Heidi MacDonald posted a piece yesterday talking about comics crit in general and (to some degree) HU in particular. As Heidi says, this is part of a longer conversation (on HU and elsewhere) about the present and future of comics criticism.
I don’t have much to say specifically to Heidi’s post (except maybe that the modernist anti-narrative devices of the Sound and the Fury have very, very little to do with Michael DeForge’s pop art inspired pomo sensibilities.) But Heidi seemed to be struggling a little with defining HU, for better or use. I’ve been thinking for a while about talking in some detail about what I’m trying to do here, and what specifically I think HU’s goals are. This seemed as good a time as any to talk about that.
Before I start, I should say that I don’t think most of HU’s goals are especially different from what a lot of other sites are doing, or are trying to do. There isn’t a claim to uniqueness here, nor even to doing anything better than any number of other people.
So, with that in mind, here are some of the things that I think about while editing HU.
1. Not all middle-aged, het, cis, white guys like me.
I talked about this at some length in regards to women comics critics here, and I’m not going to repeat that whole argument. But just to reiterate; I want HU to represent a diversity of views, not just mine. Part of that involves getting folks to write who don’t agree with me (as, for example, Jeffrey Chapman on the greatness of Maus.) Part of it involves letting folks pursue their interests, even in things I’m not personally invested in (like Robert Stanley Martin’s < a href="https://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2013/01/jim-shooter-a-second-opinion-part-one-the-best-job-he-can/">Jim Shooter posts or PenciPanelPage’s Krazy Kat roundtable.
But a big part of it also involves actively trying to get people to write who have different life experiences, and so approach art and aesthetics from different perspectives. I’ve actively worked to try to get folks who aren’t exactly like me to post here, and I think that’s important to making HU welcoming and (hopefully) relevant.
Sort of alongside that, HU tends to take seriously the idea that gender, race, and the treatment of marginalized people in general is a legitimate lens through which to think about art. Not that that’s the only thing people write about here by a long shot, but it’s something the site is interested in and talks about.
2. Die, news hook, die.
HU doesn’t care about news. Folks will sometimes write about recent films (as here) but keeping up to date on the latest releases is something I’m actively not interested in doing. There are a bunch of reasons for that — other sites do it better; I have to pay attention to news hooks in my day job and I’d rather do other things here; etc. etc.
The main reason, though, is that, as an entirely volunteer site, I don’t need to chase page clicks. Moreover, since I’m not paying anyone, I feel like the least I can do is give folks an opportunity to explore whatever it is they’re interested in exploring. The site is driven by folks’ individual passions (or passing fancies) rather than by the news cycle. That also means that people can take as long as they want to finish something (like Emily Thomas’ long and long-gestating piece on the Nao of Brown.
3. Not Just Comics
As regular, or even casual, readers have probably noticed, HU doesn’t just cover comics — and doesn’t even necessarily make that much of an effort to cover comics primarily. We’ve had several roundtables on film, for example, and folks write on books and television and video games and real honest to goodness literature and what not.
Again, this is partially just my personal preference; it’s my blog, and I want to write about whatever I want to write about, even if that doesn’t happen to be comics. But I’m also interested in seeing comics as part of the arts more generally, and the best way to do that (for me) is to treat them as just another art. So in part I want the site to be about other things because I don’t just care about comics, and in part I want it to be about other things because the way I want to care about comics is to care about other things too.
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So there’s my statement of purpose, such as it is. If it seems appealing, you should write for us! My email is myname at gmail; I’m always looking for new writers and new topics. We’ll probably have some reprint post or other up tomorrow, but in the meantime, have a good holiday, if they’re celebrating where you are. We’ll be back to our regular schedule on Friday, I think. As always, thanks for reading, and leave us a comment if you’re so moved.
The international aspect of HU is invaluable for hermit-type artists such as myself, critics such as N.S. Tong, D. Isabelinho, etc etc.
The provincialism of many N.American artists/intellectuals/whatever is depressing … HU is pointed in the right direction. And I LOVE Hate Week. Hate Love Week, though.
When I first started reading (and then writing for) HU I had no idea that there was so much animosity towards it in some circles (since I first came to it via my homeboy Robert’s great piece on saying goodbye to comics: Retreat from the Citadel: Confessions of an Ex-Comic Book Reader). But aside from the tone of some pieces on here (which are bit too abrasive for my tastes), I can’t see what the hub-bub is all about – esp. since it strikes me as lazy to dismiss an argument because of the tone with which it is presented if it is an argument regarding something you care about.
Anyway, I was pretty psyched when Noah emailed me out of the blue to invite me to write for HU after participating in a few discussions and leaving links to my own site (http://themiddlespaces.wordpress.com/) b/c by that point HU was the place I checked first for some writing on (mostly) comics that held my interest (which is ultimately my foremost criteria for reading outside of stuff on comics that directly relate to my academic work – which I have to read whether I find it interesting or not).
In fact my biggest surprise about HU is something I couldn’t know until I wrote something for it, which is how little editorial input Noah gives to what is written. When I have written for other sites or journals the back and forth with the editor may go a round or three, but Noah may make some adjustments for clarity, but doesn’t do much or anything else (at least in my experience – other writers may have a different experience?), which led me to read everything else on HU a little differently as I didn’t associate it with a specific editorial vision of the site – Noah lets writers sink or swim on their own. Shit, sometimes he disagrees so vehemently he may be the one who tries to sink you, but all in the name of developing a compelling dialog on the topic.
My editorial hand is pretty light (though I’ll provide more feedback when people ask for it.) I figure that since I’m not paying anyone anything, I’m not really in a place to make people jump through a lot of hoops.
On the upside, I think the best part of the Hooded Utilitarian is that you let your writers follow their individual paths without undue editorial interference. On the downside and a reason why I haven’t been contributing so much lately is that there are no standards—-everyone works for free and you take what you can get. You tend to concoct “posts” from comments, which too-quickly crowd out carefully thought out essays, and there is no quality differentiation; credible, thoughtful essays must stand alongside sour grapes vendettas and poorly researched and/or unsourced bullshit by flamer fan/hobbyists.
Well…one of the things about trying to get a diversity of opinions/views is that not everyone is going to be happy with everything.
I disagree about highlighting comments. It’s a good way to let folks speak who might not have time or interest in a formal post, and when someone writes something insightful or worthwhile, it seems like a shame to let it just disappear in a comments thread.
I, too, sometimes think that frequently pulling comments out into a post seems a stretch for more content – Have you considered offering those commenters an opportunity to expand and develop those comments into a full post (I think you maybe did that once?) and/or limiting it into some kind of “Comment of The Week” weekly feature on Friday or Saturday?
Well, I usually pull comments on Saturday or Sunday, when we’re somewhat ramped down. And it’s less than once a week, I think.
And I often ask commenters to contribute! I get lots of writers that way.
So in other words a place where anyone can post what they want about anything. I do admire the diversity here and given the complete lack of any guidelines there is a surprising amount of good content.
I wouldn’t say there’s a complete lack of guidelines, exactly. I’ve rejected pieces on occasion. And I do give feedback and make suggestions, especially when folks ask for it (as Emily Thomas did for example.) And I actively seek out folks to contribute (for example, the Panelists blog, which I’m very excited to have writing here.)
I mean…in terms of “anyone posting anything” — I actually wouldn’t print a lot of what you print on your site, Heidi, just as an example, because I’m not especially interested in running news items. That’s not because I think there’s anything wrong with news items; it’s just not where HU is at.
I wrote a comment here, which Noah censored.
–Alex Buchet
Yep. I will do that on occasion. As I said, it’s not actually a free for all.
Noah, by moderating comments (which every conscientious site must) you obviously have SOME other criteria for the tone of the site than “anything goes.” Even in picking writers there must be come kind of suitability factor. I think your wide open credo above is a bit disingenuous.
That said I don’t really have a bone to pick here. It’s all just pixels on retinal displays.
Huh; I don’t think I claimed above that absolutely anything goes. I certainly didn’t mean to say that.
I mean, I talk about the fact that we’re not news hook driven in the piece. That’s a criteria.
For what it is worth, I think this site has the most interesting comments section of the ones that I visit. There are some great back and forth exchanges with people that have real disagreements but usually keep it civil. I can’t claim to understand it all but always a must read when you and Charles go a few rounds. I also like how Heidi MacDonald comes over to drop a few slams.
On an unrelated note, I did check out of the library Whipping Girl which was Noah’s suggestion to Charles, or maybe it was your suggestion to him that he read her new book? As I have said before elsewhere reading comprehension is not a strong suit for those of us that still read capes and cowls books.
Whipping Girl was my recommendation. Julia Serano’s new book, Excluded, is also great.
Gosh I really really wish I had to to write something…arg. November and I are perpetually at war.
Completely echo everything Osvaldo said, which pretty much sums up my experience here too. Plus, no ads! I’m constantly amazed that you’re able to maintain and moderate this site without advertising.
Well…I just pay the hosting fee out of pocket, and that’s about it in the way of expenses other than time. But I doubt ads would pay for the work I put in anyway; we really don’t get enough traffic to rack up much money that way (1500-2200 hits a day seems like a lot to me, but probably not so much to advertisers.)
As someone who has had Noah turn down a piece before, I can tell you he does have standards. He told me, and I quote, “this isn’t really the type of thing we do here.” As I became more familiar with the site and what he IS trying to do here, I totally agree with him. The piece I wrote didn’t have the teeth and was much too vague, especially when compared to the more thought out, specific essays, like the Ozymandias/US president essay.
I don’t think the site says anything goes, but I love how much of it is expansive of different thoughts and genres. Much of it isn’t to my taste, and that’s fine–those articles that are good, I think are really good, and it is obvious to me that there is a large amount of important intellectual conversation in the comments that you don’t find at many other comic-related news/opinion sites. Just the comment section alone, separates it from its peers, in my opinion.
This is the only website I’ve ever written for that got me a book deal.
This is a good thing for me.
That is all.
For serious tho. There’s something to be said for a curated space that’s still a curated space, but doesn’t give a shit in terms of chasing traffic or writing about something that’s up to the moment current (i.e. new and boring).
And I’ve often though about how, if Joy and I had written that Wire article for, I dunno, Slate or something, it would have been linked to and talked about as a “Slate article”. In other words, HU not really having a reputation in the outside, larger internet meant that we were the ones that could reap the rewards of a larger success.
But the supporting platform of Noah’s editing and the strengths of a group site with constant posting and traffic were all things that we benefited from directly.
(Don’t know if this is interesting to anyone or boring, inside baseball… but whilst I’m at it, I’d also like to mention that whatever the banner above on the site may say, I still consider myself a HU writer, and if I felt the sudden urge to write something about the broader culture, it would be here or TCJ.com that I would do it for, not The Atlantic. I’m happy to be an individual human voice and not just a stand-in for a mega organization.)
That’s interesting. I write for the Atlantic and Slate and Salon on occasion too…and it is weird both how much traffic you get and how you’re still kind of anonymous. I sort of feel like some commenters do know who I am at the Atlantic at this point, but even so, there’s deinitely the feeling that the content production is more important than the byline.
Well, like I said, I think it’s because the institution has it’s own reputation and history and… everything else. You’re Noah B, writing FOR the Atlantic– you know? Not so much here. (Well, maybe in certain comics circles)
Okay, re: “middle-aged, het, cis, white guys like me”
Yes it’s true, that’s me in a nutshell. Look, you can even see for yourself here, captured quite randomly at the recent Comics Arts Brooklyn show by Tom Spurgeon (who I honestly don’t know) in all my middle-aged, het, cis, white guy glory, complete with the obligatory leather jacket (cooler than Jeff Smith’s!) and Clark Kent glasses: http://www.comicsreporter.com/images/uploads/cabcrowdoutside.JPG.
So yeah, insofar as I identify with any kind of comics “crowd”, I’ll gladly self-identify as one of those people whose tastes in comics were greatly influenced by The Comics Journal, particularly in its glory years of the eighties. Like many others, I was reading mainstream stuff (and all the daily strips in both Boston newspapers), but had also read a lot of classic undergrounds and EC comics (both thanks to my dad’s collection) and Tintin, Astérix (and other European stuff) and even some Japanese stuff, thanks to my interest in what was then rather quaintly called “Japanimation”. I was also pretty into stuff like Elfquest, which at one time was very much championed by the Journal, (though now seemingly out of fashion, if the snide comments about it from folks like the otherwise fine writer Jeet Heer are any guide) and various stuff being put out by indie publishers of the time (Pacific, First, Eclipse, etc.), those comics that I now think of as “post-mainstream”: influenced by and indebted to Marvel and DC, but informed by the freedom and possibilities unleashed by the undergrounds. Even when I didn’t agree with them, the Journal definitely helped to shape my views and pointed me towards things I might not have otherwise given much thought to, e.g. Milton Caniff, Gary Panter, Harvey Pekar, to name but a few. And their relentless focus on creator’s rights was also hugely influential to my thinking about a lot of things, not just comics. As noted elsewhere, the Journal did indeed run articles by women in those days, (cat yronwode, Marilyn Bethke, Heidi and others) and while issues of race, class and gender weren’t necessarily at the forefront, they were certainly discussed more in the Journal than in the pages of say, Amazing Heroes or the Comics Buyer’s Guide.
And so, seeking a forum to talk about comics with a Journal-type crowd is what brought me to their late, lamented message board in the early 2000s, which is where I first encountered some of y’all (Noah, Russ M., Mike Hunter, Domingos and others). That was a fun message board, though marred somewhat by the presence of a few truly irritating people who were seemingly determined to fling their poo in every direction and a seemingly haphazard attitude towards moderation that allowed such folks to thrive. That fine endeavor eventually went the way of all things, and after a few wilderness years, I eventually found myself here. Of course I don’t always agree with everyone, but it seems better than any other comics forum I’ve encountered, including the comments section of tcj.com, which despite a few interesting moments, never really seems quite as interesting as what’s happening here. While it’s true that comments sections of blogs are often best avoided, the HU is a notable exception; most pieces generate at least a bit of commentary and in a very real sense, become an essential part of the original article.
So in short, keep up the good work. There aren’t a lot of online comics conversations that really interest me that much and aside from Kim Deitch’s fabulous Facebook wall, most of them seem to happen here. I sometimes disagree with various writers here, but I try to keep my comments civil.
Thanks all.
I’m moved enough to re-post this post on Facebook.
At the beat HU is much discussed in this post and comments:
http://comicsbeat.com/special-beat-investigation-comics-critics-crisis/
Nothing terrible, but I’m surprised at the common misperception of HU.