This seemed like a nice, non-confrontational way to finish off our Eddie Campbell inspired roundtable on comics and literariness. Below is a comment Steven Grant left on one of his own posts.
I would suggest the approach I describe is the unromantic one. The romantic notion is there are a million hidden geniuses out there who would’ve outflowered Shakespeare if only someone had given them a kind word. I’m not suggesting needless cruelty, & I am possibly romanticizing by assuming the critic in question knows the difference between bad writing & a radical but fruitful shift in approach, but there really is a difference between people who want to write & people who want to be writers. The latter are the ones who stop. It’s not that hard to tell bad writing, & even good writers are more than capable of it. Everyone gets feedback, & the only feedback that’s any good for you is honest feedback, positive or negative. You’re not under any obligation to accept any of it, but a writer doing something really wrong (by which I don’t mean wrong in a “mainstream writing” sense, but wrong in that it undercuts their purpose) will not be helped by someone being “nice” about the work. Being negative & being cruel are not the same thing, but if you can’t take being negative you’re probably better off doing something else anyway, because negative is largely what the world at large rains down on writers. Unless they happen to be at the rarefied heights where the slightest criticism unleashes a torrent of virulent defenders. And y’know what? That’s often not that good for one’s writing either.
It’s a strange, strange business.
Frankly, no matter how good your writing is, approbation is usually so hard to come by that anyone who writes for approbation is an idiot.
As for Hanks, Noah, we began this discussion on email. Leaving aside reservations about “outsider art” (having watched its inception/invention contemporaneously, it always struck me as more politically than artistically motivation, since it played on many political themes of the day) I question whether Hanks fits the category. Just because he was largely unknown to our generations doesn’t make him an outsider. A guy who worked steadily for several years (I’ve no idea of the circumstances of his departure from the field) at a circulation considerably larger than any I’ve ever enjoyed, in framework (artistically his style isn’t even all that different, though I’m more than happy to accept his art is better – prettier, certainly – than many of his contemporaries) essentially identical to what surrounded him. But it’s never been his art I quibbled with. It’s his writing that’s the house of cards. Yes, I understand the auteurial approach to Hanks’ work, & that’s fine, but imagine Hanks’ stories if they were drawn by, say, Paul Reinman. How fascinating would you find the writing then?
Yeah.
You’re still not getting it.
This is just a great illustration of a couple of the points Eddie Campbell made in ‘The Literaries’.
Ah well, horses for courses. (Yum, horse – my favourite course.)
I’m not posting it to prove Eddie’s point or refute Eddie’s point. I’m posting it because I thought it touched on the argument in interesting ways, just like I posted Eddie’s comments even though I didn’t necessarily agree with them.
I really don’t necessarily agree with everything I post on the site. On the contrary, I work fairly hard to get viewpoints on the site that I disagree with.
Just for example, I like Fletcher Hanks a ton more than Steven does.
Sure, I just think it’s a bit redundant.
The likes of this critique have already been responded to, to say the least.
Ah, well. One of the virtues of not really being a commercial venture is that I can do redundant on occasion.
Having said that, this bit:
“Everyone gets feedback, & the only feedback that’s any good for you is honest feedback, positive or negative. You’re not under any obligation to accept any of it, but a writer doing something really wrong (by which I don’t mean wrong in a “mainstream writing” sense, but wrong in that it undercuts their purpose) will not be helped by someone being “nice” about the work.”
… is amusingly apt, in that: it could be taken as addressed to defenders of certain comics works, much-beloved by some, but which are not immune to criticism; and it could also be taken as advice for certain critical writers who are championed in some quarters while being found wanting in others.
Maybe the most redundant part is:
“[…] but imagine Hanks’ stories if they were drawn by, say, Paul Reinman. How fascinating would you find the writing then?”
which quates to Campbell’s parodical bit about whether any of these comics would be worth a hoot if the pictures were removed.
Paul Reinman was really good in the late 50s, just not show-bizzy enough for a lot of people, I assume.
* “Equates”, not “quates”.
“it could be taken as addressed to defenders of certain comics works, much-beloved by some, but which are not immune to criticism; and it could also be taken as advice for certain critical writers who are championed in some quarters while being found wanting in others.”
Yeah; the truth is comics and criticism are actually a lot more parallel than opposed in a lot of ways. They’re both art forms, the main difference being that criticism has a longer pedigree and is more canonically established. But that’s not really that big a deal in the scheme of things….
… and of course that criticism is typically a literary form.
“Arf.”
Well, sure…but it’s not literary in the way that Eddie’s mostly focused on, right? It’s not narrative or plot-based.
As folks have said, “literary” works kind of encompass more than Eddie allows — including things like rhythm and imagery and so forth. It’s just not that different…
Another way that criticism and comics are similar is that (despite criticism’s long history) both of them are often disdained as inferior forms in comparison to other kinds of art.
“Well, sure…but it’s not literary in the way that Eddie’s mostly focused on, right? It’s not narrative or plot-based.”
It wasn’t exclusively narrative and plot, they’re just a couple of literary elements that were used illustratively and which have been focussed on in the ensuing discussion, perhaps because they’re relatively straightforward things to recognise and isolate. He also mentioned lyrics, psychological credibility, compositional process, performance vs notation, and not least of all, academic propriety (or whatever you want to call it).
The main thrust (as I understand it) is that, metaphorically speaking, if you listen to pop/jazz/rock music with the same approach as you listen to classical composition, you’re not likely to notice much of what it has to offer.
Despite the humourous poking of fun at various writers, I thought there was a core of gentle, indirect generosity there which, perhaps inevitably, has been disregarded in the rush of the criticised to restore their fragile pride.
Man alive! Am I ever going to stop having things to say about this? I even had to edit this comment for brevity.
Yeah…I don’t think Eddie was really super harsh or anything, but I don’t think that piece was especially generous as these things go, either. Coining a schoolyard taunt into which to shoehorn your adversaries just isn’t especially gentle or thoughtful, to me. But mileage differs in this as in all things, I suppose.
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Briany Najar says:
… I even had to edit this comment for brevity.
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You can do that?
What, me personally? (hyuk)
Not editing after posting – I just meant I looked it over and did some pruning before pressing the button.
Funny, when I edit my posts they get bigger; I shoehorn in a few more adjectives…