Keeping One Eye on the (Geeky) Ball
Keeping One Eye on the (Geeky) Ball
Oct 14Let’s try and start this from a simple, slightly controversial premise: Fandom used to be…well, it used to be BETTER.
I recently read bits and pieces of the Twomorrows volume collecting the old Alter Ego issues. Alter Ego was a comics fanzine founded in the early sixties by two adult comics fans, Jerry Bails and Roy Thomas.
These were guys who loved comics–I mean, REALLY loved comics–and were driven by that love to start a hand-crafted publication devoted to comics.
Today, we have the internet. Lucky us, right? Anyone who loves comics, or sci-fi, or fantasy, or WHATEVER can hop on that bad boy and just chat or post or blog their little living asses off about…stuff.
Except the content exists more because of the delivery method than because of the passion behind it. In other words, Roy and Jerry were inspired to create a zine by their love of comics, and we write on the internet because the internet is there to be written upon; we just happen to choose this geeky stuff to spew about.
There’s not a filter; there’s no handle for the spigot. It takes willful diligence to regulate consumption and creation so that you’re not spinning downward into an endless spiral of emptiness and negativity.
Or maybe that’s just me.
This is what’s had me wondering about all this; it’s paralyzed my fingers and left me hesitant to get this wrong:
We all need to raise the bar a little. I do; you do. We all do. It’s not that potboiling pieces of mediocre pap (or worse) won’t still come out. It’s just that we need to stop pretending they matter in any way, shape, or form.
People have read this as a specific rail against mainstream superhero comics. It’s not to my eyes. It’s an indictment against CRAP, and a statement worthy of becoming a manifesto.
And so it will.
I want to write well about the things that move me–the stuff I love, the stuff I hate, the thoughts I have both pithy and vacant.
I want it all to somehow in some small way MATTER. I don’t want to have time anymore to focus on the petty bullshit where I walk out of a comic book store with some free promo comics and suddenly I’m embroiled in snark and bile.
It doesn’t matter anymore. Sometimes, realizing that requires a conscious decision, because when that kind of content is just out there everyplace, it’s all too easy to just hitch your wagon to the endless cycle of words that can literally eat hours out of your day. You react, and then you add your words to the pile. Time marches on, and you’ve consumed nothing valuable in the way of ideas or art, and you’ve contributed nothing much valuable either. You’re just part of the endless go-round dodge.
Isn’t that the point? To talk about what we love, hopefully with some intelligence and humor and understanding, and to discuss what we don’t love while (maybe only occasionally) descending into spite and nastiness?
I think it’s the point. I want it to be the point. From the advent of all this shit to the current burst culture we exist in, where I sit here and snarf down endless reams of empty nothingness because it’s THERE and it’s EASY, I am going to try and come back around. I am going to focus, and think, and create, and read, and enjoy. And if I’m not, I’m going to walk away.
Life is too short, and my time is too valuable. Everyone’s time is too valuable. We are here to commune about what we were told for our entire lives was some kind of fringe subcultish activity–that which is GEEK. We should enjoy each other, and hear what we’re saying, and listen to others, and use this amazing instrument of communication for its best possible good.
I’m not saying I’m perfect, or that I ever could be–I’m sure I’ll dip back into the bullshit snark pool often enough. But hopefully not TOO often.
I do need to raise the bar. I need to try harder. I want to be better, so I’m gonna do that.
That’s all.
Excellent and so true. The bar has been lowered so much that we can barely see it anymore.
Well said — I really appreciate your focus on the mediocrity of the *discourse*, and not just the content.
Sure we need more good comics, but we also need more people talking intelligently and passionately about what’s good in the comics that do exist. And we need to have that conversation without embarrassment or apology. I’ve said for a while that what comics needs is more middlebrow criticism. I just need to come up with a better word for it than middlebrow, because I mean it as a compliment. Something in between deconstructionist online annotations of ‘Final Crisis’ and ‘Everybody *knows* Spidey’s web shooters don’t work like that — worst issue ever!”
We need to learn to talk about comics the way Pauline Kael taught people to talk about movies, something that bridges the gap between the genre-elitist and the casual fan.
Gotta say, Caroline, I thought of Fantastic Fangirls while I was reading this — you guys have that passion and intelligence behind your commentary.
*blushes*
Thank you!
I have the same thoughts reading you guys’ posts.
Reminds me that I have to go actually WRITE something now.
The real challenge isn’t elevating the content – in fact, that shouldn’t be the focus at all. Saying that we need better comics because indie creators don’t grok Final Crisis or because Nightwing #149 was one bad issue of one book that has been plagued since its inception with any number of ludicrous or horrifying plot developments and editorial fiats is a bit like saying that we need better movies because David Zucker still annually produces ______ Movie. Or that books need to be better because Stephanie Meyer (sorry Sarah). Because that just goes back to dissing comics because there are other, more legitimate things out there (and you and I both know that the people penning those ‘legitimate comics’ prefer that we call them ‘graphic novels’ – an indication that they don’t even want to be in the club to begin with), which is exactly what we need to stop doing. Comparing a bad text to a bad text is one thing, but drawing the assumption that one bad text reflects on the damage of an entire industry is inane.
Moreso than the medium needing to be better, we – the critics, the conversationalists and the influencers – need to be better. That doesn’t mean more highbrow or more elitist – in fact, in some cases, it means less – it means approaching the medium with respect instead of entitlement, for one thing. Which goes back to Matt’s leading point – that fandom was much more enthusiastic about itself back when it required effort.
Just to be clear–I’m talking about how we write and talk about comics, not what’s in them.
Caroline, you think Pauline Kael, and I think Roger Ebert–to me, he’s the gold standard of writing about art and entertainment. He has tremendous critical capabilities but many times he’s writing as a reviewer, which I think is a huge distinction–not so much deep analysis or outright dismissal of the middlebrow but attempting to approach the work on its own terms, determine your feelings and sharing them in an honest and eloquent way.