Ugly American - Why Do Comics People Hate Comics So Much?

One of my least favorite archetypes of the comic book realm is the Self Loathing Pro/Fan. No matter how many ground-breaking works are produced, no matter how deeply the medium penetrates popular culture and consciousness, there remains a segment (a significant segment) that just can't stop apologizing.

What's disturbing to me is that as the medium has grown out of its self-imposed, Wertham-inspired, artificially fabricated juvenile stage, ignorance about what comics are and what they accomplish seems to be getting worse, not better. And the bulk of this ignorant rubbish isn't coming from without, but from within!

The people who should know better about comics know the least. The people who owe the most do the most damage. Here are three items I've bumped into in just the past thirty days:

Alan Moore tells BBC News "Someone came up with the term graphic novel. These readers latched onto it; they were simply interested in a way that could validate their continued love of Green Lantern or Spider-Man without appearing in some way emotionally subnormal."

When the Metro had the gall to ask Nic Cage if doing animated features connected with his well-documented interest in comic books, he replied "Look, the truth is I'm not obsessed with comics. I don't read comics as a 49 year-old man. Not that there's anything wrong with that but I have other interests that are more in tune with where I'm at right now."

Vivek Tiwary is the writer of "The Fifth Beatle", a much-acclaimed biography of Brian Epstein. I recently listened to an interview in which he declared that his comic book is definitely not a comic book. "There's nothing comic about it", Tiwary explains.

I feel a bit weary having to explain this stuff 20 years after Scott McCloud published Understanding Comics, but apparently we need a refresher course, so here goes -

Comics are a medium, not a genre.

What does that mean? I think Neil Gaiman summed it up best, so I'll paraphrase him and say that comics are an empty glass, and you can fill it up with anything. It's just words and pictures, folks. You can do whatever you like with them, there is nothing inherently "mature" or "juvenile" about them. We've seen plenty of both ends of the spectrum.

Comics are simply a method of delivering information, usually in story form, because human beings are Story Machines. It's what we do, it's who we are. What would your reaction be if I said to you "Yeah, I'm 42 years old for crying out loud, I don't watch television any more." That would sound absurd, wouldn't it? When do you get too old to read novels?

These are just story delivery mechanisms, containing a wide variety of material amenable to "all ages and tastes" as Strange Adventures would put it. This is demonstrably true for all mediums, including comics, not that you'd get that idea from the nonsense pouring out of the medium's most notable figures.

Let's start breaking this ridiculous propaganda down, starting with the Alan Moore stuff. A few words about the credibility of Alan Moore as regards comics in general and superhero comics in particular - he has none.

That little BBC diatribe about "emotionally subnormal" superhero comics readers began with the admission that he hasn't read a superhero comic since he finished Watchmen. That was what, almost 30 years ago? If he hasn't looked at a thing in thirty years, how is he able to justifiably comment on it?

Alan Moore is the guy who wrote Lost Girls, in which he decided that what the world really needed was our favorite fantasy literary heroines penetrating each other with kitchen implements. So when Moore wants to opine about others "emotional normality", I'm not sure he's dealing from a very strong hand.

The real point is that he's demonstrably wrong about all of it. All of it. In the first place, to talk about "superhero comics" as though they're all the same thing is aggressively stupid. I'm not even talking about the wide diversity of comics material available, I'm talking about the incredible variations between Marvel superhero books sitting next to each other on the same rack.

Yes, Green Lantern is doing very different things from Chris Ware's Building Stories. But also, Hawkeye is doing very different things from Cable & X-Force. Young Avengers bears absolutely no resemblance to Avengers: Endless Wartime in terms of appearance, themes, target audience, or tone. To speak of superhero comics as a single thing with a similar focus is to speak from a position of profound ignorance.

Let's talk about the concept of The Superhero for a moment, shall we? Let me break your brain here and point out the obvious - there is nothing inherently mature or juvenile about them. Superheros are just symbols, shortcuts to pointing at things greater than ourselves. They are a convenient method of increasing stakes, elevating drama, and capturing the imagination of the audience.

If you want to talk about power and responsibility, Spider-Man is a good way to do that, because he's got heightened power, and therefore heightened responsibility. It's a good shortcut, or at least it can be. It certainly has been for a good portion of Spider-Man's existence. Spider-Man and his power set are a tool, a vehicle to get an audience to pay attention to stories and life lessons, because the extraordinary elements are fun and exciting. How is this a problem, exactly?

Superheros are not a new thing, by the way. If you shit on those comics, you must also shit on Homer, Ovid, Mary Shelley, and the Bhagavad Gita.

Do you think Alan Moore and his little cadre of Fuzzy Bunnies would dare utter a disrespectful syllable about the Gita? Never would they ever, because they are intellectually dishonest.

The only difference between The Authority and those ancient mythological texts are temporal. It's the same types of hyper-sigils offering shortcuts to the concerns of the authors/readers of the day. Does that sound immature to you?

So when Nic Cage says that he doesn't read comics any more because he's 49 years-old, I don't know what the hell he's talking about, and neither does he. When did he get too old for stories? He certainly doesn't seem opposed to making money on them.

I mean, wasn't that Nic Cage I saw recently butchering the character of Johnny Blaze in those Ghost Rider movies? I guess he's decided to he's too old to read the books, but his elevated sensibilities were perfectly capable of turning a good character into an Elvis clown caricature. I guess when you get old and wise enough, you're ready to be in tune with Elvis clown caricatures. Oh, and cashing big fat checks. Don't forget them! That sounds intellectually consistent and pregnant with integrity, doesn't it?

So, you'll forgive me if I don't hang on every word of Nic Cage's regarding the merits of the comic book medium or the superhero genre. It's just amazing to me that these comics have provided him with those big, fat, Hollywood checks and in return he publicly loathes them. "Not that there's anything wrong with that" is transparent code for "something's wrong with that."

Why can't he just shut his mouth, or simply admit that he doesn't read the books any more? There's no crime in that. I just don't understand the purpose in perpetuating the ridiculous myth that people outgrow comic books. The appropriate response to that question should have been - "You know what, I'm a poseur now. Haven't read the books in years. The end." I guess he just wanted that quiet comfort of showing everybody how much better he is than them, and how "above it all" he is. Consider me unimpressed with that.

I don't think Vivek Tiwary is in that "I'm better than you boat" when he claims his comic isn't a comic. To be perfectly fair, I'm not sure what his intentions were with that comment. It's possible it was just a joke, and he meant that since Fifth Beatle isn't a humor book, it wasn't "comic" in nature.

Maybe, but I don't think so. I think he was juxtaposing his purely biographical work against his (entirely false) notion of what comics are - Sunday paper funny strips and juvenile superhero power fantasies.

I'm not angry with Tiwary, I honestly think he doesn't know any better. My issue is that Fifth Beatle is an exceptional work, it's gaining the kind of media attention that could help expand the comics customer base, and I feel like he's out there debasing the medium in general and promoting his book as an outlier of quality in a sea of childish dreck. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Just as an aside, I know that somebody out there is going to play Word Cop on me and say that Fifth Beatle isn't a comic, it's a true "graphic novel" because it's an original long form work and not a collection of previously serialized material. Congratulations on that, I guess, but a graphic novel is just a longer comic. The Fifth Beatle is a comic book. Sorry.

Comics are just words and pictures, people! Sometimes they're good, sometimes they aren't. Sometimes the subject matter is sophisticated and mature, sometimes it's not. If you want to decry bad comics because they're bad....to that I say "fine", and also "duh". But this thing where we pillory the entire medium or even the superhero genre as though it's all the same.....wake up! Maybe read what you're pooping on before you comment, and get it right. Go read McCloud, then read it again.

I find it particularly repulsive that the worst offenders of false comic book propaganda are those who have profited the most. Where is the gratitude? Where is the love? Consider it my fervent wish that we in the comics community make this our New Year's Resolution:

Let's get informed and stop hating ourselves. Please?

Also; did you know that 'The Ugly American' is now available as a 'Beautiful Chinese' product? Head over to the Wear Monsters Dwell swag page at Society 6 and pick up your very own TUAR mug.

Ugly American Report: Miracle-Whipped!

This week I thought I'd jam my hand into the mailbag to see if it still bites. What I got was this letter from Miracle Keith, who wants me to speculate on the future of Miracleman. Keith writes:

I wonder if Ryan could comment on the Marvel announcement regarding Miracleman? Apparently, the Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman issues will be reprinted in their entirety, with the possibility of Gaiman finally finishing his storyline. The hilarious part of the whole thing is that the solicitations contain the writer credit: “The original author” and Mick Anglo. In other words, Moore is such an unbelievably obstinate grudge-holder that he has requested his name to be struck from the reprints. I understand that he is donating all royalties from any first printings be donated to the Anglo family (which stands to be a pretty huge chunk of change), so his philanthropy should be admired. If Ryan could just quickly comment on 1) what collectors of the old Eclipse issues should do with their back issues (i.e. – sell now before it’s too late or keep on hangin’ on) and 2) what he thinks the future will hold for the character after Gaiman (ostensibly) finishes out his story arc.

Thanks, ya puke

MiracleKeith

Just to get everybody caught up, Miracleman was a much lauded series penned by Alan Moore in the 1980s, revising and maturing Marvelman, one of Britain's most popular superheroes from the 1950s. The series began as a black-and-white strip contained in Dez Skinn's "Warrior" anthology magazine before Eclipse took over and started publishing the series in color. Alan Moore left after 16 issues and then passed the baton to Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham. That team went for 8 more issues before Eclipse finally declared bankruptcy, leaving the Gaiman/Buckingham arc incomplete.

At that point chaos ensued as to who actually owned the rights to the character. Dez Skinn was pretty sure he bought the rights from original Marvelman creator Mick Anglo, Eclipse was pretty sure they bought the rights from Skinn, and Todd McFarlane was pretty sure he bought the rights from Eclipse. It's a long convoluted, painful story, but the story ended with the relevant courts deciding that Mick Anglo had always owned the rights to that character. And then at the 2009 San Diego Comic Con, Joe Quesada announced at the "Cup O' Joe" panel that Marvel had, in fact bought the rights from Anglo.

For some, that announcement was a big deal. Miracleman is regarded as a seminal work, on par with Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns in terms of quality and historical importance. If you want to watch comics grow up on the page, Miracleman was a critical part of that process. And it's a damn fine read.

The difference, though, is that Watchmen and the Dark Knight have always been in print. If you want to read that work, you can walk into any comic shop at any time and find it. If for some bizarre reason your LCS doesn't carry those books, Amazon or Barnes & Noble will. The Eclipse bankruptcy made sure that the Miracleman comics were not and could not be in print, leaving only the back issues. The early issues of Miracleman are plentiful and relatively cheap. Many of the later issues, particularly issue # 15 (still one of the most gruesome, raw comics in history) are very expensive.

Alan Moore is a hallowed writer, and Miracleman a canonized classic that almost nobody has had access to. That Miracleman announcement at SDCC 2009 was the equivalent of saying "Hey, we found this lost Beatles album in the archives of unreleased material from the White Album era, and it will be on the shelves soon."

And then we waited.

And waited.

My prediction after a year of waiting was that Miracleman was caught in Legal Hell, and forever. In my opinion, if the Disney lawyers couldn't cut through the red tape, it was tape that couldn't be cut. This month's Previews took a giant poop on my crystal ball, because Marvel begins reprinting the Alan Moore Miracleman comics in January 2014.

Keith is correct, though, they can't say "Alan Moore", because he's like the Candyman at this point. If you print his name, Tony Todd shows up with a swarm of bees, a meat cleaver, and an attorney, and nobody needs that. Bees are irritating.

It is in fact quite hilarious to see his work credited as "the original author", especially when you consider all the delicious little ironies. Like the fact that his Miracleman work is built on Anglo's work, which was a direct British rip-off of Fawcett's Captain Marvel. Alan Moore is a genius-level talent and deserves his elevated status in comics history, but let's face the facts - his greatest achievement (Watchmen) stole its plot from an episode of the Outer Limits, and his longest running empire (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) is built entirely with bricks borrowed from other great writers. So yeah, Alan Moore. Talented? You bet. Original? Ahhhhhhhhh.....no.

So why isn't Alan Moore's name on the Miracleman reprints? Well, the short answer is that he's bat shit crazy. Well, that's not true. Poor people are crazy, Alan Moore is astoundingly eccentric. He just doesn't live in the same world that you and I do. He lives in Alan Moore World, conveniently parked between Earth 2 (helloooooo Power Girl) and the mental space that Prince inhabits.

If you want to know how out of touch he is with reality, I give you this from the Wizard of Northampton:

"It's always seemed to me that the majority of the comics field, if you had to place them politically, you'd have to say centre-right. That would be as far towards the liberal end of the spectrum as they would go."

That is actually the least true statement uttered in human history. The guy simply does not intersect with any known reality. Perhaps this is a strength for a writer of fiction?

Moore seems like the kind of cat who is quite charming if you sit down and spend an hour or two with him. Nobody seems capable of withstanding extended exposure, however. Give him time, and Alan Moore will concoct a reason based upon available evidence to boycott you forever. That evidence can be real or imagined, it all comes out the same in the end. Eventually Alan Moore will cast you out into the lake of fire, and you won't be coming back. Either he's the unluckiest person in the world who just continues to bump into a never-ending series of traitors and back-stabbers, or maybe the problem actually lies with the guy wearing a Glycon ring and an absurdly large beard. I know which direction Occam's Razor is leaning.

So yes, Marvel does have the rights to the Alan Moore material, but he doesn't want his name on anything he doesn't own. He doesn't want any comp copies, he isn't doing any interviews for the product, and he doesn't want any of your damn money, either. He's giving that to other creators.

And you know what? Keith's right, he does deserve credit for that. He might be a crazy asshole, but damned if he's not an entertaining and principled one. More crazy assholes could learn a thing or two from Alan Moore.

Before I get to the horrifyingly bad news about Marvel's handling of the Miracleman property, let me give them credit for a couple of positives. Firstly, I give them credit for pulling an about-face and titling the material "Miracleman". That's what the material is known as, and it's been known that way because Marvel's laywers made it that way. I think it's wise to roll with things rather than try to move the boulder of public consciousness. Brits may still think of that character as Marvelman, because they have a longer history with him. In America, the Alan Moore character is either unknown, or its Miracleman. Kudos for not fighting that.

Kudos also for getting Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham on board. That story deserves to be completed, and by the original creators. It sounds like that's exactly what's going to happen. So good on that.

To me, that's not the real story, unfortunately. The real story is the manner in which Marvel is packaging this material. Issue # 1 ships in January. It includes some material from Miracleman # 1, Warrior # 1, Marvelman Primer, and carries a $5.99 price tag.

Yup, that's right. They want $6 for a sliver of Miracleman # 1 and a metric ton of fluff you've already seen, and didn't want to pay for the first time. That's a crime.

But wait, you say - that's just the first issue, right? It gets reasonable after that, I'm sure. No, no it doesn't. Issue # 2 reprints material from Warrior # 1-5 (Miracleman ran in 8 page installments in the magazine) and carries a $4.99 price tag.

I guess we shouldn't be surprised any more about the Queen Whore of Babylon and her wily ways. I guess if it were me, I would have priced those issues dirt cheap to get as many eyes on it as possible. That's a solid strategy if the material is quality. Get rid of the filler, I want the customer satisfied when they're done. Get as many people in the door as possible, because once they see the product, they fall in love and are in for life. That's the long game, the smart game, the game dedicated to serving your customer.

That's just not the Marvel Way.

The Marvel Way is not about building a satisfied customer base. It's about stuffing as much cash into your pockets as possible for this quarter. Fuck the customer, and fuck tomorrow. What can I get today? That's the Marvel Way.

If you pay attention to this stuff, you know that Marvel Comics have big problems in the book stores, and with their collections. DC cleans up with their evergreen Vertigo material and Watchmen. Image have the powerhouse Walking Dead combined with new sluggers like Chew, and Saga.

Marvel just can't sell any books, and they have (in my opinion) the strongest IP inventory in the business. It's embarrassing, frankly. Miracleman is just BEGGING to be a Watchmen-level evergreen title for them, and I can already see that they're going to pooch it.

If you ever wondered if Marvel had given up on the idea of chasing new readers, wonder no more. They don't know what they have, and they don't know how to sell it. Remember Shadowland? Marvel was so adamant about backing that piece of dog shit they spontaneously sent double the ordered product to retailers. Why wouldn't you price it reasonably, cut the fluff, and do something like that for Miracleman? That's a known commodity, a high quality product, and a guaranteed crowd-pleaser! Why not flood the market with that and then reap the benefits of word-of-mouth on the collections?

Because there is no vision at Marvel, and they don't even pretend to chase new customers. "Share your universe?" Disgusting. How about share quality product at competitive prices?

Marvel's business model at this point is to find whatever core customers are left to them, and to punish them as much as possible for having the audacity to still be interested in the product. "You're excited about Miracleman? Eat that $6 price tag, loser!" It's madness.

It's madness, and it may in fact kill the property. I say this because nobody is more excited about the prospects of Miracleman than me, and I took one look at the price tag and bailed. There may not be enough good will left in the customer base to finish the reprinted material, much less continue with new stories.

Those of you who listened to Chronic Insomnia back in the day will recall that Quincy and I had many debates on the issue of comics piracy. Those listeners will remember that I have never advocated the practice. I still don't endorse piracy, but I will say this - if Marvel is going to charge you $5 an issue to trickle out a few pages of that Miracleman material per, I don't know why you wouldn't get them for free from another source. Piracy is unethical...and so is extortion. When faced with that ethical dilemma, I would not take issue with a consumer that chose to protect themselves from Marvel's abuse. I value integrity, and making sure that creators are justly compensated for their work. What we're talking about with these Miracleman reprints is consumer abuse.

So, when Keith wonders what might happen with Miracleman when the reprints are done, my answer is that I don't know that we'll even get through the reprints. Are there enough masochists out there to sustain this? Marvel is asking you to pay $11 in January for Miracleman comics, and you won't even have issue # 1 by the time you're done!

Gaiman and Buckingham have had Miracleman # 25 in the can for ages, I'd really like to see that in print after all these years. I think that's in jeopardy now. The door is theoretically open to continue past Gaiman/Buckingham, but what would that look like? At these prices, do you see Miracleman being a big seller? And if it isn't a big seller, what kind of creative teams would Marvel assign to the book of extended adventures? If you found Before Watchmen underwhelming....buckle up for All-New Uncanny Miracleman. I'd like to be wrong about that. I won't be.

As for the back issue situation, we at the Ugly American advise you to hold onto your Eclipse Miracleman issues. They are classics, and they will always be classics regardless of how badly Marvel bungles the property.

Eventually, Marvel will create new collected editions of the Miracleman stuff. When that happens, invariably some collectors dump their current format in order to subsidize the new desired format. If that happens - if a bunch of people flood the market with Eclipse books when Marvel produces the new hardcovers and TPBs, you may see prices come down. Do not panic when that happens, but rejoice! And BUY. That is your last opportunity to buy those books at a reasonable rate.

In particular, Miracleman # 15 is a modern classic, and the volume 3 Olympus trade is a holy grail book for TPB collectors. Miracleman # 15 trades often, but is expensive. The Olympus trade is rarely seen, and the HC is hyper scarce. The near future could be your last chance to own these gems without putting the kids' college money at risk. Keep your eyes open on that front!