Tag Archives: Kim Thompson

Another Ambivalently Elitist Editorial

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In a 1980 essay titled Another Relentlessly Elitist Editorial, Kim Thompson made the argument, on behalf of the old Comics Journal in general, and curmudgeon Gary Groth in particular, that negative comics criticism is worthwhile and necessary.

And to those who, fists tightly clutched around the latest issue of Micronauts or Warlord, indignantly shriek, “Comics—love ’em or leave ’em!” we can only respond: We do love them. But we refuse to become apologists for the mediocre and the worthless in the process. To wallow in that which is artless and dishonest is an act not of love but of betrayal. The Comics Journal’s sights are pointed obstinately at the stars. Perhaps reading it is depressing at times; but I think the disappearance of the magazine, or of the basic philosophy that makes it what it is, would be more depressing by far. We haven’t given up hope for comics yet. We’re still waiting for the medium to flower.

Thompson’s response to the purveyors of anti-negativity negativity is, then, that only through (selected) negativity can you express true love. Folks who refuse to admit that Micronauts is a piece of crap denigrate the medium they claim to reverence. If you value comics, then you must have standards. If you promote any old piece of dreck, then you’re treating comics as any old piece of dreck. You are, as he puts it, a gluttinous gourmand, lacking respect for your pallet and yourself, rather than a discriminating gourmet.

The issue, therefore, is framed specifically, and competitively, in terms of love. Thompson is responding, he says, to a question that many people at the time asked of the Journal: “Why, if you have such contempt for the medium, do you publish a magazine about comics?” Kim’s response is a turnabout: it is not we who point out flaws who have contempt. It’s you, who refuse to hold comics to the highest standards, who are spitting on the medium. If Gary calls most mainstream comics “bland, useless garbage,” it’s because that bland, useless garbage is smearing filth upon the face that he reveres.

Kim’s points seem reasonable enough. I might question whether Roy Thomas or Steve Gerber have actually “achieved superior works in the medium,” or whether the O’Neil/Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrow proves the worth of comics rather than the opposite — but those are quibbles. Different folks have different canons, and in terms of worthwhile comics, there were even slimmer pickings in 1980 than there are today. The general point that respect for the good in art sometimes involves contempt for the bad stands, even if one doesn’t quite agree on the merits of a given work.
 

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If I agree with Kim up to a point, though, I’m also a little leery of the way he frames the issue…and perhaps of the conversation in which it occurs. Reading Kim’s editorial, it’s hard not to be struck by the extent to which TCJ, and its editors, were embedded not just in the medium, but in the industry they were critiquing. Kim isn’t jousting with internet trolls; the folks who are telling him he’s too negative are editors and writers at DC and Marvel. One guy basically sounds like he’s threatening the Journal that he won’t help with news or cover reproductions if the reviews aren’t more positive.

Given those kinds of incentives (and/or that kind of frank thuggery) it’s a credit to Gary and Kim’s integrity that the Journal didn’t back down, and did continue to call out crap when confronted with steaming piles of it. At the same time, though, it seems like being embedded in that world would have to affect your worldview — or, to look at it another way, to have wanted to be in that world, and to have worked to be in that world, means that your worldview would have to sync up to some degree with that of the folks you’re criticizing. Kim may not agree about what it means to love comics — but he does agree that loving comics is a reasonable criterion by which to judge comics critics. And that love should, in this view, extend to comics as a whole — very definitely including super-hero comics. he takes care to show that he has the right and the standing to sneer at the most recent X-book, by declaring that he has no prejudice against the genre as a whole. Recognizing Steve Englehart as a glorious treasure is part and parcel of recognizing the lousiness of the Micronauts.

This is not really where I’m coming from. I would never say that I loved comics, nor would I necessarily say with Kim that it’s “a great and wonderful medium.” Certainly, there are some great comics — and then there are lots and lots and lots of terrible comics (some of which Kim signals out for praise.) Certainly, comics isn’t any greater a medium than music, or art, or literature, or film…or possibly video games, which I know almost nothing about. Comics perhaps can do some unique things — but doing unique things isn’t unique. Every medium has its own history and its own formal potential. Why praise one in particular? Why love one in particular? And why should loving one in particular be a condition for criticizing that one? Or to put it another way, why do I need to be a fan to point out that Green Lantern/Green Arrow is clumsy, overblown agitprop, in which the vivid, dramatic visuals mostly serve to emphasize the self-parody?

One reason to be a fan, perhaps, is that fandom — to some extent in 1980, and even more now — is the way that our cultural interests are organized. Kim’s love of comics (and TCJ’s love of comics) was an essential part of what the magazine was and how it became so important; that love was the reason it could be so connected, however ambivalently, to the institutions and communities that Kim is, in this essay, both defending himself from and insisting on his own place within. It was the love that powered his long, long list of achievements as publisher, translator, critic, advocate, and editor.

Criticism without a basis in a fan culture of love, on the other hand, isn’t likely to produce such achievements. The common community, the common audience, and the common institutions, which spring out of commitment to a particular medium are vital to organizing and perpetuating communities, audiences and institutions. Placing yourself outside of community puts you outside of community; you end up, by definition, not talking to a whole lot of people.

Still, I like to think that there’s some worth in comics criticism, or any criticism, even by folks like me who don’t necessarily have a special fondness for comics in particular. Different perspectives can, perhaps, pick out different gems, as well as different warts. And different loves, or different kinds of loves, can maybe create different communities, or different connections between existing ones. Kim and TCJ and Fantagraphics are a longstanding and impressive demonstration of what those committed to comics can do for comics, and for art. But I think too that one measure of comics’ worth is, or will be, that they can speak not just to fans, but even to those who don’t have a stake in loving them.
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As most folks reading this probably know, Kim Thompson passed away last month. The last time I communicated with him was when he, graciously as always, declined an invitation to participate in our anniversary of hate.

…and I just went back through my too-few emails from Kim and found one where he was talking about how much he loved translating that just about made me cry.

Kim Thompson on Tintin in the Congo

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Domingos Isabelinho’s post on the Belgian courts and Tintin in the Congo provoked an interesting discussion in comments. I thought in particular I’d highlight Kim Thompson’s comment:

(1) At this date I think it’s irresponsible to publish TINTIN IN THE CONGO in kid-friendly formats without a warning or contextual introduction of sorts. (I specify “kid-friendly formats” because I don’t really have a problem with the expensive, black-and-white facsimile ARCHIVES format version, either the French one or the now-out-of-print Last Gasp English language version.)

(2) That said, I’m very, very, uncomfortable with the idea of legally enforcing the addition of this material under threat of a ban (and I have the American free-speech-libertarian’s extreme discomfort at European and Canadian “hate-speech” bans).

(3) That said, I can well see why someone who was sensitive to the material becoming so frustrated with the adamant refusal of those who control it to concede to this very reasonable request that they take legal action.

(4) And it’s somewhat unfair to accuse Mondondo of wanting to flat-out ban the book when it seems pretty explicit that he’s looking for the contextual warning and the ban is more of an if-they-can’t-agree-to-that threat that is part of the lawsuit.

(5) TINTIN THE CONGO is clearly not harmless, and I suspect those who minimize its toxicity, whether journalists or judges, do so to justify their own squeamishness on point 2.

(6) My guess is that if Hergé was still alive he’d either ask that the book be withdrawn (as it was at certain times) or insist on that kind of contextual material himself.

(7) It’s nice that later in life he was publicly and vocally mortified at the content of TINTIN IN THE CONGO himself, although maybe a little creepy that he seemed more genuinely distressed at Tintin’s bloodthirsty hunting rampage.

(8) I love TINTIN IN THE CONGO.

(9) I recognize TINTIN IN THE CONGO is evil.

(10) But I think in creating it Hergé was at worst misguided and naïve.

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Kim Thompson on Race, Caricature, and Spirou and Fantasio

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Kim Thompson had a number of comments on Alex Buchet’s post about Spirou and Fantasio. I thought I’d highlight them here (he’s in conversation with me for much of this, but I figured I’d let his words stand alone; you can click over and read what I have to say if you want.)

Kim’s first comment:

I think Jean-Paul Jennequin has it exactly right. (Another cartoonist using extreme racist imagery satirically in the 1970s and 1980s: Joost Swarte.) If you assume the readers of SPIROU are sophisticated enough to recognize the silliness of the racial caricatures, then it’s a relatively harmless book that skirts tastelessness. But if you think the readers of SPIROU will genuinely take these absurd caricatures to heart as part of their world view, than it’s a profoundly evil racist work.

Personally, I think France has/had achieved a level of cultural diversity that even the adolescent SPIROU readers were capable of filing those characters away as playful stereotypes that had nothing whatsoever to do with the real world, and if anything have to opposite effect of pointing out their ridiculousness — a junior version of the INNOMABLES and Chaland effects. But that’s of course endlessly arguable.

I also think there’s a certain continuum of literal-minded naïveté that stretches from Fredric Wertham’s conviction that readers of TALES FROM THE CRYPT will think murder is fun to GLAAD’s conviction that viewers of BASIC INSTINCT will think lesbians are all icepick killers to Alex’s unbridled horror at SPIROU here.

Which is not to say there aren’t explicitly, viciously racist or misogynist or homophobic works out there (TINTIN IN THE CONGO remains inexcusable by any metric) or that a culture that continually propagates the same insulting stereotypes doesn’t eventually do some cumulative harm. But if anything the over-the-top ridiculousness of the imagery in SPIROU works in its favor. THE SOPRANOS is probably a lot more insidious than a clearly parodic spaghetti-slurping mafioso like the one here.

I always found Tome and Janry’s SPIROU technically proficient but uninteresting and have read only a couple of them, so it’s not as if my ox is being gored here.

Second:

I think there’s a huge difference between Crumb, who’s trying to honestly explore his own misogyny and racism, and someone like the Tome/Janry team, who are just moving around stereotypes for, basically, the fun of it. I suspect they would be horrified to learn that anyone thought any of their readers might actually allow their silly depictions of Asians, Blacks, or Italians to ooze into their word views.

And I absolutely do not think Crumb’s racist strips were aimed at convincing racists of the error of their ways (so their “failure” at doing this is a moot point, and an unfair gauge of the work).

Yes, I understand the difference between Wertham’s calls for censorship and more modern, gentler, kinder voicing of indignation that scrupulously avoids calling for censorship. Call it censor vs. censure (only the vowel changes). I do still think the literal-minded assumption that the depiction of something goes straight into the mind of the reader or viewer is a depressing constant among the censoriously or censuriously inclined. There isn’t that much difference between “This is evil and is warping children’s minds and should be censored” and “This is evil and is warping children’s minds but should not be censored” so far as I can tell.

I don’t know that I’m really defending SPIROU IN NEW YORK. I’ve never read it, and the samples seem dumb and in dubious taste at best. And I do think the history of racial caricature in comics is very problematic. I just don’t think this particular book deserves as shrill, even hysterical an indictment as it being given here.

Maybe I just think modern comics audiences are fairly smart and you guys think they’re impressionable idiots.

Third:

Just to be clear, I don’t think SPIROU IN NEW YORK is intended as or constitutes a “critique” of racism at all. What I would say is that any humorous or ethically questionable depiction of a member of an ethnic group has its own built-in perils, and burlesquing the depictions into absurdity is a way of potentially defanging them. In other words, a version of this story involving members of these ethnic groups which DIDN’T feature such flamboyantly silly racial caricatures might actually have been a lot more insidiously racist. (And non-realistic European cartoonists are always hamstrung by a comedic drawing style that almost automatically turns any visual depiction of someone of another race into arguably a racist caricature.)

Another touchstone: Ralph Bakshi’s COONSKIN.

And Fourth.

Honestly, Noah, what you’re reading from my comments bears so little resemblance to what I’m actually saying that this is that this is pretty pointless. I mean, “If we’re all so sophisticated that what we read doesn’t affect us at all…”? You think I think racism is no longer a problem? You’re arguing with a fictional Idiot Kim Thompson and you’re right, he is an idiot, I can’t defend his views.

I think your view completely disregards intent and effect and carries a dismayingly crude view of art and how we perceive it. The implicit binary choice of “The issue is whether the comic in question is racist [or not]” is less cultural critique than cultural demagoguery. The tone is strident, and carries the unmistakable, disheartening undercurrent of “If someone disagrees with me on this, he may be a bit racist himself.”

I do agree that the nostalgic appreciation of cultural racist imagery can both feed into and conceal genuine residual racism (cf. BAMBOOZLED, yes). I’m not defending all (or even any!) old racist imagery, nor all modern ironic/cultural appreciation for racist imagery, nor all attempts to satirize it by burlesquing it, some of which can misfire badly. I’m trying (clearly unsuccessfully) to bring some nuance to the “racist drawings in funnybooks always bad, always harmful” argument.

Again, there’s additional back and forth on the thread if you want to Click over.
 

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Click here for the Anniversary Index of Hate.