for 8 December 2000. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Tim Cavanaugh
Special Guest Editor

Terry Colon
Art Director

Heather Havrilesky
Senior Editor

Joey Anuff
Publisher

I'm trying to figure out where you stand on the comic book front. You talk about things that most of mainstream writers ever touch. But you talk about the industry in such a manner that you have no reverence or respect for it at all.

Which is it? I really never got a feeling one way or the other.

I have to take exception with a few comments.

1.) The off-hand comment about how comic books are the source of entertainment for lonely teens and precocious children. The average age of the reader of comic book has been and still is typically in the early to late 20s. The reason they got a following was because they were read in the 30s and 40s by overseas GIs and they followed them after they got back.

2.) Comic books are a dead medium. Comic books have been written off for a long-time. I hear this every five years. I will give you this, it's a declining market. But this has more to do with inbreeding than it does with why people still read comic books. And there are resurges in the market when competition rears its head and puts out quality material. Comics predates television and is still one of the most viable mediums, when done correctly. Much like newspapers and magazines, I don't see a time anytime soon when the comic book will go out of circulation.

3.) There's a subtle string of inference that comic books are some sort of inferior 3rd-string medium. I take exception to this. It's different and because it's quickly associated with children's stories (no idea why when you look at the old EC Comics), it's written off as not good enough to cover in the mainstream press. Like Hollywood's constant cranking out of movies and schlock has a higher purpose.

Anyway, I enjoyed at least somebody talking about comic books, if not in the vein I would hope.

Michael Thomas
<mdt@bvresources.com>

Hi, Michael.

I have a lot of respect for the comics medium, which despite the market collapse for big company books is undergoing its finest year ever in terms of quality material for adults. It's a beautiful art form capable of everything from wonderfully elegant and nuanced expression to kick-ass, highly-involved narratives. The people who are really, really good cartoonists are some of the most uniquely-gifted artists working.

Let me address your numbered comments 1-2-3.

1. Comics' readership has traditionally been comics and teens even as there have been periods where a different consumer has come into the market in a big way. Returning G.I.'s buying comics did lead to a post-War sales spike (Chabon discusses this in his book), just as college students are believe to have bought Marvel comics in the '60s and early '70s in greater numbers than they did before or have since. And while I don't mean this as a insult at all — I certainly learned to read in part by looking at Spider-Man -- comic books anecdotally enjoyed great sales success with functional illiterates before television came along.

My understanding is that both major companies believe their readerships skew older these day, which is what happens when you try to bleed more and more money out of a hardcore fan audience rather than recruit new readers. But I think this is really specific to the way the market has collapsed rather than an indication of where the long-term readership has been and will continue to be.

2. I don't think comics are a dead medium, but I do think the readership of comic books is so relatively small it can no longer be considered a viable mass-market format. There are many art forms that would kill for comics' audience. But if there wasn't licensing, there certainly wouldn't be a division of Time-Warner devoted to comic book publishing. And Marvel would be gone.

3. I don't think comics are a third-rate medium at all, and I'm deeply saddened that the best cartoonists — particularly those working in the comic book format — aren't recognized for their achievements in the manner of a quality playwright or author. I do think that the industry, particularly the superhero side of things and especially now as they're being outstripped as wish-fulfillment totems by videogame characters and their own movie adaptations, gives off a third-rate odor that appeals to writers, critics and arts-champions everywhere.

Anyway, Michael, thanks for writing such a long note and I hope that this reply makes my points a bit more clear.

40th Street Black

Wow. Did you really have to reveal the ending to Unbreakable in this first paragraph without a warning? Just because you didn't enjoy the film there's no reason to spoil it for others who haven't seen it and may or may not like it. You may have felt the ending was obvious or trite, but so what. A spoiler warning for a movie this new is just common courtesy. But than again that would deprive those people of your witty jibes.

"Least Efficient Job Recruitment Specialist" Hah Hah! "Poncho Man" You're killing me. Stop.

Can't risk you pulling this stunt again with something I haven't already seen. Count me out as a future reader.

Respectfully,

Chris Butler
<chipzzay@hotmail.com>

Hey, you revealed my best jokes!

Chris, I sort of understand why movie reviewers play along with the studio's desire to withhold plot points of movie. If part of your approach — either your own or dictated by the publishing context — says that you're providing Consumer Reports-style information, you don't want to needlessly detract from someone's enjoyment of said product. I think critics have no such responsibility, especially when they're writing about broad issues like I was, as they're trying to engage the point of the movie rather than its existence as product.

And for humor's sake, I think there's almost no compunction to obey some unwritten contract. One of the greatest Peanuts of all time was Lucy's declaration to Linus watching Citizen Kane, "Rosebud was his sled." Not that anything I'll write will ever be as funny as direct as Schulz could write when he was on, but I feel free to stick my tongue out at the same things.

P.S. You've seen Citizen Kane, haven't you?

Best,

40th Street Black

Not 24 hours after your send-up on "decade-by-decade nostalgia," Chicago's only decent classic rock station, WXCD-FM 94.7, reinvented itself as an '80s station.

I blame you. Jerk.

Luke Seemann
<lukeseem@stardot.com>

Hi, Luke.

I spent the summer of '92 working for the Resolution Trust Corporation in Elk Grove, and due to the ridiculous commuter traffic on my 110 minute commute back to my apartment in Edgewater ended up punching my radio in frustration. After that, the only station I could pick up was the sports talk station that featured as one of their hosts an ex-hot dog vendor. Some people experience summers of love or summers of fun, I got the summer of Wayne Newton's Bankruptcy Files and interviews with Dexter Manley.

As far as I'm concerned, any pain I can cause the Chicago radio market will never be enough.

Although I'm slightly sorry for any pain I may cause those living there.

Best,

40th Street Black

Hey, thanks for the cool comics article there 40, I've posted a link to it over at www.comicon.com/panels , so hopefully lots of comics folks will read it. Don't know if you've ever hung out over there, but it's a hotbed o' discourse (some of it unfortunately from evil fanboy types) involving seasoned pros and pink-faced neophytes and sweaty, grungy fan-units...

I've written to you before re: military personnel perpetual adolescence... but I'm also a cartoonist and comic book artist, did some ElfQuest and have my own book Mystic For Hire (www.pagancity.com) which is currently in limbo mostly because of the state of the industry — web version on the way. My main site is www.starshipwright.com -basic, but the shoemaker has no shoes, ya know? I'm also the current Secretary of CAPS, the Comic Arts Professionals Society (members.aol.com/capsmembers)... and I'm trying to shake things up, get new blood into it (most of the other guys in CAPS are veterans like Sergio Aragones, Stan Sakai, Scott Shaw!, Bill Stout, etc.).

Anyway, great to see anybody besides Wizard and TCJ writing SOMETHING about comics! Thanks bud. Peace.

Jeff Zugale
<PaganCityComics>

Hi, Jeff.

Thanks for posting that link on the Comicon.com site. By click my name on the Suck contributors bio page, you'll discover just how horrifying a familiarity I have with their message board — which you describe accurately.

I would think lots of new cartoonists would want to belong to the same organization as Sergio Aragones.

Best,

40th Street Black

40th,

In today's SUCK you refer to a "negative drubbing" of Unbreakable, while all the reviews I have read (NY Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, among a few smaller weekly papers and websites) seem to like it quite a lot ("not as good as the sixth sense" seems to be the main point of contention).

Who's drubbing it? (I want to read the other side)

Thanks, and nice piece by the way,

Brian Biggs
<brian@MrBiggs.com>

You're just trying to get me in trouble. The movie certainly has a number defenders, you're right, although a lot of them are critics I can't take seriously, like Travers and Ebert. The negative reviews that did run were really snotty and contemptuous, particularly as opposed to the usual level of discourse around seriously-intended films and to the reviews I've encountered for Chabon's work.

Best,

40th Street Black

Shame on you. The other inspiration for the Matrix was Masamune Shirow's "Ghost in the Shell," which is considered to be one of the greatest anime's ever. Not to be a geeky nitpicker or anything...

AJ
<AJGoldman@stanford.edu>

Geeky nitpickers are cool with me.

Yeah, I have no problem believing that something as broadly-played as The Matrix could have been taken from a number of sources. And Hollywood's willingness to stare at Japanese comics and animation, blink twice, and say, "I don't see THAT many similarities" has always been hilariously scummy, no matter if that worship leads to a stateside distribution deal for the dubbed originals or not.

Best,

40th Street Black

"All things being equal, audiences prefer to see themselves as heroic artists rather than troubled readers. And critics may just live and die by that statement. Choose any hero you like, a superhero if you must, but always, always make a choice."

Shoot, I sure could have used this quote when I was writing my essay during a three-hour, in-class exam I took in my Renaissance literature class this week! A lot of my classmates, much more literary than yours truly, had been disparaging Spenser's "The Faerie Queen," not caring for its poetry. I tried encouraging them to not read it as poetry, or even allegory, but to consider an early form of the serial comic book--broad, two-dimensional characters, villains more fun than the protagonists, sexy femme fatales, funny sidekicks, etc.

Insightful article — keep up the good work.

Cheers,

Nicky Beer
<nbeer@excite.com>

You know, if I had had the good fortune to ever go to school with someone named "Nicky Beer," I would have listened to every damn thing you said, too.

Best,

40th Street Black

The real problem is not the persistence of the comic book form (about which more) but the idea that any work in any medium is somehow "validated" by being made into a movie.