Revenge of the Nerds

Rob Salkowitz of Emphasis Added on how comic books are still problematic for the serious literary scene:

In such pieces, the reviewer makes the tedious observation that adolescent superhero fantasies are not the only available subject-matter for sequential art, and that, hey, a few artists are actually trying to tell serious stories in a format that we all know is just for kids. Isn’t that special?

This style of review, while perhaps fresh and apt during the moment of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns nearly 20 years ago, has long atrophied into cliché and been the subject of mordant chuckles among comic cognoscenti. Frankly it’s shocking that it can still be presented as an original approach to criticism in a publication with such otherwise-high standards as the New York Review of Books.

And

The day when comics can be discussed intelligently in the organs of serious criticism without making a conspicuous display of their pretentious ambitions will be the next great step forward for the artform.

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I pretty much agree with Salkowitz's central issue here, that comics, as a medium, are still pretty much seen as gutter trash by cultural elites. However, I don't think that's such a bad thing. Here's what I wrote, more or less, in the comment section for his post:

Actually, I think that comics being "discussed intelligently in the organs of serious criticism without making a conspicuous display of [the critics'] pretentious ambitions" would be the death knell for the medium. That is, it seems that comics' lowbrow reputation is something that has allowed the field to maintain the lack of creative self-consciousness which has driven it forward for nearly seventy years. It's fabulous, of course, when the serious artistes of comics create meaningful and penetrating work that seems to transcend the medium's four color newsprint trash culture heritage. But, in the end, it all comes back to superheroes.

Remember Alan Moore toward the end of the 80s pronouncing superheroes dead? Within seven or eight years, just as the speculator driven comics market bubble was starting to collapse, taking countless comics shops and independent publishers with it, Moore returns to the scene with a new line of, that's right, superheroes. Trashy pop culture seems to be comics' creative life blood, and I'm not sure if the medium can exist in the United States without staying closely connected to it.

I'm reminded of what's happened to theater and jazz as American artforms. Both still exist and even thrive in some places, but for the most part, theater and jazz are sustained today by universities and elite subcultures. Their connection to popular culture is all but gone, rendering their overall cultural significance virtually meaningless. No one condemns theater and jazz as trash anymore; no, they are serious fine arts, warranting serious critical attention. Of course, nobody really cares anymore, either.

Consequently, the sneering attitudes of "serious" critics are actually a good sign that comics, as a medium, are thriving at the grass roots level, and therefore creatively alive.

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