Best Online Comics Criticism 2010: Kibbitzing

I had no involvement in the selection of this year’s Best Online Comics Criticism. And I don’t plan to talk directly about the list here. Except to point out that it is fatally flawed. Because I’m not on it, damn it.

I did think I’d take this opportunity, though, to talk about two of my own favorite pieces of comics criticism from last year.

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Bill Randall’s List: Best Online Comics Criticism 2010

Critic and one-time HU writer Bill Randall was one of the judges for this year’s Best Online Comics Criticism. He asked to run his essay about the selection process here — and we’re very pleased to have him back under the Hood, however briefly.
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by Bill Randall

How did he know?

Real critics are as pure as new snow, with eyes of a child yet minds learned like the eldest philosopher. They castrate their creativity to write from the place of total mental stillness. Able to see through all walls of personal agenda. They use their pen of young lamb to judge what’s best not for themselves, but for all humanity. Such is the powerful power, the terrible responsibility of the true critic.

I have fasted for three centuries, nailed myself upside down to the Tree of Woe, drained my body of every ounce of blood and replaced it with the freshest plastic-bottled spring water. …I am ready to speak of comics with the furiously unpoliticized gaze of the Real Critic.

Spot on, B.C., as I’ve spent a meditative month staring down Phyllis Hodgson’s 1944 critical text of Þe Clowde of Vnknowyng, in þe whiche a soule is onyd wiþ God, by the unknown author of the Cloud of Unknowing, good for inspiration and revelation as I selected my Best Comics Criticism 2010 votes. Prophetic, you prophet! as I like you and all true critics strive ascetic to write apophatic– kenotic– apocatastatic words, good for instruction and reflection, more sacred than the sacred texts of “Maggots,” “If’n Oof,” and “Þe Book of Priue Counseling.” Words of Groth in red, and remember the worst a comics critic can do is hurt some feelings. It’s not like we excommunicate, move product, make reputations, or stand at the kitchen gallery door with Hans Ulrich Obrist and his flaming sword. I can’t even resurrect the dead, may my essay on Kamimura Kazuo burn in hellfire for all eternity while A Drifting Life glows transfigured on your bookshelf.

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Best Online Comics Criticism 2010: The Final List

For an introduction to this voting exercise, please see the article posted yesterday. The jurors were Derik Badman, Melinda Beasi, Johanna Draper Carlson, Shaenon K. Garrity, Tim Hodler, Chris Mautner and Bill Randall. They have been encouraged to post their personal choices (with accompanying remarks) on their own websites.


SIX VOTES

(1) Jason ThompsonThe Other Love that Dare Not Speak Its Name (and other articles)

The jurors agreed to consolidate their votes into a single article. Other articles by Thompson which received interest were his pieces on Morality in Action ComicsCeres: Celestial Legend and Happy Mania. His articles appear regularly at Anime News Network where his column “House of 1000 Manga” is published weekly. At least one of the jurors considers him the best writer on manga today. Voice your assent (or dissent for that matter) here.


FIVE VOTES

(1)  Katherine Dacey on Ayako

Dacey is a mainstay of the manga blogosphere. Once again, the jurors decided to consolidate their votes into a single piece. The other article which received favorable attention was Dacey’s review of  Sexy Voice and Robo & Harriet the Spy. Let her know which one you prefer.

(2)  Joe McCullochEssay on Thought Balloons (The Problem with American Vampires is that Just Don’t Think”)

This is Jog’s second year on this list. The bulk of Jog’s writing is for the web and this appears to be both a conscious decision and a sign of the times. Now writing at Comics Comics, his output has slowed if compared to his days at Jog the Blog. This article was a strong early contender for the final list. Other articles of note in 2010 include his review of Alan Moore’s Neonomicon and his survey of the “comics” of Peter Greenaway. There can be little doubt that he is one of the most popular writers on comics working today.


FOUR VOTES

(1)   Craig Fischer on David Mazzucchelli (Born Again Again).

Fischer is an Associate Professor of English at Appalachian State University. He also writes frequently about comics and film for academic venues. Does this mean he was slumming when he decided to write this piece on Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp for this blog? Perish the thought!


THREE VOTES

(1)  David Bordwell on Hergé (Tintinopolis)

Judging by the frequency with which his blog is linked to by various comics bloggers, Bordwell would appear to be a favorite for his thoughts on film and criticism in general.

(2)  Dirk DeppeyThe Mirror of Male-Love Love

This is Deppey’s second time on the list. He got on the list last year for his editorial on Paul Levitz which would be more accurately labeled as industry commentary.  There’s no mistaking this year’s entry which may well be his most memorable article on comics in recent memory.

(3)  Ken Parille: Casper, Formalism, and the ‘Great’ Search Party

Parille is an Assistant Professor of English at East Carolina University and is considered by some to be the foremost expert on the comics of Dan Clowes. No one practices the art of comics close reading as assiduously as Parille. The vote was initially split between Parille’s Casper piece and his review of Charles Burns’ X’ed Out. My personal preference is for the “losing” piece which at this point in time appears to be one of the few substantial reviews of Burns’ comic out there.


LINKS

(1) Derik Badman’s personal choices

(2) Melinda Beasi on the list and her choices

(3) Johanna Draper Carlson on the list and her choices

(4) Shaenon Garrity on the list and her choices

(5) Tim Hodler on the list and his choices

(6) Chris Mautner on the list and his choices

(7) Bill Randall on the list and his choices


Best Online Comics Criticism 2010: Introduction and Runners-Up

It’s that time of the year again and here at HU we’re looking back on the year in online comics criticism.

The choices made by our panel of judges will be revealed tomorrow. Today, I’m taking a look at some of the reviews and essays which, for one reason or another, didn’t make the cut. I should add that this has no bearing on the actual quality of the articles in question. The important thing to remember is that the process was “democratic”. In other words, if you’re lucky you just might get Abraham Lincoln. If not, you might have to settle for George W. Bush (who was indeed loved and remains loved by many Americans).

The 7 articles which did make the final list represent a compromise arrived at by the imperfect tastes of 7 judges. The most interesting thing about such lists is how often they get it completely wrong, the bastard child of individual purity and the god damned evils of collective reasoning.

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Noah’s Picks for Best Online Comics Criticism, 2009

Suat has already posted the official selections for best online comics criticism of the year.

To create the final list, each of the judges submitted ten selections. Two judges (Tucker Stone and Frank Santoro have already posted and talked a little about their ten picks. (Matthias Wivel hasn’t weighed in, but may get to it yet. (Update: Ah, there’s Matthias’s piece.)

So in this post I’m going to give the list I submitted to Suat. I’ve arranged it in increasing order of bestness from 10 to 1.

When Suat asked me to act as one of the judges for this project, I initially declined on the reasonable grounds that I don’t necessarily read a ton of comics criticism. I changed my mind on the more half-assed grounds that what the hell — but it remains the case that I am, I’d be willing to bet, far less versed in comics criticism than my fellow judges.

Nonetheless, my choices are, of course, right, and, to the extent that anyone else disagrees with me, they are wrong. So here we go.

Honorable Mentions

If I had more than ten slots, I would have loved to include Shaenon Garrity’s Acme Library #19 koan, Steven Grant’s discussion of why there aren’t more black supervillains, and Jog’s epic discussion of smurfs.

If I were able to vote for my fellow judges, I would have loved to include this amazing piece where Tucker Stone pretends to be Michel Houllebecq. I was also very taken with Matthias Wivel’s review of Kramer’s 7, and with Suat’s discussion of the contribution of artists to super-hero comics.

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10. Matt Thorn — “On Translation”

As a scholar and a widely respected translator, Thorn’s take on the limitations of current manga translating is riveting. He manages to be both measured and acerbic, a devastating combination — and he also provides some fascinatingly specific examples of translation difficulties and decisions. As is often the case on the Internets, the piece is as worthwhile for the discussion it sparked as for what it initially said. Numerous translators and fans weigh in on the comments thread, with Thorn elaborating thoughtfully on his points. Elsewhere the essay sparked great responses from Simon Jones and Shaenon Garrity.

9. Juan Artega — “The 5 Creepiest Sex Scenes in Comics”

This is what it says on the tin; a Cracked magazine charticle providing a narrative overview, with first-rate snark, of some of the great moments in comics history. Ms. Marvel being turned into the incestuous brain-washed sex slave of her own son and some random bird-guy from the third-rate super-team the Wanderers impregnating a dinosaur are two of the highlights. This is the sort of piece that would provoke Gary Groth to run foaming into the streets shrieking, “See? See? Online comics criticism is shallow trash! I will write a sharp 150,000 word piece attacking it and praising Pauline Kael, thereby bringing capitalism to its knees!” So, you know, as a Marxist, I had to vote for it.

8. Nina Stone — “The Virgin Read: You Need More Janet Jackson in Your Life, Power Girl.”

Nina Stone isn’t a longtime comics reader, but her loving husband (that’s Tucker) is, and he convinced her to write a column about comics from the perspective of someone who doesn’t know or care much about them. The result has been some of the sharpest comics commentary going, focusing mostly on the mediocrity of the mainstream, but occasionally at other outcroppings of comicsdom as well. Nina’s take on Chris Ware, for example, is as perceptive an evaluation of his work as I’ve seen.

Still, despite the greatness that is the Ware review, I pledge my heart to the Power Girl review I’ve selected here. It’s a lovely meditation on men and women and feminism, and whether you can change other people and whether it even makes sense to want to.

Also, it contains the immortal line “Go fly your Power Girl boobies around the world fighting evil.”

7. Robert Stanley Martin — “Comics Review: Chris Claremont & Frank Miller, Wolverine.”

Robert Stanley Martin is a thoughtful, informed, and perceptive critic — but even I have trouble holding that against him when he’s such a fine writer. His take on the Wolverine mini-series begins with a brilliant discussion of alienated characters in the Marvel Universe; how central they are, how they work, and how they really, really don’t. His view of Claremont as a lesser, stumbling Ditko was one of those “oh my god it’s so true!” moments, and his appeciation of the many virtues, as well as the several flaws, of the Claremont/Miller series couldn’t be much more spot on. His review of Alan Moore’s What Ever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? is also highly recommended.

6. Dirk Deppey — “The Man Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight”

I originally wanted to include Dirk’s skewering of super-hero decadence, but on further consideration I think the hive-mind was right — “The Man Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight,” which made the final list, is really the Deppey piece to pick from this year.

“The Man Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight” is an evisceration of former DC boss Paul Levitz, and a celebration of his firing. It’s a masterful prosecutor’s brief, as well as a lovely example of sustained, sneering contempt. The only thing that ever disappoints me about Dirk’s longer critiques is that there aren’t more of them. I know he’s invaluable as a link-blogger, and HU probably wouldn’t even exist without him, but I can’t help feeling that his talents are a little wasted in pointing to other people writing on comics when he could instead be writing better pieces than anyone himself. I especially miss his actual comics criticism, which is even better, and even rarer, than his industry commentary.

5. Jason Thompson — “Moe: The Cult of the Child”

Jason Thompson wears his vast knowledge of manga extremely lightly. This piece is a case in point; Thompson takes 1000 words or so to provide a thumbnail historical, literary, and moral analysis of manga’s obsession with prepubescent girls. Discussing pedophilia without resorting to exploitation or outrage is an accomplishment in itself; doing it with the grace, humor, and perceptiveness that Thompson manages here is a quiet tour de force.

4.Craig Fischer — “Deep Tezuka”

This is probably the most academic selection on my list — and it pretty much sums up everything that can go right in academic criticism. Fischer uses film theorists (most notably Andre Bazin) and film concepts (“deep focus” — the framing device in movies such as Citizen Kane where everything on screen is in focus) to contrast the experience of viewing a film with that of reading comics in general and Tezuka in particular. The theory background here doesn’t obfuscate, but instead brings into focus (appropriately enough!). Fischer skips lightly through a barrage of cultural and theoretical links, touching on everything from Dan Clowes’ grandmother to the off-color clouds in the Lion King to the film “Best Years of Our Lives,” and on and on and on. It’s dazzling; a real demonstration, not just of knowledge, but of a love of knowledge, and of art.

I’d also highly recommend Fischer’s discussion of repression, anxiety, and hands in the work of Steve Ditko.

3.Tom Crippen — “Age of Geeks”

Tom Crippen blogged at HU for most of 2009. I asked him to join because I love his writing, and working with him regularly only increased my respect for it. He was actually working on “Age of Geeks” through a good portion of the time he was at HU, and little dribs and drabs about it would pop up in offhand remarks here and there. The final result is worth the wait; it’s one of Tom’s absolute best, I think.

It’s also, as it happens, the piece of all of those on the list that I in large part disagree with. I don’t agree that Alan Moore is at core a geek (I think he’s a crank, which is somewhat different.) I don’t agree that geekery is necessarily the ideal metaphor for late capitalism, in part because I don’t entirely agree with Tom’s definition of geekdom (I think it’s more arbitrarily determined — which is why baseball fans and rap fans, for example, don’t really count.) I don’t agree that Moore’s geekery prevented him from treating his characters with respect or fully examining the human condition: on the contrary, I think his willingness *not* to fully explain why Sally loved the Comedian is in many ways the *most* respectful choice he could have made. I don’t believe that Moore’s sentimentality is excessive or forced; I don’t think From Hell is overall a failure.

Those disagreements don’t make me think less of the piece, though. On the contrary. Just looking at that list above you can see how much thought and how many ideas Tom put in here. Even if I don’t entirely acquiesce to the thesis, the idea of geekery as central to modernity, as Tom explains it, isn’t something I had come across before. It set me back; I had to argue with it and figure out if I agreed or not. Similarly, his take on why the Sally/Comedian explanation didn’t work wasn’t something I’d thought through; responding to it in my head actually helped me figure out why I liked Moore’s handling of it so much.

And even if I disagreed on many of the big points, the individual details and insights are just a joy. The image of modern mankind as legs on a caterpillar; the comparison of William Gull and Bruce Banner; the fat tear rolling down Alan Moore’s face; the on point takedown of Watchmen the movie; the brilliant insight about Veidt’s super-power being information processing…the whole thing just bristles with ideas from front to back. It reminds me how much I miss having Tom on the blog to disagree with.

For Tom in a somewhat different mode, you can check out his review of Dykes to Watch Out For at tcj.com.

2. Robert Alter — “Scripture Picture”

This is the only review of American art comics on this list. I noted recently that participating in this best of effort left me feeling that comics criticism of genre work and manga was overall in a healthier state than comics criticism of art comics. This is the exception that proves the rule.

As a Biblical translator, Alter’s knowledge of the Bible is incredible, and following his exegesis is one of the great pleasures of reading his review. He’s also a very fine writer, in a somewhat formal vein, and his descriptions of the Biblical text and of Crumb’s imagery are vivid, thoughtful, and often humorous. This, for example:

In a very different sex scene, when Lot’s two daughters, imagining after the devastation of Sodom that there is no man left for them on earth, get their father drunk so that he can be led to impregnate them, Crumb provides contrasting variations on the sexual act: the elder daughter is shown in the missionary position, evidently enjoying herself, while in another frame the younger daughter bestrides her besotted father, who is still clutching a wineskin, her face turned to one side in an enigmatic expression that might reflect dismay, or an inner distancing from the act, or a kind of solipsistic concentration on it.

I love “bestrides her besotted father.” Plus, I’ll be damned if that isn’t all one sentence. That’s some old-school prose style, that is.

In addition to knowledge and style, though, Alter is graced with a third virtue — lack of reverence. It’s not just that he’s willing to suggest that, in some ways, Crumb is not Lord High Poobah Over All (though don’t get me wrong — I appreciated that a good deal) It’s also that he’s willing to suggest that *comics*, as a medium, may have certain limits.

The point of Alter’s esay, ultimately, is that the ambiguity of the Biblical narrative is simply not something that can be represented through sequential pictographs. This assertion caused a howl of protest from the usual quarters. Tim Hodler argued vociferously that, contra Alter, comics could indeed express ambiguity — an entirely reasonable dissent which was rather undermined by the tone of aggrieved schoolmarmish disappointment in his peers which accompanied it. Tim seemed viscerally irritated that critics “who should know better” might entertain the idea that comics couldn’t do just absolutely everything. Team Comix, Team Comix, — why have you forsaken me! (Update: Tim says, with some justice, that he didn’t say what I said he said. You can read some back and forth in comments.)

I can’t speak for the rest of the team of course. But for myself, I can say, I don’t really need comics to do everything. Comics are a really young art form, developed in a commercial, modern milieu, long after the Bible was written. And given that, it seems to me that, perhaps, form does matter — not just in that you can get to the same place in different ways, but in the sense that you really, truly, can’t necessarily get to the same place at all. This is the point of Craig Fischer’s essay about film vs. comics discussed above. It’s also implicit in a recent essay by Bill Randall, where he notes that comics are uniquely suited to representing fragmentation — and therefore, perhaps, one might argue, less suited to representing the kinds of great, unifying narratives represented by the Bible.

Alter, in short, is willing to talk about what comics can’t do. That willingness to focus on limitations rather than accomplishments is, it seems to me, really important in a critic — and it seems to me too often absent from writing about art comics, where there’s still often, among some critics, a certain level of defensiveness — of trying to prove that comics are serious, already. Which is a shame since, as Alter shows, there’s absolutely no reason that an essay about Crumb’s Genesis can’t be just as good as one about Power Girl or Tezuka or Watchmen.

1. Bill Randall — “Bring the Noise”

I mentioned one of Bill Randall’s essays just above there, and this is that essay. As with Tom, I was lucky enough to get Bill to blog with me on HU for a time. I’ve actually gotten to know him better since he left the blog, and I feel pretty lucky for that too. He’s an incredibly smart and funny observer of comics, and, also, you know, of all that stuff out there that isn’t comics but which still might be important to somebody, I guess.

“Bring the Noise,” which appeared in issue 300 of the Comics Journal, and which is now online at tcj.com, is effectively Bill’s farewell to comics criticism, at least in the short form and at least for a while. It’s a history lesson, a memoir, and a speculation about the potential and the limitations of cross-cultural influence. As with all of Bill’s work, the writing is lovely, and works almost more as poetry than prose — not because the language is flowery, but because the connections it makes are as much about memory, intuition, and rhythms as they are about logic. The way he uses declaratives and often leaves the connections between his insights implicit rather than explicit is almost Emersonian; ideas shimmer through the text, free to form different sparkly patterns. It can be off-putting at first for those like me who are more prosaically minded, but once you get into the rhythm it’s addictive. For example, this paragraph:

One of the main reasons it still makes sense to pay Japan the attention it, as a country long stagnant in politics and economy, no longer deserves, is that it offers a model for contemporary life. What has long been a comfortable place to live has taken to extremes, as with, say, the hikikomori, broken students who avoid the outside world entirely. In some ways Japan seems like a Petri dish for the extremes of urban alienation. And it produces fascinating subcultures. A city like Tokyo has a place for everything as long as it stays where it belongs and doesn’t ruffle any feathers. I find some of the most interesting artists working now speak to some small niche in a minor key. Previously, it was the grand narratives from hugely popular artists. These works addressed a time when worldwide conflict was a living memory and everyone felt its effects. Then Japan became middle-class and fantasies replaced a comfortable, mildly unsatisfying life. Now, everyone’s frittering away in their own individual holes on their own individual things. So group life becomes termite life and each subculture gets its own voice.

I love those last two sentences; the repetition of “individual”, the repetition of “life,” the jump from “holes” to the quick metaphor of “termite,” the way the careful, relatively short sentences of the whole paragraph mirror the sense of individual cultures carefully cocooning. Each time I return to this essay, my respect and affection for it grows.

I can’t find the link, but I’m pretty sure I remember that Bill once mentioned that he’d feel like comics criticism was actually art when a piece made him cry, as film criticism had on occasion. I can’t say this essay made me cry. It’s still beautiful, though.

Best Online Comics Criticism 2009

The Year in Reviews (Part 1)

This is an effort to collate and acknowledge the good work that has been done (mostly to little notice) by online comics critics over the course of 2009. These writers have helped make comics a slightly more interesting place to inhabit for readers like myself, ensuring that the conversation doesn’t end the moment a comic is consumed or half-digested by the reader

At the risk of stating the obvious, the articles here aren’t really the “best” pieces of comics criticism of 2009. They are merely the pieces which have been arrived at through the votes of 5 people (namely Noah Berlatsky, Frank Santoro, Tucker Stone, Matthias Wivel and myself). Such a process is prone to exclude worthy articles of a more esoteric nature. A more accurate reflection of the best pieces of writing on comics available online in 2009 may be found in the long list of articles which received votes in the final stage of this process.

While there will be some overlap in critical concerns, it should be clear that the needs and preferences of people who write about comics often dictate what we like and thus vote for in such situations. When you read a piece of comics criticism by Noah Berlatsky, what you’ll find apart from the engaging tone are opinions which address the merits of a work in the context of wider social and political issues, an approach which is clearly different from that of Frank Santoro who is more interested in the history, inner workings and craft underlying individual works. Tucker Stone wears his knowledge lightly and brings a broad interest in comics across all genres as well as a specific interest in criticism directed at entertainment and performance. Matthias Wivel brings a European and more academic perspective.

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