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Comics and TV
Jun. 17th, 2008 09:30 pmI'm in a snarly mood today, although going to the gym after work tonight helped tremendously. Won't bore you with the details in the interests of not oversharing and all that.
At any rate, people are frustrating me again. I keep wanting to slap them upside the head.
It's partly work related, partly hormonal, and partly due to outside annoyances I won't go into.
On the TV front? I'm loving In Plain Sight - finally a heroine that I can identify with. Strong, tall, not into kids, single, doesn't need a guy, a sly/sardonic wit, hates shoes particularly heels, not girly, and great at her job. Rare on tv to find these people. Plus Mary McCormick is a wonderful actress. And I adore the guy playing her partner. The only thing I wish we could get rid of is Lesly Anne Warren as mom, Anne Warren has always grated on my nerves. It's partly her voice - it's sooo nasal. Holly Hunter's also grates on my nerves for much the same reasons. At any rate, In Plain Sight is my new favorite summer series and a good way to bide the time until Burn Notice and The Closer pops up again. In some ways, I prefer McCormick's character to Kyra Sedwicks - she's less girly and tall. It's all about who one can identify with after all.
Regarding Comics? Why is it that so many so called literary/intellectual types and academics know zip about this medium? It should be a required course in any Literature program. It is after all another "written" medium for telling stories. As many stories as novels tell. A comic is basically an illustrated story or a story told 65-90% with pictures. If you are going to have film studies courses in College, I hope you have courses on graphic novels. Academics are traditionally snooty about comics, but then people tend to be about things they do not understand and have little knowledge of.
They haven't read the comics by Harvey Pekar or Marjatap - the writer of the Persepolis stories. Nor seen the graphic novel on the 9/11 Commission Report - which is an astonishing piece of work and in some ways more memorable than any other piece on the topic. They think comics are Archie, Superman, Batman, and the X-men. They don't know about Manga - Japanese comics that contain everything from love stories to sci-fi novels between their pages. I've hidden my love of comics from most intellectuals and literary types, because they frown on them in much the same way they frown on anything that lies outside their own speciality. If it is "genre" and not "literary" - it is beneath their notice. Same deal with animation. For years, if I mentioned I loved animation - people would scoff and say, what a "cartoon"???
It's like the opera aficionda who looks down their nose at jazz and rock and roll. Not liking something is one thing, it's quite another to condemn it because you think what you like is better for some reason. I have yet to see anything that convinces me that Opera is as lofty as everyone seems to think. Or for that matter how it is any better than Jazz. Different, sure, better? Give me a break. Same deal with comics - they are a narrative form, they are not a genre, they can tell any genre. From day to day rigors of getting chemotherapy to being a superhero. If you want to know what a comic book is really like? Step into a comic book store - not Barnes and Noble or Borders, but a real comic book store and stroll down the aisles, pick up the issues, browse. See how many different stories you'll find. Who knows? It may well blow your mind.
But pray do not condemn or look down your snooty little nose at something you have not tried. It's like stating the Shakespeare is boring when you've never seen it performed on the stage. Or saying that Mozart is overrated, when you never listened to any of his music. Or that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is silly when you never watched an episode. And you need to try more than one type of comic, before you know for certain. Not just the super-hero ones or the one's by Whedon. It would be like saying you hate novels when all you've read are Agatha Christie (nothing against Agatha - I read all her novels once upon a time), or saying you hate music when you've only listened to Dan Fogerty or Air Supply.
There are fictional comics and nonfictional comics (9/11 Commission Report is just one example), biographies, romances, action adventure, classics, horror, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, noir, super-heroes, and short story collections or anthologies. There is even a literary journal for comics. Called the Comics Journal. Novels have been made into comics, movies have been translated into comics, as have many tv shows. In most cases the writers use the comics as a means of continuing their story or filling in the blanks, in much the same way people use fanfic. There are comics about the Holocaust such Maus by Art Spieglman. And there are comics about the war in Iraq such as Pride by Brian K. Vauhn, about a bunch of Lions.
[*this is not directed at anyone in particular on my flist, just something I got to thinking about during a conversation in the post below.]
At any rate, people are frustrating me again. I keep wanting to slap them upside the head.
It's partly work related, partly hormonal, and partly due to outside annoyances I won't go into.
On the TV front? I'm loving In Plain Sight - finally a heroine that I can identify with. Strong, tall, not into kids, single, doesn't need a guy, a sly/sardonic wit, hates shoes particularly heels, not girly, and great at her job. Rare on tv to find these people. Plus Mary McCormick is a wonderful actress. And I adore the guy playing her partner. The only thing I wish we could get rid of is Lesly Anne Warren as mom, Anne Warren has always grated on my nerves. It's partly her voice - it's sooo nasal. Holly Hunter's also grates on my nerves for much the same reasons. At any rate, In Plain Sight is my new favorite summer series and a good way to bide the time until Burn Notice and The Closer pops up again. In some ways, I prefer McCormick's character to Kyra Sedwicks - she's less girly and tall. It's all about who one can identify with after all.
Regarding Comics? Why is it that so many so called literary/intellectual types and academics know zip about this medium? It should be a required course in any Literature program. It is after all another "written" medium for telling stories. As many stories as novels tell. A comic is basically an illustrated story or a story told 65-90% with pictures. If you are going to have film studies courses in College, I hope you have courses on graphic novels. Academics are traditionally snooty about comics, but then people tend to be about things they do not understand and have little knowledge of.
They haven't read the comics by Harvey Pekar or Marjatap - the writer of the Persepolis stories. Nor seen the graphic novel on the 9/11 Commission Report - which is an astonishing piece of work and in some ways more memorable than any other piece on the topic. They think comics are Archie, Superman, Batman, and the X-men. They don't know about Manga - Japanese comics that contain everything from love stories to sci-fi novels between their pages. I've hidden my love of comics from most intellectuals and literary types, because they frown on them in much the same way they frown on anything that lies outside their own speciality. If it is "genre" and not "literary" - it is beneath their notice. Same deal with animation. For years, if I mentioned I loved animation - people would scoff and say, what a "cartoon"???
It's like the opera aficionda who looks down their nose at jazz and rock and roll. Not liking something is one thing, it's quite another to condemn it because you think what you like is better for some reason. I have yet to see anything that convinces me that Opera is as lofty as everyone seems to think. Or for that matter how it is any better than Jazz. Different, sure, better? Give me a break. Same deal with comics - they are a narrative form, they are not a genre, they can tell any genre. From day to day rigors of getting chemotherapy to being a superhero. If you want to know what a comic book is really like? Step into a comic book store - not Barnes and Noble or Borders, but a real comic book store and stroll down the aisles, pick up the issues, browse. See how many different stories you'll find. Who knows? It may well blow your mind.
But pray do not condemn or look down your snooty little nose at something you have not tried. It's like stating the Shakespeare is boring when you've never seen it performed on the stage. Or saying that Mozart is overrated, when you never listened to any of his music. Or that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is silly when you never watched an episode. And you need to try more than one type of comic, before you know for certain. Not just the super-hero ones or the one's by Whedon. It would be like saying you hate novels when all you've read are Agatha Christie (nothing against Agatha - I read all her novels once upon a time), or saying you hate music when you've only listened to Dan Fogerty or Air Supply.
There are fictional comics and nonfictional comics (9/11 Commission Report is just one example), biographies, romances, action adventure, classics, horror, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, noir, super-heroes, and short story collections or anthologies. There is even a literary journal for comics. Called the Comics Journal. Novels have been made into comics, movies have been translated into comics, as have many tv shows. In most cases the writers use the comics as a means of continuing their story or filling in the blanks, in much the same way people use fanfic. There are comics about the Holocaust such Maus by Art Spieglman. And there are comics about the war in Iraq such as Pride by Brian K. Vauhn, about a bunch of Lions.
[*this is not directed at anyone in particular on my flist, just something I got to thinking about during a conversation in the post below.]
