Barbelith Underground > Comic Books > "The comics community sure is catty..."

See? I told you I'd reply, moriarty.

Most of the catty-ness w/in the comics community seems to stem from the two fronts of the "art vs. not art" war and their refusal to see that the two fronts can (and in my opinion should) co-exist. I love The Comics Journal (as I do all things that make me alternate between fervent nods of affirmation and loud outbursts of profanity), but Jesus they're a bunch of elitist pricks sometimes. And on the other end of the stick, there's Frank Cho's complely fucking whacked comment:

If they had any talent or skill, they would be working for Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse, or various other comic publishers instead of spending nights photocopying their "mini" comics and bitching how about nobody understands them."

...as if the choice of venue were out of the individual's hands entirely (and don't even get me started on his including Los Bros. Hernandez in the "no talent" group...).

I think one of the overarching goals amongst most people in either of these camps is to diversify and legitimize comics as a medium, but I really don't know why these two types of comics (and all the shades of grey in between) are considered by so many to be mutually exclusive, or why only one or the other can be accepted by their respective group as legitimate. This infighting serves no one but themselves (and, yes, our own occasional thirst to read some petty bitching) and is ultimately only going to serve to hold the comics community back from any mainstream acceptance.

And now for the question and answer portion of our program...

When doing an overview of a particular genre or medium (obvious example, webcomics) does the writer of said article have a duty to include the most popular examples in the crowd?

Not at all. I wouldn't think so, anyway. If the article concentrated on popular web-comics, an ommission might seem like a glaring oversight. Personally, if I were doing an overview of something like web-comics, I'd look for the most interesting examples, those that succeeded in taking advantage of the medium. I saw nothing special about that PVP comic at all, let alone anything special in terms of its web-centricity.

What is an alternative (and/or independent) comic?

Technically, "independent" would seem to fit any work that isn't funded by some huge corporation. "Alternative" to me seems to fit any work, w/in either an independent or a corporate framework, which is not explicitly "mainstream" in its content and/or approach.

What the hell is the difference between putting a comic strip online and printing it in a zine?

Absolutely none if you don't utilize the technology of the internet in the creation of your comic.

While I'll admit that most zine comics are pretty nasty, why do people feel like shitting all over these comics, when they could just as well let them be and accept them as labours of love?

Some people have certain expectations and prejudices towards comics. Like I said above, insecure creators feel not only the need to belabor the validity of their chosen mode of expression but to declare as invalid any mode of expression that contradicts or challenges their own. It's easier for the Frank Chos of the world to sleep at night when they don't feel any internal pressure to stretch creatively and work outside of their niche, and it's easier for the more pretentious and obtuse of the alternative creators to scoff at the thought of making their work more accessable.

How is pvponline, a strip that caters mainly to providing injokes for computer nerds and sci-fi geeks, a more mainstream comic then the work of many of the artists at Fantagraphics (the main publisher under attack here) like Dave Cooper or Dan Clowes?

I think it comes as much down to what you define as "mainstream" as much as anything else (as debated in the Warren Ellis thread from a while back). PVP, for better or worse, is pretty much mainstream, insofar as the comics community is concerned. It caters to and perpetuates the image of the "mouth-breathing fatbeard" contingent (as it has been so lovingly put in the past). It is not precisely that which is mainstream w/in other media, but it's a pretty decent analogue. The Dave Cooper and Dan Clowes types are going to be marginalized in any media's mainstream. An unfortunate reality, but true nonetheless. The content and themes of something like Weasel might be closer to what is considered mainstream w/in, say, the world of film than that of PVP is, but the former is still fairly marginalized w/in the comics community, whereas the latter caters directly to the expectations of the medium's mainstream. I suppose that "catering" might be the key here.