Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site yale-comix.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!decvax!yale-comix!firby5 From: firby5@yale-comix.UUCP (Jim Firby) Newsgroups: net.comics Subject: What comics are for Message-ID: <4020@yale-comix.UUCP> Date: Fri, 15-Jun-84 21:49:08 EDT Article-I.D.: yale-com.4020 Posted: Fri Jun 15 21:49:08 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 21-Jun-84 02:05:26 EDT Organization: Yale University CS Dept., New Haven CT Lines: 34 There has been a lot of discussion lately, here and in the 'zines, about the "abysmal state of comics today". I would like to examine this complaint, and show that it simply ain't so. I have been studying forms of fiction for many years, and if I have learned only one thing, it would be this: each form must be accepted on its own terms, and on those terms alone. There is no such thing as an absolute standard to be applied across the board. Each form is unique, although there may be some over lap. This is the problem with most of those doomsaying articles. They want to apply standards to comics which comics never intended meeting. Due to the almost ince stuous nature of comics and fandom today, some comics are trying to give these n oisy fans what they think the fans think they want, and that's when we really get bad comics. Let's face it. If I want Hamlet, I'll read Shakespeare. If I need a bit of existential angst, I'll go to Camus, or Sartre. Why should I read Ms. Tree or Sommerset Holmes when I can find the same thing done better in Greene? One of the most embarassing bit of comics I can remember is Eisner's "proof" that you could indeed do Hamlet in comics. This is easily the worst thing he has ever produced, and it seems to me rather sad that the man who gave us P'gell and Denny Colt, the Octopus and that charming man who could fly felt obligated to prove that his chosen form of fiction was just as respectable as Shakespeare's. Well, I seem to have said what comics are not for in this article. Tune in next time for part 2, where I will reveal what comics are really for (I hope). from the airtight garage of joanne f.