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NYT Magazine: Are Comics The New Mainstream Novels?
securitas writes "The New York Times Magazine cover story this week is a (typically) long feature about the rise of comic books and graphic novels into mainstream culture, with writer Charles McGrath (former editor of the Book Review) stating: 'Comic books are what novels used to be -- an accessible, vernacular form with mass appeal ... perfectly suited to our dumbed-down culture and collective attention deficit.' McGrath cites the mid-1980s birth of a movement that began and fizzled with Maus (Art Spiegelman), Love & Rockets (Hernandez Bros.) Watchmen (Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons) and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (Frank Miller). The current renaissance in graphic novels include non-fiction Palestine (Sacco), non-fiction Persepolis (Satrapi) which has sold 450,000 copies, Ghost World (Clowes), American Splendor (Pekar), Road to Perdition (Collins) and Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, which won the 2001 Guardian Prize for best first book and has sold 100,000 in hardcover. McGrath interviews Marjane Satrapi, Julie Doucet, Joe Sacco, Art Spiegelman, and Alan Moore, among others. The article also has a multimedia interactive feature with many of the graphic novelists (registration required) in the magazine article."
The author of the article barely makes mention of it except to crack a joke. Manga has been mainstream entertainment for people of all ages/social status for years in Japan, and accounts for about 1/3 of all books and magazines published there (and several billion US dollars in sales). Where 'Comic Books' are considered Geeky in the US, Manga is read by everyone from children to housewives to businessmen.
It's about time we started catching up...
Urge to post... fading... fading... RISING!... fading... fading... gone.
> Are Comics The New Mainstream Novels?
This may be true, although I have a slightly different perspective. I think we just really like the people who make comics, because they are expressive people; these same people could do anything else and we would like it just as much. For example, take Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert. I have been holding out for the next Scott Adams novel (not comic, read: handbook). I was greatly amused, and felt better protected against the weasels in society, after reading "The Way of the Weasel." This was a fantastic read, filled with cynical, yet practical knowledge, to help combat the weasels ruining our workplaces and our private lives. Sure Dilbert comics make an appearances in TWotW, to illustrate concise points, but they only accent the rest of the book and support points raised with classic Dilbert humour. His writing is stunning -- and wholly useful. I can only hope he writes another one of these because I found it totally useful, as I'm sure many of you have.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
...for all your dumbed down graphic-novel reading needs.
Seriously, if you've never read it, it doesn't get more bloody or offensive than that... my favorite graphic novel by far.
Perfectly suited to our dumbed-down culture and collective attention deficit...
I think that's a bit harsh for novels and graphic novels. Some of the comics cited above are difficult, intelligent stories with involved character development and a good story to tell.
Calling that dumbed-down undersells the artists and the readership.
I'm pretty sure someone was saying that about Dickens in his day.
I'm sure many of we lovers of the medium of comics will object to the "dumbed-down" comment"
Comic reading implies a different kind of literacy.
Not an illiteracy.
We know many people who don't read comics because, as they say, "we don't get it".
I pity the comic-illiterate, for the unique joy that they lose out on.
And I question the implication that comics are "dumb".
Many literary works of great sophistication, not to mention beauty, happen to be comics.
How can you have a post on graphic novels without including Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" series? ;)
:)
Seriously, this is some of the most amazing stuff ever to come out, both with respect to storyline and art. Gaiman is a master wordsmith and weaves elements of ancient religion, existential philosophy, and wry british humor into his works. More here, here, and at Gaiman's Blog.
Seriously, check it out. This stuff is awesome
-JT
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Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
Don't get me wrong: I'm a lifelong fan and reader of the medium, I've done a little on the creative end of it as well, and continue to do so as an avocation. But it is not (yet) a phenomenon of mainstream media.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I find graphic novels paint a mood in an instant without resorting to pages of descriptive text. In an fleeting moment, you can sum up the scene perfectly. Try doing that in a full page of text.
:P
There is also the fact that the graphic novels are usually serialised, thus keeping the interest from one issue to the next - not a constant build-up and single climax as with most "modern fiction".
It also seems easier to spot reused plots in graphic novels
"We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over." - Aneurin Bevan
Also, regarding the notion of a poetry->novels->manga devolution:
;-)
1) My impression is that the growth of novels was driven by the availability of affordable mass printing, rather than an inability of readers to handle poetry.
2) The ongoing disappearance of poetry is mostly a consequence of poets' writing for each other rather for an audience. The readers haven't gotten dumber; the poems have become inaccessible and ugly.
That said, graphic novels are still dweeb candy.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
No. Sure, I'm echoing an AC's sentiment, but here, I'm not being a jackass about it.
if Comics really were an influence in American culture, then why is the industry itself in the shits? If it wasn't for comicmovies, Marvel probably would've filed for bankruptcy AGAIN. I'm looking here and seeing bankruptcies in 1996 and 2002. That's not healthy under ANY measure.
Not just that, but I've been observing the comics industry, and I'm sorry to say that it's devouring itself alive. Alternative book saren't selling, so they have to really press on old, rehashed characters, which inturn turns off non-geek types who'd normally be turned on by alternative books.
They're playing only to thier base, which is getting smaller in terms of population percentages rather than try to diversify. I mean, I'd hate to say it, but the American industry could learn a thing or two about the Japanese industry. Not by using big eyes and other cliches(like Marvel did, fucking mangaverse bullshit), but rather, instead by trying to diversify the market to the point where there's a story for everyone, published in a cheap, easy to access form. Japanese monthlies are about 600 yen(about 5 bucks, I think, it's been awhile since i've priced the bigass phonebook style compilations, i'm probably off base here) and come with between 10-20 or so stories. Some publishers even run weeklies. In America, for about that much, you can get two seperate books which probably havee thick, and I mean THICK, continuity. And you're stuck with ONE genre. Super-hero action-adventure. Even though most compilations are typically gender/themed(Nakayoshi comes to mind, where SailorMoon and MKR was published), you tend to get a mix of stories.
Not to mention that those books play to only one group, and those are the comicbook fanboys. As much as comic books are for supposedly for kids, these days they're more for 15-20something fanboys who tend to do poorly socially(my crowd, I never got the whole comic thing though).
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
It you liked The Smartest Kid On Earth, you should check out some of Ware's older stuff in The Acme Novelty Library as well. Those things are both hilarious and deeply disturbing at the same time.
They're worth it for some of the twisted advertisements on the edges alone. Also, I think every comic had these elaborate, workable 3D cut-out assemblable projects on the very edges. I guess they meant for people to buy 2 copies of each issue.
Happy people make bad consumers.
(Turning back to my copy of Radioactive Commander Tacoman Comics.)
Here you go Slashdotters, my two cents. I'm sure you'll have some good criticisms of this letter as well:
It is about time people like Bendis and Stan Lee get credit for creating the wonderful works. If I compare comics to the numerous trash magazines, I'll take a good comic any day.
Maus (which won the PULITZER prize) is one of the most powerful books EVER written about history's worst crime, The Holocaust.
Just because it's a "comic-book" does not mean it is "dumbed-down" or any less than a novel. Is "The Godfather," "Gone with the Wind," "Lord of the Rings" or "Shrek" any less of an art form because it is in motion picture form as opposed to the written word?
Maus is amazing. My dad got it for me in 7th grade and I have re-read it more than any other book is history.
Video is more likely to replace mainstream novels than comic books.
More people watch TV than read (sadly), and given another decade or two, we should all start having a very portable way to view video directly from the net.
I think comics may well be supplanted by home-brewed animation. A technically literate illustrator can create his own animated short in about the same amount of time as it once took to complete a monthly comic, using today's tools. As the tools evolve, it may become even easier. (Right now, programmers still don't seem to fully grasp what it is artists need from their tools. But more and more traditional artists are finally beginning to cross over into the digital medium, so I expect they will make themselves heard, and the tools...and the content... will improve.) We are also seeing more and more hybrid electronic formats, which look less like comics and more like animation all the time.
Forget dead trees. We will all be publishing ourselves electronically before long.