"Lucky Pierre Style"
Well, I've just read something I've been putting off since April because I couldn't find the right sort of time...and, wow, what an interesting read.
The writer is of course Internet-famous, and so I'm sure everybody who'd like it has already seen it...but just in case...
Go here (edit: thanks for this permalink, David), and scroll down 'til you get to this title:
It's kinda really worth it.
The writer is of course Internet-famous, and so I'm sure everybody who'd like it has already seen it...but just in case...
Go here (edit: thanks for this permalink, David), and scroll down 'til you get to this title:
Clobberin’ Time:
Escapism, Engagement, and the Dialectic of Excitement in Marvel Comics, 1961-1966
It's kinda really worth it.
posted by plok at 3:36 AM
10 Comments:
Thanks for sharing, plok. I actually had NOT seen that before, and found it fascinating on several levels.
Plok, I've been struggling to keep up with your amazing flurry of posts recently (especially as I can barely find time to post anything myself), wowed by your blogging prowess. And now, you link to my favorite blog of all time. Continue!
Here's the permalink for the essay.
Dave Fiore introduced me to things like Animal Man, Squadron Supreme, Conway's Spider-man, Englehart's Avengers, Steranko's Nick Fury, Mike Murdock and, really, old Marvel in general. Not to mention Nathaniel Hawthorne and Frank Capra and Ray Carney and Frank O'Hara. His ideas about dynamic stasis, noir, neo-existentialist romance, bildungsroman, etc, have really affected my perspective on comics and art in general. (I'm not sure I'd even understand Plok if not for Dave!) Dave may not have posted much for over a year, but there's a lot of content worth rereading on his blog.
His novel's good too.
Everybody talks about him, and I've hardly read him!
Have to get on that...
I'll never look at FF #10 and #11 the same way. I'm just wondering, jeez, how did I miss that?
I went into reading this essay deeply skeptical -- and would have been even more so had I known references to Adorno and Bakhtin were waiting further down the page -- but by the end I was deeply impressed. Thanks for the tip!
I've actually used this essay as a source for a rather large paper I'm drafting about the trash-medium status of comics and its ability to give voice to the desires and circumstances of socially undervalued people. Anyway, reading Dave is more fun than reading Baudoin or Fiske, and neither of them has a blog I can respond on. Dave was really the one who introduced me to another view of superhero comics that was not based on odious Joseph Campbell-inspired, well, cultural slumming, really. Or worse, the attitude of "hey, look at all the new, sophisticated stuff being put out now," which makes me want to say, "no, no, look at all the trashy stuff that was put out then, which is actually interesting!" Also, he brought back the exclamation point...with a vengeance!!!!
..
Also, and I think this needs to be said, I don't think he even really knows how important his work really is. I also don't think he knows just how often I check back on his page, just hoping for a sign of something new... because it's all so good!
...
Hey, you said "important", Dan.
How right you are!
I'm going to try to walk a fine line between embarrassment and delusions of grandeur, here, although I'm sure you'll be nice enough not to blame me if I tip over a little into one or the other, or both: I see all of us as trash-culture artists here in this little sector of the web, who make trash that talks about trash, and that is absolutely important to me. When I started poking around into comics blogs, I was at first interested in diversion, but over time people like Dave Fiore (I'd heard of him, anyway), Marc Singer, Jim Roeg, Geoff Klock, etc. have succeeded in catching my interest in a much more powerful way. Admittedly, it's at least partly an interest in myself, too - my own interest in what I like is a subject that I find endlessly rewarding of study - but it's not just the navel-gazing that keeps me here. Here's a vigourous, influential part of our culture that is looked into too little, and then (I surmise) usually by the imperfectly-informed, but then here's Mr. Fiore, too, who's capable of doing the subject justice, and so thank God he does just that...because The Comics Journal only has so many pages in it, and most of them must be given over to art that's less trashy, otherwise how would I be kept abreast of such things?
But it does make me thirsty for more analysis of the stuff I was brought up on. Reading informed thoughts like these makes me feel like...I don't know, a lapsed Catholic who discovers Joseph Campbell, maybe? Whether that's slumming or not. It rekindles my interest in, and allegiance to, my own trashy roots. Important! I think it is. Very important.
I just mentioned Mr. Fiore, and Marc, and Jim. But you all know (I take it on faith) that these aren't the only people doing the job for me. We're all involved, I think: the folks who do the funny stuff as much as those who do the archival stuff, as much as those who do other sorts of commentary, and the ones who simply appreciate in a public way. Funny kind of a place for linkblogging, but outside those already represented on this comments thread I've been looking a lot at Pretty Fakes lately (glorious, glorious trash!), and Harvey Jerkwater and Scipio (natch!), and Jake and Bully. That's this week: next week I'll cast the net again, naturally, and bring up some different stuff. But you take my point, I hope.
Important, yeah! Jeez, why is it so important to me all of a sudden?
Oh, and Mega: I just had a big backlog! It's almost cleared out, now...
But I'll try!
Plok--I just wanted to thank you (and your readers--some of whom I know well) for your kind words and (especially!) your interest. I wish I could get my act together enough to return to building the blog on a daily basis (not to mention keeping abreast of everything going on in the sphere!)
Sadly, that's a ways off yet... However, just knowing that some people are still dipping into the Motime archives takes some of the sting out of my current preoccupation with the offline world!
thanks
Dave
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home