Yes, I see what you are saying regarding how a specific genre such as superhero might be perceived as being the draw for non-literary elements into the comic field, but I also agree with the others as to the charge that this may also not be necessarily true.

As to this; “How so? I really don’t understand your argument here. You seem to be saying that if a person has the goal of creating a comic, they cannot also have the goal of creating a literary work at the same time. And that doesn’t make any sense.”

No, I am just saying that BEcause a person creates a comic they DO NOT have to have the intention of creating something that would be considered a literary work and I think that in itself is not something that lowers this art form.

Canons do matter somewhat: one of the ways that a canon is identified is by looking at what works are included in anthologies — and these anthologies are a way of getting the work out to people who can read them and be inspired. The more signs that quality work is out there – like discussions of canons / anthologies – the more people will be made aware of the possibilities of the medium.

I think this is generally right, thought there’s no easy dividing line between the two. A good reviewer will provide some kind of analysis to back up his/her claims; and many kinds of literary criticism are often very judgmental, even if they don’t say so explicitly – feminist criticism, post-colonial, etc . . .

There are not many outlets for detailed literary criticism beyond academic journals, and who reads those other than academics? And there has been a lot more of this kind of criticism in the past 5 years than in the 10 before that. The Web is really the best place for a criticism that can reach people who are interested (and there are some online academic journals like ImageText). Most magazines, newspapers, etc . . . don’t publish critical essays on novels, either.

And I agree with those who say that there are a lot of ‘literary’ comics being published. The Pope essay that Jennifer mentions overlooks dozens of contemporary cartoonists whose work falls into this category.

Possible reasons that there are not more comics of this type:
The corporate comics model (the dominate model) often works against quality.
Literary comics has a shorter history than other literary forms.
There are many more examples of successful writers than successful literary cartoonists for people to follow.
Students are exposed to many more novels, and short stories than literary comics.
There are likely 500 MFA fiction writers (a guess) for every student in a comics program.
{What role does the quality of art instruction in school play? I’ve heard that art is one of the first things to be cut in a budget crisis.}
Comics requires a larger set of skills than does other kinds of literature.

When I first started teaching comics in my college classes a decade ago as a grad student, none of my peers did. Now many of them do.

http://blogflumer.blogspot.com/

“Who says I did? I mentioned the literary accolades received by comics in the column. I am simply calling for more of the same. Is that something to disagree with?”

Only in assuming that there are that many artcomics that deserve literary accolades.

The column is aimed at a general audience; it is not interaction with a specific person. An exchange of comments IS personal interaction. I believe that calls for a difference in tone. I admit my tone in the following will express frustration and annoyance because I cannot abide when people argue from a dishonest point of view and allow their perception of someone else’s argument to cloud what that person actually said or wrote. More on that at the end.

Especially if you’re setting it not by the amount of literariness in comics, but the level of literary recognition they receive.

My argument is that people who could become interested in creating literary comics might take more interest if comics received more quality literary and artistic attention. That pretty much answers all of the “I don’t care what THEY think of me” arguments you put forth.

Bringing up a problem is complaining.

That is absolutely ridiculous. I don’t think most rational people would me to explain why.

So, again, I wonder how you could have missed it.

Who says I did? I mentioned the literary accolades received by comics in the column. I am simply calling for more of the same. Is that something to disagree with?

Prose has been around for centuries. Comics are seventy years old.

I know this. But this does not mean that there is no reason to start working toward quality criticism of comics.

If, for the sake of argument, we accept that there is a dearth of good comics criticism, and that that dearth is responsible for a low opinion of comics in literary circles, and that a high opinion in such circles is a necessary thing, then the conclusion of “It’s the fault of superhero fans that things are like this” is still fallacious and self-serving reasoning.

Sure, but that wasn’t my reasoning; that’s your perception of my reasoning–you are putting your own purposes into my words. You’ve demonstrated this throughout your comments, actually — like how I supposedly don’t care if a book is good or not, so long as it’s in the canon, which my opening paragraph is outright at odds with or saying that I “missed it” when it is right there in my column that I recognize the accolades comics like Maus and American Born Chinese have gotten. You say you are arguing rationally, but in fact you are arguing dishonestly, and it makes communication almost pointless.

The conclusion I came to isn’t that it’s THEIR fault; the conclusion I came to is that people who want to improve the literary perception of comics need to start doing some hard work. I ended my column on that positive note. My point was that the work we do today will shape what might someday be a comics canon.

And the part about me being all about the canon was a bit of making fun of myself. Jeezus.

Well said, Michael. I’m not sure I totally agree, but I do remember thinking “who cares if there is a canon” when I read the original article. Canons, schools of thought shift often, why the rush to assemble one? The prevailing “canons”at museums in the late 60s were very different than today, and often, it’s laughable what was considered essential to museum goers back then.

I’ve written a rebuttal to Ms. de Guzman, “Proving You Have the Stuff,” here:

http://arche-arc.blogspot.com/2008/02/proving-you-have-stuff.html

Key sentence:

“Paraphrasing Shakespeare, I would say that the fault lies not with the critics, but with the creators.”