Groth’s Mouthpiece

Jeet Heer over at Comics Comics explains what he hopes will happen with the revamped comics journal:

In terms of the print magazine, my strong sense is that the Comics Journal has always been strongest when Gary Groth has been most involved with it: his interviews with cartoonists have always set the gold standard in terms of being informed by the deepest research and asking the most searching questions. I’m thinking here of the classic and memorable conversations Groth has had with Chaykin, Crumb, Gil Kane, Jules Feiffer and many other creators. Now Groth is of course a very busy many with many broths to attend to, so the amount of time he gives to the Journal has wavered. But with two issues a year to put out, he should be able to reshape the magazine into something more closely resembling his own sensibility.

The Journal has often been accused of being just a mouthpiece for Groth’s opinions. To my mind, it’s regrettable that the Journal hasn’t often enough been Grothian enough.

In general, it’s a good rule of thumb that I’m going to violently disagree with everything that comes out of Jeet Heer’s keyboard. And, yep, that’s the case with this as well. The big things Heer pulls out as great moments in the past few years of TCJ are Gary’s massive interviews with the Deitch family, the roundtable on the controversial Schulz biography, and Gary’s long, long, long essay on Hunter S. Thompson . Basically, Heer likes to see Gary (and the Journal) indulging at length in his interest/passion for stuff most associated with the 60s.

I don’t have any problem with Gary doing that sort of thing; it’s his magazine, it’s what he loves, good on him. But…to look at the Journal, and say the best thing that could happen to it is for it to be more focused on that particular era, and more tied into Gary’s particular obsessions — I mean, basically you’re saying you want it to be more stodgy, more reverent, and more predictable. (And yes, despite his very entertaining and combative prose style, Gary can be both reverent and predictable in a number of ways.)

I think Heer wants a Journal that focuses on things that look like high art, treats them seriously (if not solemnly), and generally carries on the banner of “comics are art — no really” ad infinitum. The thing is, that battle has been won, more or less… and honestly, unless you’ve got some very particular axes to grind, it was never all that interesting a battle to begin with. For me, I’ve been happiest with the Journal when it pursued other visions — Tom Crippen working out why super-heroes matter and why they don’t, for example, or Dirk’s marvelous shojo issue. The larger, bi-annual approach seems like an opportunity to go further down that road…I’d love, for example, to see what Kristy Valenti or Bill Randall would do if given carte blanche with an issue. Gary will always be the Journal, in some sense, but one of the things he’s done right over the years, in my view, is to have the courage and the generosity to let other folks pursue their own idiosyncratic ideas and interests with his ink and his press.

Update: Heer continues to say things I disagree with. In comments he suggests

“it’s harder to write an appreciative essay than a negative one. “

People love to say this. I guess it may be true for Heer. It’s not the case for me. The review that I struggled with the most for the Journal was probably Lost Girls, which was negative. On the other hand, my positive review of Schulz’s Youth was pretty easy. It just depends on the book…and maybe the phase of the moon, I don’t know.

I think what Heer actually means is that positive reviews are more virtuous. I don’t agree with that either, but it’s a viewpoint, I guess.

0 thoughts on “Groth’s Mouthpiece

  1. Personally I find it a lot easier to put pen to paper when I'm excited about something. I wanna tell other people about this awesome thing I've read! That's easy. Trying to figure out the reasons why something doesn't work, and what needed to be changed to *make* it work. That's a lot harder, I think..

  2. What Finn said. The negative reviews that are "easy" to write are the snarky, 'this molested my memories' and/or 'this fellates mule testicles' reviews. Then again, when done well (see: Tucker Stone, Chris Sims), even these take a bit of work.

  3. I think you both have things going for you that I'm interested in. Heer is definitely from what is now a more traditional alt. comics fandom lineage; he certainly does revere the "old stand-bys", like Ware and Deitch, two creators I think you've attacked for good reasons and bad.
    The good is that you're willing to take on issues that mostly seem rested in the social, that it seems like the more trad. guys seem to give a pass on. The bad, imo, is that it often feels like you're not attuned to the aesthetic of american comics, revealed by your inability to get into Kim Deitch's drawing, or see past Ware's literary M.O to the basic nature of his achievements within the comics tradition.
    It sometimes seems like you're fishing, in an affected way, for odd things to champion. It sometimes seems like Heer has no interest in challenging his view of comics and art.
    Again, they are both interesting, mostly, to me, when they clash.

  4. Mercer, nice tie! It's good to see the comments thread tastefully appointed.*

    When I wrote for the Journal, I was always annoyed as hell at the "Groth mouthpiece" argument. Because of the absolute free reign the writers there have, and the absolute myopia of its critics to that fact. I do like the idea of a big pot in Seattle with the words "Groth Broth" on the side, though. All columnists must drink from it monthly, etc etc.

    As to Heer, I respect that he's a scholar of comics more than a critic. His piece in the last Comic Art, on Gluyas Williams, reminds me of when I was housesitting for David Bevington's protege, with the OED on one shelf and about 700 tons of Elizabethan detritus on the other. Great for fusty depression, sucks for parties.

    And sucks for having anything at stake. Same with essays– positive or negative, who cares unless something in the writer is at stake, in the prose, in its context, however small. If what's at stake is preserving the flush of first emotion, fair enough; equal value in preserving the emotions of rage and disgust.

    Noah, thanks for the compliment. I'm sure if they gave me an issue of the Journal, or even the in-house weekly Fanta memo, I'd fill it with contemporary poetry just for you. Or photo-essays of barn quilts, I dunno.

    *If someone is reading this in 2017 and Mercer has changed his tie, please disregard.

  5. It shows the esteem I hold you in, Bill, that I would actually try to get through the contemporary poetry. I'm not promising I would, but I would try.

    It is weird the extent to which (a) Gary seems to have very little to do with the day to day operation of the journal, to the extent that he never had any contact with me, nor any impact on my articles, even on the one occasion where he actually tried to change something; and (b) nobody seems to be able to process this fact no matter how often it is reiterated.

    I think for folks like Jeet and maybe T. Hodler, and even Gary to some degree, what's at stake is kind of always just comics' worth as a medium. The argument is always, "it's art; praise it!" It then tends to boil down to authenticity arguments which alternately bore and annoy me.

  6. And for the record, I have traded a total of one (1) email with Gary since 2001, when he commissioned my piece on Tezuka for a TCJ special edition.

    I've always had this idea that, should I go to Seattle to visit Bo & Steve, and then drop by Fanta, Gary would have no idea who I was in this charmingly cranky fashion. "What? A column on what? Magma?" Then again, my dad has called me by my brother's name most of my life so maybe I've got issues. I guess I'll write a poem about it.