed Theodor Adorno doing in this essay. Here's Adorno favoring the "light art" of archaic times over the "mass culture" produced in his own era:

Whether folk-songs were rightly or wrongly called upper-class culture in decay, their elements have only acquired their popular form through a long process of repeated transmission. The spread of popular songs, on the other hand, takes place at lightning speed.


The logical problem in this preference for slow-changing iconicity over the continual shocks, thrills and chills of "mass culture" (or what Spurgeon calls "soap opera") is that there is no satisfactory way to demonstrate that the former alone can signify "cultural power." From the proper POV, constant Heraclitean change may be as much a part of our culture as Parmenidean semi-permanence. So even though I would not choose Ron Marz' GREEN LANTERN as a fit example of a good Heraclitean soap opera, I think that something like the Wolfman-Perez NEW TEEN TITANS, despite its many flaws, might serve in its place.

In the 1952 essay "Archetype and Signature" (unfortunately not online), Leslie Fiedler explored many of the conflicts between the culture, which seeks to establish icons of semi-permanence, and the artist, who often (if not always) seeks to establish his unique persona through his treatment of said icons. And although Fiedler more or less disavowed the essay in later years, it's the sort of thing that a lot of comics-critics could learn from nonetheless.

17 comments:

  1. Well said, in fact you've made me feel somewhat sheepish in initially thinking that Spurgeon had a point; instead, you've reconfirmed my initial suspcion that this whole "arguments I'm tired/not tired of" is an (of course futile) attempt to create some kind of new orthodoxy regarding what types of discourse is acceptable or even permissible. And of course, were he to really bring up specific examples of superhero comics, that would just make him one of those guys who masturbates in his living room rather than having healthy sex with other people (to be fair, this attack is paraphrased from someone other than Spurgeon). But the point is, being "above it all" is a useful rhetorical strategy in many instances.

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  2. Hey Gene,

    At least for me, all three questions are relevant for different reasons, I suspect, than yours.

    1. From a reading standpoint, I'd like to indulge in reading more Silver and Golden Age reprints. But I don't because the retail price of most reprint collections set by DC and Marvel amount to gouging.

    And, when I do pull the trigger for anything over $20, I buy them at Amazon (Wednesday Comics) or Borders (Absolute Promethea) with a 40 percent coupon. Dark Horse may be on to something though with their upcoming trade PB collection of classic Dr. Solar comics from Gold Key later this year for $20.

    2. After last summer's trip to see my granddaughter in Iowa and take her to a comic book store for the first time, can't agree with TS more on this one at all. Ditto for the stores in my town, necessitating at least 1-2 trips per month to a LCS at least 90-100 miles away. ARRGGHH!

    3. I like this question because it conjures up some interesting tangents. Here's a good example: DC publishing the Batman: Return of Bruce Wayne miniseries, largely as a means to market Batman from different eras for marketing reasons. Bought the first two and will buy the 3rd just to see if they're more than marketing. Bought them to see if GM could take on the challenge of making these outlandish ideas worth buying and reading.

    Maybe, it's also to flood the market with overpriced Batman comics during the summer season.

    TS's question is also relevant, at least to me, when you compare the current state of Batman comics to The Dark Knight, a movie full of depth and heft compared to most Batman comics. Which is sad, because you'd expect comics to have a tiny bit more than the average superhero movie. But in the recent cases of Iron Man and Dark Knight, not so much...

    Later,

    Wayne

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  3. Hey Gene,

    I didn't see this CA post about Batman-themed action figures spanning history -- a la The Return of Bruce Wayne -- until after I wrote the above post...

    Wayne

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  4. Thanks for your incisive comment, Carl. Actually I started to add that another reason Spurgeon wouldn't give specific examples would be that it would imply that he actually followed a given title and cared about whether or not Green Lantern was superheroically decadent. And this would be, in some circles, a geeky thing to admit.

    Parenthetically, I've noticed that there's a critical school of thought in certain quarters than a non-comics-reading outsider to comics is theorized to be a better judge of a given comics-subject than any longtime reader, whether that subject is CEREBUS or Alex Toth or whatever. I can't say that I agree with that.

    Anyway, I went with the "street corner prophet" image because I thought it a little funnier.

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  5. Wayne,
    I was mostly pointing out that I didn't think there was anything "new" about the arguments regarding crappy comic shops or the dire meanings of superheroes, and I still don't know why Spurgeon would say that. I would've bought it if he just said they might offer more substance than the arguments he didn't like.

    I might do a piece in future on the subject of reprint morality.
    Haven't decided.

    I suppose there are still a lot of skeevy comics shops around, and that I may be spoiled by the high quality of the local Bedrock shops (plug!) However, I don't approve of shops becoming so gentrified that they can't deal in porn just because it might offend some customers. And frankly, if there are female customers who are driven away by something as tame as a Wolverine standee, then I submit that such tender souls are not likely to be good customers for a wide range of comics anyway, and may represent no great loss.

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  6. Hey Gene,

    You are spoiled somewhat by Bedrock City, although Austin Books and Comics is very special all by itself. The five stores I've visited in our new town are hybrid superhero-D&D dens that are mostly spectacular for their blandness. Meaning if you're looking for more than standard superhero books, you're better off going to the local B&N or Borders, sad to say...

    The store I took my granddaughter to was the only one in Dubuque and it was just another D&D-superhero hybrid, very dusty, disheveled and clueless about attracting anyone outside of the usual funnybook audience. The "comic book guy" stereotype still fits, unfortunately.

    I'd really like to read what you have to say about reprints. I used to be very negative about 'em in the 70s. I don't feel that way anymore, but I hate the overpricing. Especially since I know how much it costs to produce GNs on the indy side.

    I don't like or support the digital pirating of comics at all. Considering how overpriced comics are generally, however, I understand why some people justify it.

    Thanks,

    Wayne

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  7. I suppose a corollary to the comic-shop question might be, "If they are currently supported by a small, insular readership, who's going to *guarantee* that upgrading the stores for women or whoever is going to result in a larger and more vital readership?"

    It's been alleged that in the 40s pulp magazines tried to upgrade and become tonier, and that by so doing they lost touch with their core audience, which wanted cheap thrills. Comic books and paperbacks then divvied up the pulps' place on the stands.

    Of course the answer is that there are no guarantees; guys like Spurgeon are simply embarassed by the "Comic Book Guy" image and nurture the dream of seeing it go away forever. I don't see comics shops as having much capacity for outreach outside of a few college towns (as Larry Marder once pointed out to me). They're a place for "destination shopping," as much as porn video shops.

    If porn video shops "upgraded" to get rid of their exploitative materials and to become more attractive to women, would more women frequent porn stores? Well, maybe in the Spurgeonverse.

    It's always easy to tell other people how to spend their money to make you happy. It's usually not sound business, though.

    I really don't see why it's even an important question now that a lot of tonier comics-stuff makes it into the bookstores and gets advertised on the net. Why *must* we reform the hardcore shops?

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  8. Regarding the shops, I think Spurgeon's thesis is that those places are all going to die anyway, so they should try to see if something else might actually work for them. I think you, I, and he all really believe that it's too late; comic shops have after all already convinced the general populace that if they want manga, which of course has much broader appeal than DC/Marvel, they can damn well go to Borders (or even better, Amazon, the land of the permanent 40% discount), and hell it's better for "literary" or "indie" comics as well! Had they tried to change themselves at the key moment, they might've succeeded, but even if they did try to reform at this point, people are still too attached to those discounts (or coupons).

    Another way of looking at it is that the fact of women being unwelcome in comic shops is frankly a moral question; of course, it has no inherent overlap with economic questions as such. That could also be seen as a bit chivalrous and patronizing on his and my part, if you want to think of it that way! Sigh.

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  9. And I just wanna add that at Comic Castle on Jurupa St. in Riverside, CA (that's right, I'm gonna start naming names!) the guy thinks a good source of (loud) discussion with his patrons is speculation upon the size of the Thai sex industry (he stated a number that I believe was higher than the population of Thailand itself). The store itself isn't scummy per se, it's more the proprietor (of course this means it can't be helped, can it?).

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  10. Carl, I agree. I can't speak for Spurgeon but I'm sure he's at least considered the likelihood that the shops and the DM may just waste away on their own.

    And I really find his comparison with Amazon unjust, since Amazon doesn't even have a bloody storefront to manage!!

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  11. Ah, but that's the thing; the Internet never judges you (even when perhaps it should). You don't even have to be female to have Comic Book Guy give you the stinkeye, it's happened to me more times than I can count. And as much as I'd like a good comic book store, I can probably get better recommendations on blogs than I can in any store, even if the owner actually had some social skills or taste. When a recommendation is compelling enough (and, ahem, I can't find it on my library catalog website), I add it to my Amazon wishlist, and buy it when I get some money.

    Yeah, it's unfair, but not only is it necessary to really set out the comparisons, but it's also a corrective to some of the nonsensical "support your LCS" stuff you see, for instance, from comic creators on Twitter. I actually messaged one once and asked if they would prefer that I buy less of their works and get sneered at for doing so! No response, of course.

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  12. Hey Gene,

    I like and agree for the most part on the porn shop/destination store analogy. Except that Sandy and I have seen women at porn shops, with their BFs and spouses walking down more attractive and open stores with brightly lit aisles, something you typically don't see at rathole-looking comic shops run by CBGs who give you the stinkeye when you ask about "indy" books like Dark Knight or Batwoman in Detective Comics (a bad joke, but you get the point).

    Thanks,

    Wayne

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  13. Hey Carl,

    Ditto on not supporting local LCSs that look more like dust collection providers that cater to masculine-looking women and their BFs and spouses who play D&D when they aren't sleeping or eating, skid row, or worse.

    The store I frequent the most -- Austin Books and Comics -- is about 100 away. I get there twice a month at a minimum, and like Bedrock, Alternative Reality and other WC comic stores, it's world-class, although I loves to tweek the geekness of some of their non-book product choices (Silver Age Marvel lamps).

    But their store is EXTREMELY creator- and media-friendly, so I think anybody comics-friendly people of note passing through Austin would be astonishingly happy with them.

    But, they treat their store more like an indy book store than a standard LCS. And, store that tend to stand out from the pack typically do, in my experience. What say you and Genester?

    Thanks,

    Wayne

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  14. Well from my end, I haven't had any problem with "masculine-looking women." The "RPG shops that have some comics" tend to be "No Girls Allowed" from what I can tell, and the shops I've seen that have some (not particularly masculine) geek girls at least tend not to be the scuzziest places, in my experience.

    I think the worst thing I've encountered, repeatedly, is price-gouging. The shop we used to have downtown would try to tell me that the issue of Hourman I'm missing is worth $4, even though I picked up all but three issues of the series in quarter bins in Sacramento shops. Gimme a break...

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  15. Wayne,
    I'm sure that there are brightly-lit porn shops, but I'm equally sure that there exist just as many rathole pornstores as there are crappy comics shops. Given that, the only thing that all four types of stories, clean and dirty, comics and porn, have in common is that they cater to a destination audience that knows what it wants and probably can't be convinced to change to something else.

    To repeat Larry Marder's observation as I remember it, most US comics shops that pull off a successful "indy" vibe are located in college towns, where they can cater to a young adult clientele. The example of Houston's Bedrock Comics seems instructive, for though the proprietor supported indie comics prominently for many years, and still has an okay-sized indie section, he told me in conversation that indies just don't move that well in Houston.
    (For that matter, supporting what Carl said about the bookstore competition, said proprietor also 86'd all of his manga.)

    So once again: does even Dirty McComic's store have anything to gain from upgrading? Or is he more likely to alienate what patrons he still has, a la my example of the pulps?

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  16. Hey Gene,

    Funny Marder said that, as he was the one-time GM for one of the largest funnybook chains in the 90s Moondogs Comicland in Chicago, home to many successful comics professionals and with a good-size indy audience. But that's not surprising since the chicagoland area is about 40 percent larger than the greater Houston area and a third bigger than the Metroplex region. Yep, Chicago has DePaul, NW, Loyola, UIC and the University of Chicago, but it's not defined as "a university area." Neither are LA, SF or Houston.

    BTW, about Ricky's Bedrock stores, his Montrose store will probably stock more of indy things due to its easy-peasy location, but I'm seeing what you're talking about and get that. He does sell Top Shelf stuff though.

    However, as we've argued about before, mainstream comics publishers aligned in vertically integrated companies (Disney and Warner) have far greater resources than my pals at Top Shelf and Dark Horse, their first-look movie and TV deals, notwithstanding.

    It's very easy for them to spend their competitors into oblivion -- devising multi-level corporate comics like the Return of Bruce Wayne that generate lots of extra money on action figures -- or just poach the best of the best from the indy scene as they emerge from the minor leagues of comics.

    In fact, you can make a good argument that rathole comics stores have been supplanted with hybrid stores that cater to D&D folks or something more or less prosiac than that. It may be far rarer to find a comics only store -- 90 percent or more of sales generated by comics alone.

    I find that a very sad thing...

    Bring it ON!

    Thanks,

    Wayne

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  17. Re: bringin' it on:

    I have to say that of the three Spurgeon arguments listed, the one about the comic shops interests me the least.

    I mean, I don't know why Marder said what he said. Maybe his experience in Chicago was negative; who knows?

    There's not a lot one can do about the matter of comics shops, aside from complaining that if only the DM had listened to Gary Groth, everything would be sunshine and roses now. Who knows? Maybe it would've been.

    It doesn't depress me that comics-stores have to hybridize for success. There are some items that can sustain a store, and some that can't. Comics, whose popularity may have been waning even before the superheroes totally took over, simply don't happen to be such an item.

    BTW, you asked me to e-mail you but your profile's hidden.

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