Reading Comics

Aeonite writes "Let there be no doubt — Douglas Wolk loves comics, and his is a tough love, the sort of love that leaves comics out in the rain pounding on the door because they snuck out after curfew again and wrecked the car. I've never dived deep enough into the industry to form a strong opinion of it one way or the other, but Wolk is both a fan and a critic of comic books, and his insights make Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean an interesting, engaging read, both because of and in spite of his enthusiasm." Read below for the rest of Michael's review.

Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean
author	Douglas Wolk
pages	405
publisher	Da Capo Press
rating	7
reviewer	Michael Fiegel
ISBN	9780306815096
summary	A critical, often insightful look at graphic novels and how to read them

Reading Comics is billed by its publisher as "the first serious, readable, provocative, canon-smashing book of comics theory and criticism by the leading critic in the field." At the very least this is somewhat pretentious and misleading, insofar as it would seem to imply that all previous attempts at comics theory were apparently written by clowns; Will Eisner and Scott McCloud would no doubt take some minor umbrage at that assertion. This is not to say that Wolk's credentials are in question; he's written extensively for Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Salon.com and other publications on the subject of comics. To see Wolk's thoughts coalesced into book form is a welcome sight, because this is how I tend to enjoy media: in large chunks rather than in installments, be it a graphic novel collection of Transmetropolitan, or an entire season of Buffy on DVD.

Reading Comics is broken into two-parts, with the first third of the book given over to an exploration of comic book history and theory, and the remainder consisting of a series of essays about specific comic book authors, artists and titles. The title of the book is accurate enough, since it does serve not only as a general guide to how to read comics, but as a chronicle of how Douglas Wolk reads them. The subtitle, however, is at best misleading; the book doesn't really offer a definitive answer to the questions posed, nor can it. Rather, this is a book about how Douglas Wolk thinks graphic novels work, and what specific examples of graphic novels mean to him.

All of this might seem to go without saying, but it's important to recognize that Wolk's voice is quite omnipresent throughout the book. This is especially true in the second part, where Wolk's essays deconstruct and interpret a series of comics through his eyes, but is also a factor in the book's earlier pages as Wolk offers his blunt and honest opinion of the state of the industry. This first part of the book — divided into five chapters — is devoted to "Comic Book Theory and History". Herein, Wolk attempts to first define comic books, and then to lay out a theory for how one might interpret and critique them using what Wolk dubs "harsh criticism."

Chapter 1, "What Comics Are and What They Aren't", briefly explores the progression of comics from their original golden age, through the silver age and the origin of the Comics Code, and into the current modern era of comic books spawned, it seems, in 1986 with the publication of titles such as The Dark Knight Returns, Maus: A Survivor's Tale, and Watchmen. Wolk declares this current age the real golden age — aesthetically, financially and commercially — and spends the remainder of the chapter more or less trying to support that assertion by definition, comparison to other media, and an extensive straw man argument that includes a few slapshots toward Scott McCloud's side of the ice.

Wolk doesn't pull punches in Chapter 2 either, where he discusses "Auteurs, the History of Art Comics, and How to Look at Ugly Drawings". In discussing style, content, expressiveness and plot he (perhaps deservedly) lambastes Liefeld ("a god-awful hack with no tonal range at all, and his flailing attempts at storytelling are inevitably derailed by his inability to think beyond the next dramatic full-page shot") and even takes aim at Jack Kirby, whose "final years were an embarrassing mess" according to Wolk.

"What's Good About Bad Comics and What's Bad About Good Comics" is the subject of Chapter 3, which sees Wolk first trying to sort out differences between comics, comic books, periodicals and graphic novels by comparing the argument to the difference between movies, films and cinema; this is to say, it's mostly semantics. Wolk also explores the culture of comics and the problems associated with it (bandwagoneers, nostalgia, sexism), and comes to the conclusion that he loves comics "because comic books are awesome," providing seven pages of personal "favorite" moments from the history of comics. Enlightening, but only as a window into Wolk's closet, rather than a vision of any universal truth.

Chapter 4, "Superheroes and Superreaders", attempts to answer the question of why Superhero comics have formed the baseline from which all other comic books seem to stem, but while it touches on the underlying themes and allegories involved I was left thinking that better (or at least more interesting) explanations and explorations have been provided elsewhere, as in Shyamalan's Unbreakable and Chaban's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

The final chapter of part 1, "Pictures, Words and the Space Between Them", explores the notion of what cartooning is and how it works, the difference between drawing and cartooning (static images vs implied action), and the importance of white space and gutters in conveying time. And what conclusions, if any, can be drawn at the end of part 1? Says Wolk: "McCloud likes to make categories; I like to make generalizations and excuses."

It is on that note that we enter the second part of the book, "Reviews and Commentary", a collection of 18 mini-reviews and essays about selected titles and authors, chosen for no reason other than that Wolk thought they were interesting to discuss. They are not presented as a recommended reading list, nor are they intended to be representative or comprehensive, nor are they presented in any logical order, such as alphabetically by title or last name. At first I thought that they were progressing in order of complexity (that is, complexity of the comic titles being discussed), but even this apparent structure falls apart towards the end, especially when one realizes that ranking comic titles by complexity is entirely subjective.

Books and artists covered in these essays include both well-known authors (Will Eisner and Frank Miller, Alan Moore and Grant Morrison) and titles (Sin City, Daredevil, Watchmen, Maus) as well as more obscure names, including David B (Epileptic), Chester Brown (The Little Man) and Carla Speed McNeil (The Finder).

Each one of the essays (several of which are reprinted from Salon.com) lays out Wolk's feelings about the works and the authors discussed, including both praise and criticism — ofttimes in the same paragraph. Most of the essays are accompanied by ample art that is relevant to the topic being discussed, but there are some cases where an essay is a bit art-light, which is annoying and somewhat maddening in a book about comic books — in particular, the essay on David B. doesn't have any artwork at all, and the essay on Chris Ware could benefit from a little more Jimmy Corigan or Final Report. Also somewhat questionable is the grouping of some subjects within or between essays; Will Eisner and Frank Miller are relegated to one chapter, while two successive chapters are given to Gilbert and Jamie Hernandez of Love & Rockets fame. I'm sure Wolk had his reasons of course, but as a reader the structure seems a bit random.

The book's Afterward gives some brief mention of online comic strips (including Diesel Sweeties and Little Dee), as well as newer anthologies and artists, and then concludes with Wolk's assertion that while there's not much further for comics to go as a medium, that's ultimately a good thing since it represents maturity. Assertions like this are hard to argue with, which is both a blessing and a curse for Reading Comics. So much of what's within is phrased as opinion and generalization that ultimately the book reads something like a memoir, more of a peek into Wolk's basement than into the history of comics.

To Wolk, comics appear to be a sort of ugly girlfriend. He seems to appreciate the cheerleader superhero types, but he's much more into the chicks with tattoos, the Suicide Girls and American Apparel ads of the comic book industry, the ones that stem from "a conscious choice to incorporate a lot of distortion and avoid conventional prettiness in style." He loves them for what's inside, for their intelligence and depth, and acknowledges their surface flaws, never hesitating to refer to them as ugly. It makes one wonder; if a graphic novel asks you if they look fat, do you say yes?

You can purchase Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Wolk's basement

And it's from his basement that he shouts, "I'm a Comics Theoretician And Critic, damn it!" when his parents yell, "What are you doing with you life?!"

Re:Wolk's basement

Same old story. Kid wants to grow up to become a hot shot comic book artist and ends up being a hot shot writer for The Rolling Stones. How sad.

Comics as real literature

Since this story has been posted, I might as well ask the Slashdot community: I've often heard Watchmen [amazon.com] held up as an example of a comic having real value as literature. However, I personally found it rather poorly written (see my Amazon review). What other graphic novels might you recommend that validate the format? I haven't read Sandman yet, but I hear of that one a lot.

Re:Comics as real literature

Maus and Maus II

Re:

The following are fine works of literature: Cages, The Tale of One Bad Rat, From Hell, Love & Rockets, and def Sandman. I could also add Bone and Strangers in Paradise, but check out the ones listed before these two.

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Hiyao Miyazaki did a four-volume graphic novelization of "Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind". Miyazaki creates an entire world from the ground up; it's an exercise in world-building on par with The Lord of the Rings. It's got its own ecosystem, history, techn

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La Perdida by Jessica Abel

Re:Comics as real literature

Hmmm... That's a difficult one. I loved Watchmen, though I'm not sure I'd put it up there with the literary greats. Will Eisner is very good, as is Harvey Pekar. "From Hell" by Alan Moore is worth a read, and I use it in classes on literary language (I'm an English prof.) If you want to sample a variety of authors, try "An Anthology of Graphic Fiction" ed. by Ivan Brunetti.

The thing you have to remember when reading graphic novels is that we're used to judging literature by a lot more than just dialogue. Classic literature has lots of characterisation, landscape desription, narratorial thoughts... A graphic novelist generally writes very little but dialogue. You have to try to "read" the pictures as taking the place of the narratorial/authorial description, and then see how well the dialogue works in that context. But I have to say I'd find it hard to make meaningful comparisons between graphic and non-graphic novels.

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"Breakfast of Champions" by Kurt Vonnegut.
"Cerebus the Aardvark" by Dave Sim

Re:Comics as real literature

Watchmen is emblematic of the problem with many comics held out as "real" literature; it's a self referential work of comics. That is, it is not a work of literature but a work of comicdom. It relies upon a working knowledge of the genre itself in order to function beyond being a simplistic superhero tale. Other works of "high" comics that suffer the same issue are, of course, deconstructivist superhero works like The Dark Night Returns or Astro City and works overly reliant upon satirizing the genre like Cerebus (before Sim went crazy as a shithouse rat). Not that these are bad pieces, I happen to like all of them to one degree or another (my sig is lifted from Dave Sim after all), but they are first and foremost comic books.

For a comic to be "real literature" I feel it must transcend its genre (kind of self-evident really, as literature is a different genre). Gilbert Hernandez's magical-realist Palomar stories do this about as well as anything I've ever run across. His brother Jaime's stuff does it almost as well (trading a bit of literary flair for perhaps some of the best black and white line-work comics have ever seen). Sandman suffers a bit at the beginning as it derives from DC's horror line of comics but as Gaiman finds his footing the story rapidly pulls itself out of that ghetto and establishes itself as a very fine piece of fantastic literature (of sorts).

Re:Comics as real literature

"For a comic to be "real literature" I feel it must transcend its genre (kind of self-evident really, as literature is a different genre)."

That's absolutely right. But I think you're wrong to say that this is a "problem" with works like Watchmen. If we keep trying to compare graphic novels with written literature, they're going to suffer from the comparison. This isn't because they have less merit, but because they have different merit. A comic will never be "real literature", but if you turn that statement on its head and say "A novel will never be a good comic", the absurdity of the comparison becomes clear. Of course a novel can't be a good comic, unless you add pictures and cut out a lot of narration. At which point, it isn't a novel anymore.

Graphic novels rely on more than just words for their merit. Literature relies on words and words alone. I would far prefer to see graphic novels judged by the same criteria as movies (although even that wouldn't do them proper justice) because at least a movie isn't judged solely by its use of words.

Re:Comics as real literature

Thanks for the comment. This is Douglas Wolk, the author of "Reading Comics." I'd actually argue--and this is an argument that's gotten me in some trouble, so feel free to dispute it--that comics are not literature (in the same way that they're not film or sculpture or cuisine), and that reading them as if they're supposed to work the same ways as prose literature is missing the point. Comics are drawn, and their essence is the fact that they're a kind of narrative in a form that's come from an artist's eye and hand. To put it differently: "good writing" in the context of prose is different from "good writing" in the context of comics (or film, or whatever other medium you'd like to substitute), and writing is only a part--a significant part, but not the main part--of how comics work.

Re:

What other graphic novels might you recommend that validate the format?

Validate it? To what standard? Does art ever really need validation?

But I'll take a shot in the dark. In particular, it's hard to know what works will help give a medium respect

Re:Comics as real literature

To be honest I'm not sure that any comics really rise to the level of greatness possible in books and film.

Thats ok, most books and film dont rise to the level of greatness possible in those formats.

Its not the format, its the telling that matters. The vast majority of books, even some of the ones people consider classic, are not as good as they could be.

Let me get this straight...

This is a review of a book on how to review comics? Seriously?

Let me tell you what I think about the book review...

Re:Let me get this straight...

This is a review of a book on how to review comics? Seriously?

Let me tell you what I think about the book review...

Wait - I haven't finished coloring it in yet!

It's a serious art form

And to those who think the american form is not I submit
Exhibit A)Sandman [wikipedia.org]
Exhibit B)The Watchmen [wikipedia.org]

Re:It's a serious art form

That's a trope of lame Hollywood movies, not the best of contemporary literature.

I saw the watchmen as a satire of the genre. At the time we where presented with every super hero being a being that was perfect (a la superman). Watchmen did what Spider-Man does years later which pays into his success, which is really put the human back into super human. It's a very involving story and the artwork is done well. Turn the golden age of comics on its ear.

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"Watchmen" is juvenile. I mean, at the end the supervillain explains the whole scheme to the heroes before doing them in.

You apparently didn't actually read it. The villain mocks the same cliche in stating that it was all done thirty minutes before. It ha

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I think there's a difference between saying that they're "the best of contemporary literature" and that they're a valid art form, which is what the original poster said. As I've mentioned in a previous comment, it's very difficult to judge a graphic novel

I preferred his orginal working title...

"My Accountant Told Me That This Is The Only Way I Can Write Off What I Spend On Comic Books"

Subtitled, "And By Having SOME Sort Of Financial Strategy, It's Possible That I Won't Die A Virgin"

From reading the summary....

It does look likes an US-centric point of view on comic. It does not seem to touch the european comic industry (where do you place something like Gaston Lagaffe in what he says ? Or L'incal Noir ? The market of the gods ?) or even the booming eastern/japanese comic industry (manga and such). If I am not misled by the summary, then he missed much, MUCH of the comic history, world.

Re:From reading the summary....

Thanks for commenting. This is Douglas Wolk, the author of the book. It's true: "Reading Comics" deals almost exclusively with comics currently in print in the U.S. in English, and basically doesn't touch on manga or European (non-U.K.) comics at all, for reasons I explain in the book. (I did include a chapter on David B.'s "Epileptic," because it's pretty much the best thing ever.) It's not meant to be a comprehensive survey of the entire medium, just of some interesting channels within the medium, but there are only so many qualifiers one can put in a book's title...

Maus I and II Validate the Format;

Others not so much. I am not trolling here, so let me explain what I mean before I burn. Maus was a story that needed that graphic format and changed the way I considered history to be presented. Holocaust narratives have been shown in a variety of ways (literary, film etc), but the juxtaposition of present and past was a key aspect of the way that history is passed down both for better and for worse from one generation to another in Maus. This part of Maus was dependent upon the very nature of sequential art (aka comic panels). This story needed the format in a way that something like Watchmen doesn't. Watchmen is great, and I look forward to the movie. But, the story is what drove its greatness, not that it was a graphic novel. (and considering it was released as separate issues originally, I take exception to the term graphic novel even being applied). I am sure that there other examples similar to Maus, but I would not include Watchmen in that category. Watchmen is great for entierly different reasons.

Preposterous!

"...of titles such as The Dark Knight Returns, Maus: A Survivor's Tale, and Watchmen."

Those works are good entertainment, but not the "golden age" of the medium. Saying so just ignores the true giants of the field, people like: Jack Kirby, Winsor McCay, Gil Kane, Steve Ditko, Schuiten, Bilal, Moebius, Steranko, Steve Englehart, Marshall Rogers, etc.

Jack Kirby looms over the whole industry like a colossus. His importance only grows the longer you look at his whole body of work, but esp. the work between 1960-1980.

Scripting word balloons is truly work for hire and not a true act of creation - and that's all I can say about Stan Lee.

If you really want to see what comics can achieve at their best, check out these:
* "Detectives Inc." by McGregor and Rogers, the B&W original.
* "Jenifer" by Jones and Wrightson, a short story from Vampirella
* "The Beguiling" by Barry Smith
* "Master Race" by Berni Kreigstein
* "Collector's Edition" by Goodwin and Ditko
* "At the Stroke of Midnight" by Steranko

The writing is tight and the art is amazing. Text is woven into the art and made a part of it.

That's how to do it.