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From: tim@cmu-cs-k.ARPA (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: net.comics,net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Leeper's views on comics...
Message-ID: <516@cmu-cs-k.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 3-Sep-85 13:02:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: cmu-cs-k.516
Posted: Tue Sep  3 13:02:14 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Sep-85 06:37:44 EDT
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Xref: watmath net.comics:2014 net.sf-lovers:9897

As a man with roughly 3,000 comics in his collection, a long-time fan of
both comic books and science fiction, and a reader of the classics, I would
like to thank Mark Leeper for his perceptive comments on comics.  Until we
fans come to realize that, yes, this crap is usually pretty bad, it will
remain bad.  Fans often seem unable to distinguish between relative
appreciation of a comic (case in point: O'Neil/Adams Green Lantern/Green
Arrow, which was far better than most comics of the day, but as Mark pointed
out, presented very pat answers to very difficult sociological questions)
and its absolute quality, the same standard we would use to judge a novel or
a movie.

I also appreciated his point about heavy emotional scenes in the middle of
whirlwinds; this is one of the oldest and stupidest of comic book cliches.
One of the few good points of Simpson's "Megaton Man" parody was the scene
in which the hero is being beaten on by fifty assorted super-villains while
breaking up with his girlfriend.

There are a few comics these days that measure up to a stndard comparable to
the standards for novels and movies.  For example, Swamp Thing, Cerebus,
Love and Rockets, Journey, V for Vendetta (in Warrior), and once upon a
time, American Flagg.  There are also good graphic novels, though not from
the two major companies (save "Elric").  We should encourage these comics as
being the next step in the growth of the genre, not defend the idiocies and
tritenesses of modern superhero comics, which more than anything else keep
the field in a disrespectable and shabby ghetto.
-=-
Tim Maroney, Carnegie-Mellon University, Networking
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