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Alright - let's get substantial!
You know, I almost feel a bit guilty about posting so enthusiastically about this now. I don't, of course, because of the sheer wealth and quality of comics on offer (the links in the top post are updated btw, and shall continue to be, as well as the ever expanding flickr group) which is surely the most important thing. But the writing accompanying it all in the paper, and on the paper’s website was incredibly embarrassing and ill informed.
I shoulda known. Well, I guess I did know. But you still hope, eh?
I mean to start with there's the baffling title, "Manga comes of age" (which actually appears to have been changed on the blog version of the same piece). But manga is surely old enough to not just have a bus pass but be consigned to a museum and all practitioners of it actually be considered nostalgic. Except of course it's been going on all this time. And that these are British comics.
As well as the distinction between comics strips and graphic stories – “it really was a short story rather than a comic strip masquerading as such” and the pompous tone condemning comics strips that might deem themselves worthy to masquerade as such.
To me, these are the same thing anyway, and only a pedant would differentiate between the two. I mean yes, perhaps they favour a more literary style of comic but I don't think the importance of such should be forced down people's throats to the detriment of other work. Which is still comics.
But it should come as no surprise that a publication who place so much emphasis in such shame avoiding terms such as "graphic story" use it to wholly define what something is, and which really has no purpose except in distancing ones self from comics; using it to both define and other the entire thing by being dismissive about mere comic strips, which must certainly be of a lower class.
This is especially offensive to me, and really seems to miss the point about what comics are and more importantly what they can be by maintaining a cultural status quo with regard to comics.
But this is the problem I always find with comics coverage found in this sort of broadsheet – it is what they do, and what they always do – to see it as a distinct divide in quality and class, and that only one of these things can be worthy of attention. And of course, those things can be good, but I don’t think it can ever be healthy to divide up an artform as such.
What I don’t like about this is that as well as the automatic assumption that one thing is better than the other, it betrays exactly what informs all the writing about comics to be found here. And that’s just bad writing, and only reinforces negative ideas about comics themselves. But that is very telling of the sort of coverage that comics do receive more widely, and the positives are really only ever thrown in one direction. And I'm not saying that's not good, just that it disappoints me that in all the articles I've ever really read about these new ages of comics, they're always about the same people or same types of work or genres. And have been for years.
It's like criticising Die Hard because it's an action film (which, uh, I guess does happen) and not some art house thing. But they're still both films, it does no good to pretend it’s a different medium. Or criticising pop music because it's disposable and unimportant, but praising Radiohead all day long. (And personally, these are the things that are important to me and what crystallises the fact that I never think any comic I made – although I feel I should mention I don’t think my entry was great by any means, I am simply interested in analysing the state of comics criticism in our culture* - would be that interesting to them because of the things which I value, which is why it seems so affronting when they talk their pompous talk).
And casually disregarding Asterix and Tin Tin as "not art" seems especially counter-productive, especially when compared to this new dawning of an age which we shall indeed now pat ourselves on the back for. It is unfortunate to witness someone patting themselves on the back for what they see as their involvement of the coming of age of Manga, but I guess that's just what you get from the literary editor talking about comics – yeah, comics! – because he’ll frame them in the only way he can. "Lets be smug about graphic stories" would have perhaps been a more appropriate title.
Indeed, the little write up on the Random House graphic story prize website linked to in the first post seems a lot more balanced and friendly, even suggesting debate over cartoon strip/graphic story definitions. You can't help feeling the paper's influence.
And one sad thing about all this is that I think a lot of this negative feeling has in turn been displaced on to the winning comics, which I think is wrong and just seems bitter. I am fine with all the winners - and well done to them too - but I think it really doesn't help to have your work printed alongside such rubbish.
Personally, I didn't like the overall winner that much; I much preferred the runner up entry (which conversely felt more like a short story to me) where every panel had purpose and flowed nicely to a point, felt full and meant more to me as a whole rather than what seemed more like less well paced random silliness from the winner. I dunno, they might have seen it as dark wit, but it just felt a bit thin and lacking in content to me. But it's still good work, and I've seen enough people praising it to realise it's just not really my taste.
It's disappointing to sense a vaguely negative feeling left around the internet, lots of "you should have won" and cynical feelings of being hard done by, because I don't think there's anything surprising about the outcome and also I don't want to seem like I'm linking all of other entrants I can find purely from a misguided sense of injustice. I just think it's nice and positive, and good for people's work to be seen. And with the format, it's unlikely to be of much use anywhere else.
I still feel these competitions are a good thing in general - and my thinking will always be to get some work in there because it's always good to do so - but by and large it could quite easily be a much better thing too (and seeing as it will apparently be run annually, maybe it will be). Indeed, the winner was printed smaller than it appeared specified by the format, to accommodate everything on only one page (or was the only specification to fit on the size of an Observer page, I can't remember), and we didn't get to hear from any of the other judges. It felt a bit like it was shunted off in to a corner and no big deal was made of it, though. I'd half expected at least two pages, with a bit more about the whole thing. Still, it is what it is and what it was always going to be.
And also, none of these things can really take away from any of the work produced - and it appears that are a lot more people making good comics than perhaps I realised - and that makes me very pleased indeed. Lovely.
And also - thank you MacReady, nay IRON MAN! I'm glad you liked my page. You knows I like a bit of romance! I'm quite sad that neither you or Nelson managed to enter. You guys!
*And I think I’d roughly place it somewhere alongside computer games journalism as presented in the mass media. |
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