That's all well and good, Arch, but how are we going to get mainstream recognition for great works of comics fiction then?

I think the same constraints apply to comics as well, telling a self contained story in 20 pages is as much of an art form as writing a good short story. true you don't have the descriptive writing that is required in prose, however if you read a script for a one shot comic, you'll see that a huge amount of effort goes into panel layout and what is contained within. I'd wager that the amount of dialogue contained in a 20 page comic and a short story would probably turn out to be similar.

The medium of the two stories is very different and impose their own limitations...however, the craft required to tell a good short story is the same.

Maybe it's never going to work trying to compare comics to short stories, however as a lifelong comic fan girl, it'd be nice for people to stop dismissing the medium.

Quote from: PanoramaIsland on March 20, 2010, 04:32:46 PM
That's all well and good, Arch, but how are we going to get mainstream recognition for great works of comics fiction then?

The same way that science fiction and gay people have acquired some mainstream respect. One bird at a time. Great comic books will continue to be produced, and eventually the "mainstream" will be forced to recognize that it is a legit art form.

It's already happening. Not just with Maus (which, I should point out, has been accepted into academic circles as legitimate reading) but all over the place. We already have a distinction between comics and graphic novels; the latter category can be seen as a way of legitimizing comics. Eventually that distinction will diminish and perhaps shift or even disappear completely.

Look how many comics and graphic novels have been made into movies lately. It's not just the cheap Saturday morning serials now; it's big budget. And there's a spillover effect; movies bring some respectability to comics. Maybe not as much as people would like, because Hollywood isn't fully respectable, but money talks. Look what it did for Joe Kennedy.

And the very fact that Gaiman won a WFA in a traditionally prose-only category screams "progress!" to me. Now, if they would just get off their silly high horse and invent a new category...heck, the Hugo now has a graphic category, so it's only a matter of time.

Yes, it will take more time, but it is already happening.

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Post Merge: March 20, 2010, 05:04:19 PM

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Quote from: Rock_chick on March 20, 2010, 04:41:44 PM
Maybe it's never going to work trying to compare comics to short stories, however as a lifelong comic fan girl, it'd be nice for people to stop dismissing the medium.

I really think that this is your main complaint, and I fully agree. I think that it's happening. One has only to compare the Comic-Con of yesteryear (say, twenty years ago) with the Comic-Con of today. Look at colleges and academic conferences. Look at the movies. Look at bookstores.

Significant change usually doesn't happen overnight. But it's happening--with emphasis on the "-ing."

I actually find it really funny that Maus got such celebrity status, because (as I believe I said previously) they have chosen to ignore or shine much less light on other very good and similarly serious works. Not even Joe Sacco's Palestine and Safe Area Goražde, both of which are very serious, international award-winning journalistic works about pressing life-and-death issues which are of interest to a wide range of academics, have gotten that kind of academic recognition - and Palestine has an introduction by Edward Said, the foremost name on issues of Palestinian human rights and negatively biased Western views of the Arab world. It may be simply because the academic lit crowd (IMO mistakenly) viewed Spiegelman as a trailblazer in creating "serious" comics. It seems to me, though, that he's gotten a good deal of the fame that he has simply because he's married to the New Yorker's art director, and has a lot of access to levers of power and publicity in "serious" literary circles. He also has a talent for giving self-important and ultimately uninformative lectures to crowds of educated people who know nothing about comics. I wish he'd leave that to Scott McCloud, who's much less impressed with himself and does a much better job of it besides.

Who knows, though - maybe, if I become as famous as Art Spiegelman, I'll start demanding to chain smoke onstage during lectures just like he does.

PanoramaIsland, you have a very good point. I'm already getting out of my depth in this conversation, though. Somebody started a thread on comics here...guess I'll take a look at it and see what folks have to say. I'm sure I'll learn something.

Thanks for the reference to Sacco--I'll look him up, although I doubt that I'll be able to find him at the library . And I can't really justify spending much money on books till I get financially solidified.

But if his stance is pro-Palestine, that might explain why folks in this country (U.S.) aren't reading him so much. A lot of people seem to think that the Israelis are lily-white victims and the Palestinians are evil, murderous land-grubbers. I guess U.S. foreign policy has had a hand in that...not to mention the persecution of the Jews in WWII, which, of course, is largely the subject matter of Maus.

Yeah, Sacco's great. Good luck finding Palestine in a library outside of San Francisco or Berkeley, though. 
As a Jew, I've gotten really tired of the old-hat Zionist perspective that most of my family takes. It's like they're progressives on every issue, but when it comes to our ethnicity, they're militaristic nationalists who believe in mixing synagogue and state and harbor a subtle, persistent ethnic hatred for Arabs - which is silly, because Arabs and Israeli Jews are so similar. It's like hatred between Arabs and Persians - kind of pointless, yes?
I'm not saying that the Palestinians are perfect, defenseless angels, mind you, but how would you feel if you were fenced in from every side, deprived of critical supplies, prevented by walls from seeing your family, had your home bulldozed (it's full of TERRORISMS!), and then a bunch of ultra-orthodox loons built a fancy settlement next door, fenced in with security towers, IDF protection and special Jews Only access roads?
Whatever you think about the origin of the conflict, it's clear that the Israeli government is not blameless.

I think that Sacco's mission was to capture the human side of things, and keep high-minded editorializing to a minimum, and he achieves that: the book (like Safe Area Goražde) is about recounting the stories of human beings embroiled in a conflict, how he meets them, what they do, the stories they tell. It's not really about analyzing or passing judgment, although he does have a certain political perspective which he doesn't exactly make secret.

His newest work, Footnotes In Gaza, I haven't read - though I hear it's quite good.

See if your library has Safe Area Goražde, at least. It's worth checking.

The comics thread seems to be largely "Marvel! DC! Yayyy!!!" so far. Leave it to the nerds, I guess.

I spotted a copy of Palestine in forbidden planet the other week, may buy it when i get paid next.

Interestingly, I've always been more of a fantasy fan when it comes to reading, but generally like sci-fi movies/tv shows more than fantasy. I don't really know why, and there are some exceptions, but that holds pretty true for most things. Either way, I'm a total nerd!

Quote from: PanoramaIsland on March 21, 2010, 11:25:43 AM
Yeah, Sacco's great. Good luck finding Palestine in a library outside of San Francisco or Berkeley, though. 

The uni library I use here in town (my undergrad alma mater) has all of the Sacco works you mentioned, including three copies of Palestine. But I had no success finding anything at all in Barnes & Ignoble. Perhaps it was in the history section. I suppose I should have thought of it. But there are loads of copies of all of these books in the public library system. Guess I could request them and have them brought to my local branch.

Yeah, they shelves "serious" comics in other sections sometimes. Because, you know, Persepolis and Maus aren't, you know, comics. Comics have superheroes in them. 

Quote from: PanoramaIsland on March 22, 2010, 12:13:22 AM
Yeah, they shelves "serious" comics in other sections sometimes. Because, you know, Persepolis and Maus aren't, you know, comics. Comics have superheroes in them. 

Quite so. These are graphic novels. They're actually respectable.

I have never read Persepolis, mainly because I tend to shy away from anything that has to do with women. But I remember the TV commercials for the movie when it came out...I thought they were idiotic commercials, especially when I found out what the film was really about.

David Weber and the Honor Harrington series

Quote from: al james on April 08, 2010, 02:53:12 PM
David Weber and the Honor Harrington series

Some people swear by the HH books, but my ex, who is a big military sf buff, will not read them. I've never figured out why. Are they especially bubblegummy, or something?

To be fair t was the first series of sci fi my now partner leant me so i haven't got a lot to compare them with. I've now read the Kris Longknife series and they're about on a par but the military bit is probably dumbed down cos even i understand it

I have just re-read the 'Shadowmoon' series by Sean McMullin, and have to admit they appeal to my love of black comedy.  A bit like Flint's 'Philosphical Strangler'. 

Quote from: Rock_chick on March 13, 2010, 11:29:57 AM
Who's your fav author? I'd have to say Iain M. Banks is up there...especially his culture novels. Being able to change your biological sex just by thinking about it? Yes please!

I never get to name drop, so here goes...

I once did a literary festival with Iain Banks, we then got drunk on wine and he started doing impressions of Neil Gaiman.  I was offered to do a PHD in fantasy and sci-fi after a book reading - but I can't afford it.

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Post Merge: April 25, 2010, 08:38:59 AM

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I am a big Vonnegut nut though and my favourite of his books was 'Sirens of Titan' one of his most sci-fi-y.

Michael Moorcock, P.K. Dick, Ursula LeGuin 

Getting into China Meivelle at the moment; just read Iron Council which was pretty great 

Quote from: Pica Pica on April 25, 2010, 08:37:04 AMI once did a literary festival with Iain Banks, we then got drunk on wine and he started doing impressions of Neil Gaiman. 

What mannerisms make Neil Gaiman stand out? Or should I just look him up on YouTube?

Quote from: Arch on May 06, 2010, 01:38:30 PM
What mannerisms make Neil Gaiman stand out? Or should I just look him up on YouTube?

His hotness? His interest in writing women as real people, instead of giant flying guns with boobies attached?

Quote from: PanoramaIsland on May 06, 2010, 02:46:47 PM
His hotness? His interest in writing women as real people, instead of giant flying guns with boobies attached?

I don't see how these perceived attributes make for a successful round of impressions...