(A call for nominations and submissions.)
This is part of an ongoing quarterly process to find the best online comics criticism of 2012. Five comics critics have kindly agreed to adjudicate and create a final list based on the long list of nominations. Nominations from previous quarters can be found here and here.
We’ve just ended a lengthy Hate Anniversary at HU and judging from the results, it would appear that “hate” is both entertaining and popular. On the other hand, it does seem that “hate” isn’t as easy it appears. My feeling is that while the criticism generated in the last few weeks has been useful and informative, less of lasting worth (to comics) has emerged than in previous HU roundtables. In fact, I would not hesitate to say that one of the worst pieces of comics criticism I have read this year emerged during this roundtable.
The usual reasons—as listed by Noah in his introduction to “hate”—apply. I am also puzzled as to the repeated justifications for “hate” in those articles. Rather, writers should be apologizing to readers and consumers (like myself) for loving so much dreck. There’s always the small possibility that the world of comics criticism is, for the most parts, a happy-clappy world of positive energy with practitioners ill-suited to the arts of ridicule and general nastiness. The preponderance of words of affirmation in this year’s nomination list is evidence of the same. There are far worse things then this to be accused of.
[Geoff Johns and Doug Mahnke’s Allegory of Criticism.]
Reiteration: Readers should feel free to submit their nominations in the comments section of this article. Alternatively I can be reached at suattong at gmail dot com. Web editors should feel free to submit work from their own sites. I will screen these recommendations and select those which I feel are the best fit for the list. There will be no automatic inclusions based on these public submissions. Only articles published online for the first time between January 2012 and December 2012 will be considered.
There were a number of good articles on HU this last quarter but I won’t be nominating most of them due to a conflict of interest. Readers (but not contributors) of HU should submit their own nominations for this quarterly process.
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Jordi Canyissa – “Pictureless Comics: the Feinte Trinité Challenge”
Jared Gardner on Joe Sacco – “Comics Journalism, Comics Activism”. This one was recommended by Noah. I will add here that I’m definitely not sold on the idea (suggested in the text) that Sacco is under appreciated or polarizing. If anything, there’s almost universal support for his political positions and comics within the comics critical sphere. He certainly hasn’t been kicked around like Norman Finkelstein for example. This might actually reflect well on comics critics for once but I’m more inclined to put this down to a lack of diversity in opinion.
Laurence Grove – “A note on the woman who gave birth to rabbits one hundreds years before Töpffer.” (According to the author, the article has appeared as “A Note on the Emblematic Woman who Gave Birth to Rabbits”, ed. Alison Adams and Philip Ford, in ‘Le Livre demeure’: Studies in Book History in Honour of Alison Saunders (Geneva: Droz, 2011), pp. 147-156.)
Dustin Harbin on Steven Weissman’s Barack Hussein Obama.
Jeet Heer on Building Stories (“When is a book like a building? When Chris Ware is the author.”)
Christopher J. Hayton and David L. Albright – “The Military Vanguard for Desegregation” (from ImageTexT)
Nicolas Labarre – Irony in The Dark Knight Returns.
A. David Lewis (writer) and Miriam Libicki (artist) on Harvey Pekar’s Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me. This is a useful Jewish perspective on a comic about Jewish matters. The problem as with most drawn reviews of comics is that it really doesn’t use the tools of the medium in any useful sense. Much of it reads as if it was adapted from a prose form review as opposed to a comics script. This review didn’t need to be a comic.
Heather Love on Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother (“The Mom Problem”).
Mindless Ones on League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Parts 1 and 2
Adrielle Mitchell on the relationship between Comics Studies and Comics. (“Mutualistic, Commensal or Parasitic?”)
Alyssa Rosenberg on Doonesbury.
Marc Sobel on Alan Moore’s “The Hasty Smear of My Smile”. Part of a guest written series on Alan Moore’s short form works at Comics Forum.
Steven Surdiacourt – Graphic Poetry: An (im)possible form?
Matthias Wivel – “New Yorker Cartoons – A Legacy of Mediocrity” (as published on HU).
Frank M. Young on John Stanley’s Little Lulu Fairy Tale Meta-Stories. I’m including this article here despite the rather ridiculous comment near the start that Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant and the Tarzan newspaper strip aren’t comics. It’s an argument from the Land that Time Forgot which Young explains in detail in the following short summary:
“But part of the distinct recipe of comics is the speech or thought balloon. It is a narrative device unique to the form. The creation of this tool, in the 19th century, gave comics the one thing that set them apart from prose, paintings, plays, movies, video games, TV shows and any other visual-verbal container for a flowing narrative.”
The real question here is whether an outdated and eccentric idea about comics should detract from the piece.
From The Comics Journal
Rob Clough on Dan Zettwoch’s Birdseye Bristoe.
Craig Fischer – “Devils and Machines: On Jonah Hex and All Star Western”
Richard Gehr on The Carter Family.
Joshua Glenn – The Pathological Culture of Dal Tokyo.
Ryan Holmberg – “Tezuka Osamu and American Comics”
Bob Levin – “To Hell and Back”
Dan Nadel on David Mazzucchelli’s Daredevil: Born Again Artist’s Edition.
Sean Rogers – “Flex Mentallo and the Morrison Problem”
Carter Scholz on Dal Tokyo.
As per my email, this is the best comics criticism of 2012: http://comixcube.com/2012/09/21/comics-criticism-or-whatever/
I really like Johns’ allegory of hate, damn it. Can I nominate that?
A quick correction: That’s actually Geoff Johns and Doug Mahnke.
“…I won’t be nominating most of them due to a conflict of interest.”
Aw, c’mon. Don’t be shy. Hey, Fantagraphics does it all the time. What, you hate comics or something?
“This might actually reflect well on comics critics for once but I’m more inclined to put this down to a lack of diversity in opinion.”
A lack of diversity or just maybe a lack of a energetic critical mass.
“When is a book like a building?
When it’s made of bricks.
Suat can’t do it…but I’d urge you (or others) to nominate pieces from HU if you’d like, Steven.
“Jared Gardner on Joe Sacco – “Comics Journalism, Comics Activism”
Has there ever been a popular press comics list that could be taken seriously? All of the ones I’ve seen have felt like last-minute fluff pieces assigned to junior staff writers. As such, like the Atlantic piece Gardner mentions, these lists tend to favor therapeutic coming-of-age autobiographies. As always, the usual suspects. It’s probably a good thing that Sacco is ignored by them.
“In fact, I would not hesitate to say that one of the worst pieces of comics criticism I have read this year emerged during this roundtable.”
I wonder which one this is?
Thanks for the correction, Matthew. The caption has been changed. Apologies to Mr. Mahnke.
“In fact, I would not hesitate to say that one of the worst pieces of comics criticism I have read this year emerged during this roundtable.”
yeah, name names, Suat.
Also: “The problem as with most drawn reviews of comics is that it really doesn’t use the tools of the medium in any useful sense. Much of it reads as if it was adapted from a prose form review as opposed to a comics script. This review didn’t need to be a comic.”
One might think that this is highly appropriate for a review of a Harvey Pekar comic…
Good point. But Pekar is generally more in your face about this – there’s a calculated banality about his early comics.
As to your first point, Noah knows who I’m talking about. But criticism in this instance and at this point would serve no purpose.
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Ng Suat Tong says:
Joe Sacco…certainly hasn’t been kicked around like Norman Finkelstein…
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For Pete’s sake, look at their names! Doesn’t that explain it all?
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I would not hesitate to say that one of the worst pieces of comics criticism I have read this year emerged during this roundtable.
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Only one?
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The only problem? I really, really dislike this book. …
I find Watchmen dull, flat, and, above all, pretentious. …
First, it is ugly. So ugly. …c’mon, people. You can’t really enjoy looking at this book. It’s visually crowded, the people are unattractive, the colors are weird. …
I feel no connection to these characters. I don’t care enough about Dan Dreiberg/Nite Owl to trudge through his ornithological articles. …
I find the books seeming raison d’être, a critique of the superhero concept, to be just plain annoying. …The cynicism of the story, and, frankly, the cynicism of many of its fans, is just plain tiresome — not artful, not clever, not profound, just tiresome.
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https://hoodedutilitarian.com/2012/09/why-i-hate-watchmen/
Yes, it’s all about your feelings.
Heavens, don’t let Dave Sim see that critique; he’ll be crowing about how it proves that women are utterly driven by emotion, incapable of analytic intellectualizing…
And, at https://hoodedutilitarian.com/2012/09/gluey-tart-takes-on-maus/ we read:
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I hate Maus. Let me count the reasons why. I’m not allowed to hate it, for one thing; I always find that annoying. …
I’m full on offended by “Prisoner on the Hell Planet” and Spiegelman’s tossing the word “murder” around. …
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Yes, it’s all about your feelings…
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I’m going to stay focused (well, focused for me) on my main problem with Maus, which is that I believe it’s morally wrong to batten on the pain of your people.
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Sheesh! Thus, no black person should write about slavery, or racism, nor should any oppressed minority — or women — write about their sufferings and oppression, because “it’s morally wrong to batten on the pain of your people.”
Right-wingers really could use ultra-sensitive, More PC-Than-Thou liberals’ arguments against them. In this case, attack all protest literature/nonfiction written by members of the aggrieved group, because “it’s morally wrong to batten on the pain of your people.”
That written by a white, Christian, hetero male exempt, according to this formulation, because they’re not feeding off “the pain of their people.” Thus, only males can write in favor of Women’s Lib; only heteros can decry homophobia; only non-Jews can expound on the Holocaust…
Oh, but wait:
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I can’t help thinking that putting murder out there for profit and some measure of fame (because we don’t publish things unless we hope people will read them) is wrong.
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OK, so no one should write about true crimes, historic atrocities, the My Lai Massacre, or genocide in Rwanda unless they do it anonymously, for free, because it’s “wrong.”
And…the pièce de résistance!
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Not that I’ve actually read the thing, mind you. I don’t want to, I don’t need to, and you can’t make me. Does this mean I’m not allowed to have an opinion? It does not.
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Why do I imagine a pigtailed brat throwing a tantrum on the floor? “You can’t make me! You can’t make me!! You can’t make meeeee!!!“
Mike: “For Pete’s sake, look at their names! Doesn’t that explain it all?”
Not quite. You mean a Palestinian loving Jew is a better target (or specifically targeted) for hatred or do you mean that Finkelstein is just more famous (though in this case, it’s a chicken or egg thing).
Not to derail this discussion, but Finky and Sacco are not really comparable. Sacco, for one, is extremely careful to pretty much never advocate anything in public regarding Israel/Palestine. He has a very carefully crafted public persona as an outside observer. Clearly, he is making choices about what he documents and who he talks to, but Finkelstein is an extremely aggressive and public advocate for what he thinks should be done. And tends to go after those he disagrees with quite loudly as well. My theory personally is that Sacco has managed to get away with one of the most sustained mainstream critics of Israeli policy without major damage because he is extremely meticulous both in the presentation of the material and in the material itself. There are simply very few chinks in his armor into which an attack could be made, so to speak.
Freedomfunnies: “Not to derail this discussion, but Finky and Sacco are not really comparable. Sacco, for one, is extremely careful to pretty much never advocate anything in public regarding Israel/Palestine. He has a very carefully crafted public persona as an outside observer.
Derail away, it’s the HU way.
And thanks for the point of view. My feeling is that the real reason Sacco gets away with it is that Sacco’s voice means next to nothing when it comes to discussions of the Israeli-Palestinian issue. He’s a bit part actor. This is due to many reasons but part of it must be the outsider persona which you cite and the resultant lack of *really* personal involvement in these issues. If you don’t want to be heard…well, you won’t be. The fact that he does comics and isn’t Jewish/Palestinian could be other factors.
I’m definitely not convinced there aren’t any chinks in his armor. People poke holes in much more longer and more definitive bodies of work on a regular basis.
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Ng Suat Tong says:
Mike: “For Pete’s sake, look at their names! Doesn’t that explain it all?”
Not quite. You mean a Palestinian loving Jew is a better target (or specifically targeted) for hatred or do you mean that Finkelstein is just more famous (though in this case, it’s a chicken or egg thing).
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I guess that it was a joke — as in noting how someone named Grant Steele would naturally be taken more seriously than a Philbert Dingleberry — that failed to cross the cultural divide!
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I’m definitely not convinced there aren’t any chinks in [Sacco’s] armor. People poke holes in much more longer and more definitive bodies of work on a regular basis.
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Why bother poking holes? Just invent something outrageous; it works…!
But indeed, Sacco is:
– Pretty much below-the radar
– Careful to generally include the “other side of the story,” even if he focuses on the “victimized” party. (Re the Palestinians, in one interview he mentioned how Israel’s grievances get massive press coverage, while the other side did not, which led him to help “balance the coverage”…)
– A very fine, careful journalist
– An exceptional artist, whose persons are richly observed, rather than a stridently simplistic cartoonist
Well, since you’re not nominating Hu pieces, let me do so: I thought Matthias Wivel’s piece on the New Yorker cartoons was excellent (although I have strong disagreements) as was your piece on Gasoline Alley & original art.
This is an entirely unresearched, anecdoctal and subjective assumption, but I bet Sacco’s reached a lot more Americans than Finkelstein has, or at least a far greater number of Americans who were not already very aware of Israel’s crimes. I seem to recall “Footnotes in Gaza” being displayed pretty prominently when it came out in mainstream bookstores. Finkelstein is honestly fairly marginal.
“Good point. But Pekar is generally more in your face about this – there’s a calculated banality about his early comics. ”
And there’s plain old banality with his latter day comics. I challenge anyone to get through his “Students for a Democratic Society” book.
“Funky Flashman” Domingos Isabelinho
“Il Dolce Libro” Jog
“A Poor Investment: Frank King’s Gasoline Alley” Ng Suat Tong
“The Color Question” Ryan Melcher
“Monthly Stumblings # 15: John Porcellino” Domingos Isabelinho
“The Eras of Crumb” Robert Stanley Martin
I like these ones.
Thanks Aja! Suat’s ineligible, alas, but I’m sure he’ll appreciate the shout out.
And that’s two from the hatefest! Take that, Suat, and your curmudgeonly hate of hate!
Thanks to everyone who has written in with their suggestions and nominations!
Freedomfunnies: Hmm, you could be right. Sacco might be an earlier port of call for readers who have a minimal interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Though I would say that Finkelstein probably drives the conversation more among the actual players in the game (the activists, journalists, politicians etc.). He’s probably more well know for his work on the Holocaust and debunking Joan Peters'”From Time Immemorial”.
Suat,
I’d like to nominate this:
http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/cr_sunday_interview_david_lasky_and_frank_young/
Also:
http://www.tcj.com/dave-sim-responds-to-the-fantagraphics-offer/
Thanks Ken!
Crowd ‘criticism’ is the future . . .
Hi Suat,
I’d like to nominate a recent article from The Comics Grid: http://www.comicsgrid.com/2012/12/palimpsests-intertexts-unwritten/
Hi Jen, I’ve got that one listed in the fourth quarter nominations coming out tomorrow but thanks for nominating it here!
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I’d like to nominate “Nobody’s Home” at nobodyscomic.com for best web comic.