Comments on: "Their brains were on fire."

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By: Comica vérité and the narrowing respect for “graphic novels” » Undress Me Robot

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 17:32:45 +0000

[...] A few weeks ago, Heidi MacDonald (of the PublishersWeekly comic blog The Beat) posted a half review/half commentary dealing with The Best American Comics 2007. One hundred comments and a few days later, she responded to the controversy her post had spawned. Hardly wanting to admit any fault, she quickly reveals that any vagueness was on purpose; a product of her writing style and a means to “inspire debate” (and debate they did). Just like my short digression was on purpose; a means of allowing me to say her dodging any blame was a motherfucking cop-out. But I digress. [...]

By: Ted Rall

Ted Rall — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 03:01:45 +0000

I didn’t buy it in the store since it’s painfully redundant material, so I can’t refer to Chris’ intro. What did he say? Did he decide to just focus on an extremely narrow band of art comix to the exclusion of all else, and if so, why? If so, why call it “Best Comics” and not something more accurate? Any collection of best comics must include comic strips, gag panels, superhero stuff, edittoons, etc.

By: The Beat

The Beat — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 18:04:19 +0000

He sort of explained in his intro, Ted. I’m really not faulting Ware for liking what he likes — what he likes is usually quite excellent — just examining the range, as you say.

By: Ted Rall

Ted Rall — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 17:42:16 +0000

What struck me about “Best American Comics” was its absence of editorial cartoons. American political cartoonists have produced amazing work, especially since 2000. No Kirk Anderson or Tom Tomorrow or Ruben Bolling in a book of “best” comics? Weird. Chris Ware has said he doesn’t care for politics, but to omit an entire genre of cartooning deserves an explanation.

By: Andy Smith

Andy Smith — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 07:57:13 +0000

A Valiant mention! Who is C.F. and what did he have to say about Valiant????

By: Troy Wilson

Troy Wilson — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:21:46 +0000

Ah, thanks for the heads-up, Kurt. Serves me right for simply assuming the SHORT STORIES volumes had followed the same typographical path as this year’s COMICS volume. So they got it right, and the COMICS volume got it right. IMHO, anyway.

By: Gil Jaysmith

Gil Jaysmith — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 07:18:59 +0000

One of the best movie review snippets I ever read was for “Charlie Varrick”, a pretty enjoyable thriller starring Joe Don Baker: “Proves that there’s nothing wrong with an auteur director that a good script can’t cure”.

I have no problem with people producing whatever kind of art they want, but they (a) shouldn’t expect it to draw a wide audience unless they sculpt their work to attract one, and (b) shouldn’t get snooty with me if I’m not part of the audience, no matter how wide or narrow it is. And their fans (wide or narrow) could maybe observe those points too.

Poxy boring autobiographical comics are no more or less intrinsically boring than poxy boring superhero comics, but it’s exasperating to hear people insist that they have intrinsic value. They may have more intrinsic accessibility because their setting is ‘real life’, but that’s about all, and it doesn’t make them any less boring.

By: Kurt Busiek

Kurt Busiek — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 04:25:18 +0000

>> And yes, I’d make the same typographical recommendation re: the editor of BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES, etc, etc. >>

On the SHORT STORIES volume, the editor’s name is pretty big — this year it’s Stephen King, which will probably sell some books (it did to me), but it was just as big last year, when it was Ann Patchett.

Looking back over previous years, it seems to be pretty consistently large.

kdb

By: ADD

ADD — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 03:10:35 +0000

“Whenever Tom and Heidi get into one of these tiffs, I feel like I’m hearing Mom and Dad arguing from the next room.”

I’ll take that over anything else we might hear them doing from the next room. HA-CHA!

By: Troy Wilson

Troy Wilson — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 02:12:59 +0000

“So I would ask, who is the target audience of Ware’s anthology?”

BEST AMERICAN COMICS 2007 is in big bold letters, while Edited by Chris Ware is in itty bitty letters. Maybe EDITED BY CHRIS WARE should be in big type too, just to emphasize even further that it is indeed Ware’s anthology this time out. (And yes, I’d make the same typographical recommendation re: the editor of BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES, etc, etc.)

“Everything’s not for everybody. And that’s great!”

Amen.

By: Foot2Mouth - A Mouth Kicking Comics and Gaming News Source » Blog Archive » The Comics Blogsphere Finally Admits that Most Indie Comics are Awful

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 01:46:30 +0000

[...] This has created quite the chaotic backlash over at The Beat. The initial post has over 100 often angry responses, check it here. And the follow up post is becoming just as popular as it nears 50 responses, check it here. [...]

By: Leigh Walton

Leigh Walton — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 22:30:10 +0000

My response turned into a blog post, if anyone's interested.

By: Come on, you want to throw pie at these guys too « Picture Poetry

Come on, you want to throw pie at these guys too « Picture Poetry — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 22:25:06 +0000

[...] Heidi’s much-maligned piece about Chris Ware’s Best American Comics 2007 book for Houghton-Mifflin is the talk of the blogosphere. She’s put up another post processing the attacks and defending herself a bit. [...]

By: Ford MF

Ford MF — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 20:32:51 +0000

Baker makes a good point in that. I went through a point where I tried to read all the Nobel laureates, and found it was a fairly arbitrary indicator. Don’t even get me started on the Pulitzer winners, which are mostly junk. Even Oprah picks better books than the Pulitzer committee.