Comments on Comics Comics: What's Wrong With This Picture

Have you looked at the book in its original online...

2008-01-14T12:17:00.000-05:00

Have you looked at the book in its original online form? The only reason I didn't trash it quite as harshly in my review was that the online version had some things going for it. The story was more immediately responsive to the news and the art worked better.

Making a physical book of it (months later) just took away what the online strip had going for it and exposed all the many weaknesses. I'm also very confused as to how it made any best of lists.

Rushkoff has really bad ideas and really bad taste...

2008-01-14T11:33:00.000-05:00

Rushkoff has really bad ideas and really bad taste.
Just for the record...

I actually was being considered to draw this book ...

2008-01-14T10:44:00.000-05:00

I actually was being considered to draw this book (having not seen the whole script), but didn't get the gig. When it came out and I finally had a chance to read it I felt like I'd very nearly dodged a bullet. The guy's pitch was good! But yeah, what a boring, Gen-X (in the worst way) mess.

Spot on review. I agree a hundred times over and a...

2008-01-14T10:04:00.000-05:00

Spot on review. I agree a hundred times over and am completely flummoxed over the good reviews this book is getting. I suppose merely being about Iraq is somehow good enough for people. The subject matter triumphs the execution.

Okay, fair enough- I haven't read the book in ques...

2008-01-12T15:00:00.000-05:00

Okay, fair enough- I haven't read the book in question. I've only read a chunk of Preacher though, (not the John Wayne bits) but my impression from that made me think that, were John Wayne to show up, it would be a somewhat sincere invocation, (in terms of the western and masculinity) and I certainly don't think the use of Bill Murray is ironic.

I just think that that distinction critics make between something being ironic and sincere, is almost always an ascribing of motives, and frequently projecting a writer's own biases- There's no shortage of people thinking PR are ironic, and while it's obvious to me that's not the case, some people can only see certain imagery in that way.

Well, I think it's actually very different. The us...

2008-01-12T10:48:00.000-05:00

Well, I think it's actually very different. The use of Dan Rather is ironic, in the mid-90s sense. The Cobain reference in Cold Heat is, for one thing, somewhat oblique (even if the PR copy is otherwise) and not at all ironic, and Garfield is used as a totem for Paper Rad--a potent symbol, not an ironic twist for a story.

Yeah, Paul Gravett had it on his list and that sur...

2008-01-11T23:05:00.000-05:00

Yeah, Paul Gravett had it on his list and that surprised me.

I get that Shooting War is a bad comic, but I'm no...

2008-01-11T19:18:00.000-05:00

I get that Shooting War is a bad comic, but I'm not sure how much the criticism about inserting figures as characters holds weight with me. Sure, the idea of citing Dan Rather as some kind of a paragon/figurehead seems misinformed and a product of lame thought processes, but only because it's Dan Rather. Completely different than Bill Murray continuing to get work, which I can find no fault with.

If you're making broad statements against that sort of thing, you would have to also include some of the cartoonists you publish. Is the use of Kurt Cobain in Cold Heat that different from the use of John Wayne in Preacher, even if Paper Rad's use of Garfield can't be considered in the same way?

(I hadn't even heard of Shooting War until Douglas Rushkoff named it one of his five favorite comics of the year at the Daily Cross Hatch, which I noted because his seemed like the worst list on the page by far.)