Wednesday, January 5, 2022

Press Pause

I started this blog almost 13 years ago. It formed out of a few different motivations:

1) To continue the discussion that many of us had been having in DC Message Boards, where seemingly random deletions, bans, and uproars made some quality conversation just disappear. This was initially focused on Grant Morrison’s Batman run; I wish that some of the older discussions posted there could have been preserved.


2) To reconsider the history of DC comics from the beginning. One of the first comic books I ever owned was a 1974 JLA-JSA meet-up, which was a confusing thing for a new reader! Those stories indicated that there was a vast, cosmic backstory of DC that I didn’t know and couldn’t possibly learn much about by reading new comics. It was only around 2008 that I really caught up on some of the oldest stories, which became fascinating for me in a sort of sociological sense, as Golden Age stories generally weren’t written for adults, but they presented me with an explanation for how DC’s characters began and became American mythology that later drew my admiration.


3) To continue both of those “present” and “past” threads of discussion, breaking down new comics of interest to me (quite often, by Grant Morrison) and writing Retro Reviews of older works – sometimes old favorites of mine, sometimes as I was reading them for the first time – of particularly significant value.


About four years ago, those two threads merged in my analysis of Final Crisis, a work that concluded only weeks before I began the blog, but that I didn’t feel ready to break down in subatomic detail until giving it obsessive levels of attention in late 2017. It was an enormously gratifying study for me, and felt like I took a bit of a risk there because I didn’t really have enough understanding to write the third part until after I’d already posted the first two parts.


Along the way, I took some considerable detours in topic, including the TV show Mad Men. I also have written quite a few drafts – even some extremely long and heavily-researched unpublished ones – that are sitting in my folders, so distant in my memory that I’d feel unqualified to finish them now.


It seems crass to be, in this online age, motivated by sheer numbers of clicks and likes, and I don’t want to convey that exact equation, but to be blunt: If I spend a good part of an hour working on a post for each person who eventually reads it, that feels like I’m speaking to an empty room. (E.g, if I spend 50 hours thinking about a post, then 153 people end up reading it.) And that’s how things are trending. I’m sure there are good reasons for this – there are reasons for everything. I could consider a shift in focus, spreading links in different places, but this is all meant to be fun. There are just about no DC titles that haven’t lost my interest at some point or another in the past few years and some top sellers have been aggressively off-putting to my taste. In a few cases, I’ve thrown down my money and held my nose while reading the issues of a pivotal event that I didn’t really like at all. In others, I’ve bought the first issue and regretted that I used my dollars to “vote” for creators creating something like that. Then I check online reviews and those works have 4.8-star ratings that tie The Dark Knight Returns. It’s hard for me to justify reading depressing, cluttered, subpar works in a life where good reading (viewing, etc.) material exists in overwhelming abundance.


Some comics that others have enjoyed have always – for decades now – seemed too inconsequential for me. Last year, I binge-watched Friday Night Lights and felt like it did an excellent job of something that so, so many mentor-and-sidekick comics had always done poorly. The mentor gives the sidekick an inspirational 30-second speech and then they’re ready to fight super criminals? Maybe someone reads that and finds it exciting. I find that it’s trying, with a pointed lack of effort, to do something that Friday Night Lights did with real effort and real conviction.


And increasingly, some of the news about the comics industry has been hard to stomach. A century ago, Proust advised us, “Never meet your heroes.” Well, that really undermines the point of a genre that is specifically about heroes. And there’s probably nothing in the news now that isn’t in a careful reading of several decades ago. Maybe Fredric Wertham hit the nail on the head.


2022 will make 50 years since I first walked out of a “news” store with a new comic book in my hand. It’s been a good run and it’s not over. For all I know, I’ll soon be strongly motivated to blog about some new comic book. But right now, I’m not sure what that comic book will be.

27 comments:

  1. As a 19 year old we are looking at this medium from very different perspectives but I share many of your sentiments. This sort of well considered long form blogging type writing is a relic in this internet age. The primary mode of communication seems to have shifted to online news, social media bites, and youtube videos. The comics scene just seems so sad right now. Like it is driven more by drama and caustic reactions rather then genuine story telling. Maybe I am just tired of cliches, and comics have always been like this, but it all just seems so tired and played out now. I have been reading Dave Sim's Cerebus and whatever you may think about him and his beliefs he never skimps on the writing. All his characters heroes and villians are well realized and even when he is saying controversial and disgusting things he is always finding an innovative way to tell it in both art and writing. Alan Moore's From Hell and Cerebus are the two "graphic novels" which in my mind can stand along side literary classics; I don't expect every book to even come close to that level but many don't even seem to be trying. Politics still seems to be reduced to two opponents yelling catchphrases in between punches and Dc and Marvel lose direction so quickly that long form books like Grant Morrison Batman would be nigh impossible in today's market. Saddest of all to me is how social media has caused comic creators and managers to become spiteful children attacking fans, distributors, and each other. Comic books have always been a more low mental energy way to pass the time in-between reading denser novels, but comics are so expensive and offer such little in density that they can scarcely hold that position anymore. I have probably 100$s of comics yet can remember a fleeting number of them. Just now that whatever you cover Rikdad (books, movies, tv shows, ect) I will continue reading for your excellent analysis.

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    1. I'm sure that a shift from relatively longer forms of commentary to relatively shorter ones has been in effect, and perhaps has increased significantly in just a couple of years. (I can look at the number of views my posts about different new comic book issues got by year, although that is far from a scientific survey.) A shift towards short, sound-bite community discussion doesn't necessarily force a change in how the comics are written, but I guess we've seen the success of $1.99 shorter-form comics since 2013 (inspired by a video game, no less) and by 2022, we're coming up on almost a decade of this as a force pushing the direction of comics in that way.

      Your comment about creators attacking fans led me to look back at the letters column of the Detroit Justice League c. 1984, when the editor got pretty snippy and embattled as fans criticized the changes (removing all the big-name superheroes)… and a short time later, the Detroit JLA was no more.

      At some point around 2010, I noticed that some comics that I bought were taking me only about 6 minutes to read, and that 80 cents per minute, if you compared it to movies or TV, was a pretty bad deal for my entertainment money. On the other hand, I've re-read certain issues of Grant Morrison comics enough times that I've gotten tens of hours of entertainment per dollar.

      I can't tell anyone else what they should be liking, but I hope that they are getting the value they should, and that is in terms of more than just money.

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  2. As an avid comic reader on the younger side (18), I can't help but agree with everything you've said so far Rikdad. I've been reading comics for about 6 years now and the undeniable shift of the zeitgeist has without a doubt affected the industry and the stories put out in that time frame. I began reading comics weekly the minute "DC Universe Rebirth" hit the stands; pulling Superman/Action Comics/Wonder Woman/Hal Jordan GLC/Deathstroke every month while simultaneously engrossing myself in decades of past material. I would (and still do) spend hours on the DC Database, learning and consuming information on the history of the characters and stories. After reading so much of the greats: Morrison, Gaiman, Moore, Hickman, Rucka, Ellis, Ennis, it's hard to read some of the stuff that comes out these days. Of course there will always be diamonds in the rough such as Al Ewing, Ram V, Philip Kennedy Johnson, but the comics community continues to praise talentless hacks such as Tom King and Tom Taylor.

    Regardless, your blog is always a pleasure to read. Stay strong Rikdad!

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  3. SOBM, I hadn't imagined your youthfulness. It's particularly interesting to get your insight over this timeframe, which still feels brief to me, with the New 52 having been launched almost double that six years ago.

    Certainly there are ups and downs; I'm very struck, as I mentioned quite briefly in this post that there is such avid raving (and 4.8-star ratings) for work that is so clearly not at the highest level. And if it's serving someone, then good for them, I suppose we have to say.

    (I'll also add that King's Batman Annual #4 was something I enjoyed very much.)

    Thanks so much! I am sure that I'll be posting more, but may be rethinking what and how.

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  4. I hope it wasn't anything I said. You said you weren't aware of some trends before I brought up how Grant Morrison might have been satirizing them. I never saw Rikdad type anything so bleak before, including when talking about what The Gentry might symbolize.

    I understand you might have run out of cool comics stuff to right about right now, but I hope for all of our sake that we all get to see better trends again. And hopefully they won't cost $100 per issue by then.

    I'll still always check this blog for updates.

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  5. No worries, Doc – I was aware of those trends, but didn't pay enough attention to know the terminology and in any case, those are minor alongside the things I'm talking about.

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  6. Just wanted to say I've enjoyed your blog for a long time. Although the Morrison Batman is several years old now. I too use to collect a lot but now my bag is pretty much empty. Thankfully Saga returns at the end of the month I believe, aside from that I haven't kept up with DC too much after Batman Inc. Although I did like the Snyder Batman run for the most part. Cheers

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  7. I appreciate that very much, John! There is definitely an ebb and flow of all kinds, and so long as someone is enjoying the comics, that's good. I myself totally walked away from reading comics on two occasions in the past; this is not one of those. Now I'm regularly reading about five titles, which is actually not much less than I was usually reading. It is sometimes, though, a lot less heartfelt than others. Eg, my looking at Comixology to finish an issue that I'd started reading, then remembering that I'd already finished it. (It's hard to say whether that is best explained as my lack of attention or the book's failure to win over my attention.)

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  8. Rikdad -- All good things....

    I first encountered your thinking on those DC Message Boards, most likely in chats about the early stages of the Morrison run and the then-monumental Black Glove mystery. As you moved over to this blog, I valued greatly your posts about Batman & Robin (especially the post about issue #10 and the old Wayne portraits!) and then Batman Inc.

    Comics were going through ups and downs then, too. As DC approached the New 52, there was a noticeable drop-off in quality across the line in the second half of 2010 and into 2011, for instance. I believe it's when a loyal reader can follow the through-line of a quality run that our appreciation of the medium is at its peak. For me, that would include the Superman Sandman saga by Denny O'Neil in 1971 or the start of Kirby's New Gods world-building or Morrison's JLA run and later his Batman run. And even amid the messiness of the 1990s, I thoroughly enjoyed the pacing of Batman events from Knightfall to Contagion to Legacy to the earthquake and then No Man's Land, with enough "small" stories in between to help me catch my breath.

    Currently, only the Action Comics run on WarWorld comes close to that. I'm optimistic about Mark Waid's upcoming World's Finest run, too. And John Ridley's Batman in NYC holds promise. We shall see.

    At any rate, comic books are certain to outlast all of us, even if they no longer seem so magical now. And as a reminder, Rikdad, that those who have gone before us reached similar junctures, I leave you with the ending of Feiffer's The Great Comic Book Heroes essay from 1965:

    "By the end of the war the men who had been in charge of our childhood fantasies had become archetypes of the grown-ups who made us need to have fantasies in the first place."

    Thank you for years of thoughtful commentary.

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    1. MW10E, another golden commentary from you, and I will have to return to that "portraits" post today. Much of what you say, I could echo exactly, although I read those Batman stories in the trades, and enjoyed them just the same. That's a very intriguing quotation. I hope that the American mythology that has sprung from the old comics have done much good and continue to do so. And it stirs up a thought: So many of the influential, myth-building comics weren't necessarily very strong in terms of character or even story. Maybe just an image alone can (as with the cover of Action #1) do the heavy lifting.

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  9. Hey Rikdad, I never go very long without visiting your site to see if you've put up a new post. And when you do, it always brightens my day. If you pause, it'll be a bummer, but I totally understand where you are coming from. I have the same thoughts writing for and running therealbatmanchronologyproject.com, which I also started 13 years ago! People are drawn to twitter or short videos (a la Tik Tok) these days more than reading long form pieces or detailed analysis. It's a sad state of affairs and speaks to a negative turn for society/culture in general. But anyway, recently I feel as though I’m always looking for a "jumping off point" in regard to my comic book projects and writing pertaining to current continuity, whereas not long ago, that would have been inconceivable. I know I mentioned it before, but Morrison stepping back has sort of been cause for me to step back a bit as well. Don't get me wrong, I'd love for that next big superhero comics thing to really wow me and hook me, but I just haven't felt it in a while. The cyclical nature of comics can either be a burden (leading to stale recycling of ideas) or it can be something amazing (novel uses of a medium that still has so much untapped potential). I wonder if AT&T/Warners or Disney are in the business of true innovation, though. Like you, I have stepped away before, but I’ve always returned because exciting things do usually come around again.

    Nevertheless, I salute your decision, and I know that when you do post, it’ll be a litmus test for quality in the industry. You’ll be posting because something published is actually worth a damn. Here’s hoping for moments like that in 2022.

    PS love to see folks revealing their ages on here, and very happy to see Gen Zers appreciating your keen insights into the world of comic books. I’m in my late 30s and I feel jaded as hell having read comics for 25 years now, so it’s nice to see the future is in good hands.

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    1. Collin, thanks so much. I have enjoyed your chronology project, which has had to endure the twists and turns of a rapidly changing chronology! The departure of Morrison and a shift towards more soundbite-style commentary are, while not the same development, definitely two moves in a similar direction. The next good comic may come as early as tomorrow – I wouldn't be surprised – but the shift in discussion isn't going to change because of one release. Currently, Twitter is all abuzz over how much this or that actor looks like Reed Richards, and I don't think we could identify a more superficial topic if we tried.

      There are plenty of amazing things to discuss from the past and no doubt there'll be at least a couple in the near future, but what I'm seeing is: Hardly anybody's interested in those conversations. Which actor could play which character – tons of interest. At this point, it's Soap Opera Digest.

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  10. Thank you, Rikdad. I've returned to your writing over and over again over the years. I came to comics as an adult reader at the tail end of Morrison's Batman run and found your perceptive posts invaluable for context and commentary. Regardless of how long it takes, I'll continue to keep an eye out for your posts. There's always another crisis waiting in the wings.

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    1. Thanks, M! I don't think I'll forget the experiences of reading several of those issues, and feeling like something very, very big was afoot. It was great to be on that ride with you and we'll see what comes along next.

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  11. When I started reading comics, first issues of Morrison's Batman run were getting published. Not long after I tried Final Crisis and was overwhelmed by it. I thought that Morrison was overrated hack.

    But I kept encountering Morrison's work and bit by bit it started to make sense. And well, with the help of your wonderful articles, at some point, it just clicked. And now I kinda view the entire DC Universe thru Morrison's work. I re-read some of his work every few months.

    I don't know how to calculate this into website traffic that you mentioned in the article, but I feel that your writing had a lasting impact on my comics/mythology views. And I doubt that I'm some unique case :) and well thats gotta count for something as well.

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    1. Thanks so much, HsssH. That would have been a hard place to begin. I look back at the fact that one of the first stories I read was a JLA-JSA crossover, and *that* was a tough place to begin, too… with no Internet!

      It's been great to share discussion with you on CBR and I hope that something keeps it going.

      Roughly speaking, my 2020s posts are getting about 10% the readership of my 2013-2017 posts, and less than 1% of the readership of my top posts. I'm as interested as I ever was in the big mythology of DC Comics, but I'm not feeling the relationship anymore between the new comics and the aspects of that worth calling a mythology.

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  12. Justice League Incarnate is playing HEAVILY off of Final Crisis and Multiversity as well as Alan Moore's Swamp Thing. I feel like it may scratch your itch. It's been great and I highly recommend checking it out.

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    1. Jonny, Infinite Frontier was one of the most deeply disappointing things I've read… not that it was in an objective sense the worst, but that its flaws were being put front and center as the direction that DC is taking.

      Somehow, everyone has some sort of unexplained "omniscient narrator vision": We see Earth Omega and somehow know that it's Earth "Omega" and, surprise surprise, it's associated with Darkseid. Aquawoman takes a glance at Harbinger and tells us that the virus that corrupted her is gone. The darkness that corrupted Roy Harper was… a ring, and the darkness went away when he took it off. Machinehead wants to beat up Thomas Wayne because of the universe that he's from. Thomas Wayne, who's been dark and cynical in all previous appearances, suddenly becomes sentimental in the span of a couple of panels. Darkseid announces his plan out loud for no reason at all and now the heroes know what plan they need to try to stop. I couldn't go two pages through that series without something I found trite and bad storytelling interrupting the previous thing that I found trite and bad storytelling.

      The subject matter picks up right where Multiversity was. The writing felt like it was aimed at very young kids. I would only be interested in something that Williamson wrote if he took a 180° turn from Infinite Frontier. But… I read reviews of Infinite Frontier and they express something between greatness and awe, when it was to my tastes, simply terrible.

      DC's had several longer events that have begun well then lost their way. Kingdom Come, Justice, Infinite Crisis, to a lesser extent Doomsday Clock. To my tastes, Infinite Frontier began badly and stayed there, but it is pleasing a certain crowd and unless I'm very surprised, Williamson's writing would only begin to please me if it began to displease the fans who loved Infinite Frontier.

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  13. Wishing you all the best Rikdad and hopefully something thought-provoking comes along soon to inspire you to pick up your keyboard again.
    You may very well have read all of these already but I found some of Grant's independent/smaller works to be well worth the investment:
    Zenith, Seaguy, Joe the Barbarian, Annihilator, Klaus. Marvel Boy and New X-men are good reads even if you don't know the Marvel mythology.

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    1. Thanks so much, James, and those recommendations are valued – I have in fact not read any of those!

      FYI, my current reading is Love in the Time of Cholera, as an indication of the wavelength that I'm on; I'm also, as always, leafing through some old comics from time to time, and Joe Kelly's JLA run is something I can always jump into for 10 minutes, read one scene, and walk away to mull it over.

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  14. Hi - I’ve never commented before, but wanted to say now, that I thoroughly enjoy your writing and this blog. I am a big fan of Morrison and appreciate your insights (of his work, and all other topics as well). We’re throwing our ages around, so I’m 48 and have always felt “alone” as a comic fan and Grant Morrison fan (it seems like this amazing secret none of my “regular” friends will ever understand) and so it is nice to find places like this. I, too, have no interest in current comics or storylines, my stack of unread issues just piled
    too high. Just not that interesting anymore. I find myself re-reading the old stuff (Got the analysis on The Invisibles and I am currently rereading the entire run along with the book).
    Anyway - thanks! And I look forward to more of your writing - sooner than later I hope!

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    1. Thanks so much, Tony. I'm glad that you've enjoyed what's posted here and please don't be why to mention what else you might be reading. Lately I've had to urge to go back to that first year of Batman in 1939 and take it from the start, something I've done a couple of times over the years. But there's a veritable infinitude of other past comics to dig through.

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  15. Perhaps it’s time to broaden your blog’s subject matter to encompass more of your interests. Write about Marquez, write about Friday Night Lights, start a retrospective analysis of Joe Kelly - those early Deadpools are amazing and rife with unmined significance. Maybe read some classic Marvel stuff you’ve never got around to, dig into it like an anthropologist (DC fan in the Marvel U, a stranger in a strange land). Maybe read some great literary critics and talk about how their ideas relates to yours approach. Whatever you write about, your eloquence and perspicacity will be a contribution to your subject and a gift to your readers, no matter their number. Follow your bliss or blisters, but by all means keep telling us about it. Don’t we deserve you?

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    1. Thanks so much, Austin. I have some ideas brewing and some of them will see the light of day when I get around to following through. Thanks again!

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  16. I have fond memories of your reviews of Grant's Batman run. It was essential to me to read your review of each issue as they added so much depth to the material. Your seemingly "insider" mind had me almost believing those fun rumors that you were in fact Morrison himself (which I hope is a compliment to you). I would love to own a copy of your collected annotations to that series, as well as others you have done. You are always a great read.

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    1. U, thanks so much! I do take it as a compliment that there were rumors that I was Morrison. (I guess if I think about it, that would be kind of dishonest, so maybe that reflects badly on me? Them?! Oh, the tangled web of double identities.) But, no, I liked Morrison's work since I read their "Gothic" story in 1990, but I followed things so loosely then that I didn't even pair that story with their other work for a while.

      I have obsessed and could continue to obsess over the details and intricacies of Grant's Batman work as well as Final Crisis, and will undoubtedly look into it more from time to time. I could post little addenda to what's already posted, and there are some points to make, but I will have to think about how best to make small addenda to a large body of posts.

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