(Commentary) Another week, another batch of email responding to items found in the weblog. Our first correspondent is a return visitor from last week, who wrote in twice to suggest that comics shops might do better if they shoved all the corporate comics in the back of the store and stocked better materials up front. I quibbled a bit with the argument the writer offered, at one point using the words "sour grapes". The writer returned with the following response:
"I think I agree with just about everything you said in reply, though I didn't realize my thoughts appeared to be sour grapes. I guess I'd quibble on that point.
"I honestly like stuff like Hicksville and Jar of Fools and I disagree with corporate visions that can't see how good those are. I prefer to walk into a bookstore that promotes corporate visions that enable work like that to be published. I don't see that as sour grapes, that's choice. How those other corporations make a buck at what they do is not something I worry about unless it gets in the way of me finding the kind of product I like.
"But, I agree with your thoughts. To carry through the analogy of romance novels in bookstores, I wouldn't walk into a store that displays all Harlequin romances in the window all the time. Even so, it would be wrong to never give display space to something that popular.
"The thing is, for there to be sour grapes there has to be no other alternative. Hence the idea of giving up, resenting what you can't have and then tearing it down verbally for no good reason.
"But I can and have read conventional comic books. The last book I actually read was at an acquaintence's house. You probably know the one: the Hulk tears up Manhattan and Captain America because he's horny. That book sucked. No, that really sucked.
"I've looked at manga and keep hearing great things. I've read great things translated in RAW. I hear there's something great in #250. That stuff isn't being translated regularly. In the big marketplace, I see a corporate effort to appeal to the collecting urge of my children. This is not new -- Barbie and baseball cards were there before. But it's never been as orchestrated as it is now. This isn't sour grapes, this is my wife and I teaching our kids to be intelligent and discriminating consumers. This is my wife being fully informed about the books our kids read.
"Fortunately there's other choices for me out there (and my kids). I like them, I want more of them. And these choices are produced through traditional creator-owned publishing deals. Let's see: Horny Hulk smash or something like Rucka and Lieber's Whiteout. Yu Gi Oh's contrived drama centered around a marketable card game, or Tintin in Tibet.
"No contest.
"If what I like can't be found in the direct market because there's no room for them among the corporate comics, I won't go back to the direct market. It's no skin off my nose -- bookstores are generally nicer and they have a wide range of titles -- and if I can't find a comic I like I'll buy a prose novel. If the direct market wants to survive, they better do something different, because my foot's half out the door."
No argument there, and I'm glad you took the time to offer the clarification. Our next correspondent wrote in yesterday after reading my link to this Roger Langridge interview in yesterday's Sunday Scraps, which I ended by stating that "If you're not reading [Fred the Clown], you're clearly some kind of life-hating idiot." The writer replies:
"Or you're broke.
"Or you've never heard of it, regardless of the fact that if you did you'd probably check it out... when you got some cash.
"This is a pet peeve of mine... it happens in all sorts of reviews and other comics commentary. Take Doane's recent 'banning' of readers who did not order Kochalka's Sketchbook Diaries Vol. 3. Maybe if I a) had the money to pre-order stuff every month and b) knew about it / had already purchased and read the first two volumes, I would have not been 'banned.'
"There are SO MANY books and creators that I can barely keep track of the stuff I want to purchase in my head, and the people whose other stuff I'd like to look in to getting. I'm a student with little spending cash and a lot of work, and I don't get sent links and press releases or any other sort of pointers towards all the new stuff coming out (and think of all the stuff already out, too!) For this info, I'm left with checking out sites... one of which is yours. And when you say that because I'm not reading a book I've never seen or heard of, read anything about; a book I didn't even know exist, you say that I am some kind of life-hating idiot? When I see this sort of thing, it doesn't make me want to grab the book. It doesn't make me want to read it, show it to others, discuss it with the 'community.' It makes me, rather, want to skip the rest of your daily news and move on to the next site on my bookmarks list.
"For all the talk of expanding the audience and getting more people to read, well, books like Fred the Clown for example, this is exactly the type of thing that would make the average person NOT want to read it, not want to read your column, and not want to start reading comics. There are thousands of indy bands, for example, that I probably don't listen to because when one of my 'indy' acquaintances asks what I am listening to and I say something like Pearl Jam, they scoff at me and 'my tastes' and name-drop some ultra-hip band I've never heard of along with a comment which, as you might guess, is usually insulting to me. Sure, if they would have let me borrow the disc, or emailed me a track without their scathing commentary on 'my tastes' (how bout 'my lack of knowledge on the fringes of pop culture'?) I'd be happy to check it out, give it a shot with an open mind.
"But no. I don't get in to their stuff because it often seems they like it better that way -- as 'their stuff.' Stuff they know about, they can appreciate, but I can't. Why can't I, why can't more people appreciate 'their stuff?' they might ask. It's probably not 'their stuff' that throws the masses off. It's them, and their insulated group of hipsters and know-it-alls welcoming us into their midst with spit and a sneer.
"Otherwise, great column. Thanks for the daily grind of news and all that. Please keep away from this crap in the future, though, even if it was just a lighthearted jest. It's the same sort of thing you'd expect from a dirty comic shop run by the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons, or from mindless asses following up the latest superhero point of gossip on newsarama or whatever. Regardless of the subject matter at hand, being a snide asshole is being... And for the record, I think of this as an off-hand slip on your part. I'm not calling you a snide asshole, yet :)"
I suppose I could explain myself by noting that the comment was hyperbole, and that I do not in fact think that those who don't read Fred the Clown are "life-hating idiots". Likewise, I could note that as the obnoxious son of a hellraising white-trash family from Arizona, I have offended people far worse than this for far less reason, and will undoubtedly do so again in the future, offering my apologies for all bruised sensitivities in advance. They tell me it's genetic. Instead, though, I think I'll just point to the one logical flaw in your otherwise well-reasoned email -- I am, in fact, a snide asshole. Asking me to be otherwise is like asking a leopard to change its spots.
Yesterday's link to an article about Phoebe Gloeckner in Salon (which also contained some snide, assholish comments about why I try to avoid linking to said site) brought several responses, of which the following was the most informative:
"Now maybe you're mostly joking and already have their system down, but here's how it goes:
- "Go to whatever you want to read.
- "Click the 'Free Day Pass sponsored by whoever' that's always in the lower right hand corner.
- "The 15-second commecial will start to come up. Fuck that. As soon as possible, click the text link at the bottom that says 'Difficulties viewing this page? Click here.' The ad disappears immediately, taking you directly to your story.
"Granted, jumping through two extra hoops is still a slight pain in the ass, especially if someone's on a slow connection. But, it does help pay for more Phoebe Gloeckner stories, right?
"Oh, and interestingly, if I don't click the 'Difficulties viewing this page' link and actually bother to watch the ad, I get redirected to the salon.com homepage rather than the story I wanted to read. Nothing like piling inconvenience on inconvenience..."
In case you were wondering, this has been our "Oh shit, we're going to get busted under the DMCA" moment for the week -- join us next week, script kiddies, when we'll be posting the DeCSS source code for your downloading pleasure! Seriously though, I suspect Salon wouldn't even need the click-throughs if they'd just take Ken Layne's advice and trim the fat out of their business model. In any event, I'm so hesitant about making my readers jump through unnecessary hoops to get to a story that I'm reluctant to link to The New York Times unless the situation absolutely demands it, let alone Salon.
(Which reminds me: I've received several emails noting that Google News has a deal with the Times and several other registration-oriented online newspapers which allows you to get to a linked article without going through the registration process, and that I should just save that URL and post it here. The problem is that these papers -- well the Times, anyway -- also add a randomly-generated string of code to the URL you land on when you arrive through Google News, and the "free pass" generated by the link is tied to that code. After a couple of hours, the code is deleted from their records, and any attempt to access the page through it after that occurs gets routed straight to their registration page. In short, the trick doesn't work for weblogs.)
Why do I get the feeling that when my readers aren't here, they're bootlegging music on Kazaa? Speaking of which, our last correspondent's email came under the heading "Dirk Deppey's Favorite Legal MP3 sites?", in reference to an offhand comment made last Friday:
"Inquiring minds wanna know! Post!"
Ha ha ha ha -- no. See? Told you I was a snide asshole. Like the sidebar says, send email to weblog@tcj.com -- all email is considered anonymous unless you volunteer otherwise, and assumed printable unless you say otherwise.
