Thread 24455945

Can comics be as intellectual as books, or are they doomed to be a lower medium?

>Picrel unrelated

>>24455945 (OP)
no
comic book are for pre pubescent children, a bridge to teenage hood

Trying to make an intellectual comic book is like trying to teach Hegel's philosophy through interpretive dance

>>24455945 (OP)
On paper it seems there should be no reason for comics to not have to expressive potential of any art form but reconciling the image with the text seems challenging because for one thing text bubbles are pretty disruptive to panel composition. Also you have to have skills in both writing and drawing which is a higher skill barrier to entry. It has a lot of promise but I haven't seen it totally delivered on yet. In the western tradition, I like Krazy Kat but it is very inconsistent. The medium is cool as anime that can be feasibly created by only one person. Superhero type comics seem not too interesting so far.

>>24456004
european comics are the closest weve probably gotten

but the japs have gotten to the peak of enjoyment, as in being interesting to read, not super thought provoking, but just interesting and new, with cool ideas

people were making a lot of threads dumping graphic novel adaptations of literature last week.

/lit/ is a "basement philosopher" board. No one here cares about quality. They only use books to make themselves feel superior to people who don't live in their mom's basement. So they'll never consider comics to be "actually good" because a comic cannot serve the purpose that /lit/ uses books for.

>>24456108
true, just see >>24455977

>>24455945 (OP)
I'd say The Eternaut is War of the worlds but way better.

>>24456004
>you have to have skills in both writing and drawing
Or you could just learn how to do one and pair up with someone who practiced the other like this one >>24456009

>>24456158
>>24456004
or try to learn both at the same time (which is very hard, but also fun at least)

>>24456181
Post some of your writing, I'm hoping to be able to tell you you should nix the drawing and focus on that instead.

>>24455945 (OP)
Literary comicbooks are a seriously sad thing to behold, and probably the worst thing to happen to comicbooks. As a teenager I was impressed with picrel, Sandman, V for Vendetta, and other comics that are deemed "literary", but as an adult I seriously cannot tolerate them. They reek of intellectual inferiority complexes. The best comicbooks are the comicbooks that try to be comicbooks. Comics are a visual medium first and foremost, and need to work in that frame. And we all understand this, at least on a subconscious level, as no one would read Watchman if it wasn't for Dave Gibbon's excellent artwork and the genius use of colouring. Alan Moore's story (which, like most of Moore's work, is ripped from someone else in length, a novel called the Superheroes iirc) comes third to the visuals, and it seriously isn't that impressive in this day and age and is an outdated parody of a bygone era most fans of Watchman have never experienced or bothered to read up on.
And speaking of the intellectual inferority complexes comics like these hold, Alan Moore is crippled by his. It's painfully obvious he wishes to be seen as a great literary writer, as he only gets his flowers through a medium he actively despises, but every time he's turned his hand to literature it's been mediocre at best. Jerusalem was a poor man's attempt at recreating Joyce; and his latest novel reads like fucking YA. So he has to sulkily crawl back to the comicbook industry he loathes so much, to write another comicbook to get his paycheque. Like all commies he has to hijack creations and ideas put forward before him. V for Vendetta is 1984 in Thatcher's Britain (which is also retarded as police states are overwhelmingly a left-wing phenomena); League of Extraordinary Gentleman rips off Victorian literature and later becomes a weird meta literary collage; Watchman steals the premise of the book I mentioned earlier. All of this is deeply unimpressive when you take away the artists' work and realise Alan Moore has as much originality as the average commie bugman, which is to say zero. Unironically, his best work was when he was writing comic scripts for 2000 A.D. and Doctor Who Magazine.

>>24456158
Indeed you could, but aren't the greatest works ultimately the realization of one mind's vision ? I love collaboration but collaborators are ultimately most helpful in stimulating the creative process, rather than filling in the places where you are deficient. What is intoxicating about this art form to me is that you can get to its highest level of specificity, with the each medium it operates within (narrative, visual) acting in perfect concert, without needing to resort to help from people who can only imperfectly understand. Finding another artist with very specific ideas (as they must be) that will harmonize with and elevate yours happens very seldom. I'm interested if anyone has counterexamples.

>>24456215
V for Vendatta is particularly bad, It is like you said a poor atempt to hijack 1984 but filled with nouvelle gauche wankery. it also highlights another problem with american comics, the incessant use of cape shit. V for Vendetta would have been a beter story if it just provided a series of slice of lice shots form various people living wihtin the system, V being edgelord batman or something really detracts form the story.
why is it btw that every American comic has to be some type of capeshitery ?

>>24456212
I haven't really written much, just read some books on writing, and read alot of books, and alot of movies, so im just going in sorta blind

Written a script, and I'm currently working on a 60 page first chapter, and posted the first scene on IC below
https://warosu.org/ic/thread/7587576

and if your interested, belows my first attempt at making a comic a few months ago, although its alot more embarrassing
https://warosu.org/ic/thread/7495115

>>24456181
and yeah as you can see above, not skiller enough to focus on being a writer, but just wanna improve for now, and maybe get some fans who like the "vibes"

>>24456314
fyi past participle of "to hurt" is "hurt" not "hurted". Best wishes

>>24456322
Yeah that was sorta meant to be meta, through saying "hurted"

Thank you though

>>24456322
Damn you're the hater commenting.

>>24456215
Alan Moore's best work is Saga of The Swamp Thing.

>>24456009
Can I get a version that isn't polluted by Bendis?

>>24456331
Very interesting... I will say you are playing with fire in such a way that might imperil your chances of retaining readers who could might be inclined to dismiss your writing work as shoddy. The premise you are building from works if people are already committing to reading to page 5. Me personally I wouldn't take that chance without established readership.

>>24456334
For our artist's sake I wish I were. Far more dangerous is indifference. Lu Xun says "if a man's proposals met with approval, it should encourage him; if they met with opposition, it should make him fight back; but the real tragedy for him was to lift up his voice among the living and meet with no response, neither approval nor opposition, just as if he were left helpless in a boundless desert".

>>24456361
goes very hard. Most comics would meet that tragedy then, as would most books out there I'd say. going to book or comic conventions and seeing barren booths, with the authors awkwardly sitting alone is very sad

>>24456278
>aren't the greatest works ultimately the realization of one mind's vision ?
By no means. Stopped reading there.

>>24456377
It is your right to do so and I appreciate the feedback. I value the opportunity to develop my rhetoric and perspective. Might I ask about your conception of collaboration and why my idea is incompatible with what you believe? I am curious because I could be missing something that you are thinking of.

>>24456108
post those 'actually good' comics then, as many as you can. You won't because you are a coward

>>24456421
Watchmen
Halo Jones
The Swamp Thing
Dark Knight Returns
Daredevil Born Again
The Sandman
Miracleman
V For Vendetta
Maus
Bone
From Hell
Year One
Y: The Last Man
Transmetropolitan

>>24456421
If you are actually interested in what they have to share you won't resort to name calling. Of course they made a mistake in taking a combative tone in the first place but every person must personally accept the responsibility we have to each other at every opportunity. Otherwise there is no discourse. I too am interested in what they have to share and calling them a coward does me a disservice as well as you.

Comics objectively can’t be as intellectual as the most intellectual books, there will never and can never be a comic book as intellectual as the divine comedy. But comic books can be more intellectual than a lot of regular books and novels

>>24456442
What is in your mind the fundamental difference between The Divine Comedy and the potential of the comic book medium? Or is it just any contemporary work.

>>24456353
Kek this, like when EVERY SF BOOK FROM A WRITER I LIKE has fucking Gaiman's name on the cover in bigger font than the author himself, fucking disrespectful

>>24456421
You just proved the post correct.

And no one said comics were good, you illiterate retard.

>>24456498
so >>24456433 are bad?
What comics do you recommend?

>>24456215
>paycheque

>>24456296
>slice of lice

I agree with what has been said about Moore so far. Watchmen's greatest asset was its artwork.

How do you guys feel about From Hell though? I really quite enjoyed that one in my adolescence, I'm a stickler for conspiracies and all the occult stuff is very fun to me. I thought it was well made and had its own unique atmosphere going on, quite dense and dark.
I would love to read a novel that has something similar going on but haven't encountered anything of the sort so far

>>24456624
Paycheque is the English spelling, Burger. Take your "bastardized" English away from here.

>>24456637
mmmmmmm quite. cheers! ... muwaha

>>24455945 (OP)
Yes, but they will never be literature.

So after months and years of spamming the same thread over and over (always with Moore comics which are not intellectually impressive - ANY of them) you have finally stumbled upon the agreeable notion. Yes, they can be intellectually stimulating.

>>24456331
This is hideous.

>>24455977
fpbp
/thread

>>24456433
>Watchmen
Absolutely not
>Halo Jones
More Moore shit, goddamn I’m so sick of you losers.
>The Swamp Thing
Again, no. Greta art though.
>Dark Knight Returns
First one with real merit but not as a piece of literature. It’s just a for better comic than anything Moore has ever been a part of.
>Daredevil Born Again
The best of those you’ve listed
>The Sandman
Absolutely fucking not
>Miracleman
lol
>V For Vendetta
The only mildly impressive Moore comic
>maus
Absolutely not, even worse because school teachers use it as an example of “graphic novels as literature” which is just depressing. Contract with god would be the better example for them to provide.
>Bone
This isn’t even remotely worth posting. Might as well say Calvin and Hobbes
>From Hell
The most overrated comic Moore has ever written and it’s complete and utter shit
>Year One
Overrated but still quite good, nowhere near as good as born again and mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp should have been on your list when you wasted space saying:
>Y: The Last Man
>Transmetropolitan
I’m convinced this was all an elaborate troll with these last two.

>>24456631
It’s not even a remotely commendable effort. Overrated art, typical Moore slop writing. Tom Strong and the first volume of LOEG are his only good comics.

>I would love to read a novel that has something similar going on but haven't encountered anything of the sort so far
Go back to /co/ then kid

>>24456718
That's a lot to type without saying anything.

>>24456718
Uncultured swine.

>>24456775
>>24456740
Stop samefagging and stream your suicide

I once admired the neighbor's son's quite nice drawing. I thought it was a pencil drawing, quite detailed, of what I took to be "Darkman". He explained he could see that, he heard that a lot. But... it was "Koolau the Leper".
>
Was I game to know what that was?
Hell yes.
I was given a graphic novel? half comic book, well drawn and dark themed. Half... I'd call it... children's illustrated classic.
Awesome.
Koolau the Leper, would make a great 60 to 90 minute movie.
If they don't "woke" it the fuck up.
When Koolau finally died, alone. His fingers dropped off. Paddles for hand, clutching his beloved bolt action Mauser to his chest.
Yeah. Tragic, but that's a real hero.

>>24455945 (OP)
maybe once comics stop putting full page advertisements for back to school sales in them.

>>24455945 (OP)
It's a slop medium like Manga. When a manga/comic becomes popular, the writer start adding shit like power ups or resurrections, extending the slop to his death (Berserk, Dragon Ball, One Piss, etc).

>>24456454
Comic books rely on material illustrations and must constantly incorporate those. The divine comedy for instance goes into long tangents about highly abstract ideas and feelings that you can’t draw a picture of and take a wall of text to explain

>>24456215
>police states are overwhelmingly a left-wing phenomena

>Chris Ware.
Retards basing their opinion of comics on superheros are telling on themselves.

>>24457692
Your Europoor cartoon strips are still not literature, retard.

>>24455945 (OP)
By virtue of requiring visual and intellectual stimulation, you dilute both. A painting is instantaneously understood, but a book requires re-reading until the entire sequence is constructed by the reader. The artistry of both mediums is only then apparent; the internalization, or containment, of the work lends itself to intellectual analysis.

A comic suffices at neither. Upon completion, you lose the immutability of a painting to the subjectivity of words, while also corrupting the construction of a world by explicitly providing it through images. Movies sort of escape this by amplifying the visuals, so it is less of a bastard child, but still substandard compared to the parents (pure visuals and pure text).

the comic book aesthetic in particular has limitations. But many great books throughout history have had accompanying illustrations (see medieval of course). William Blake is an inspiration for Alan Moore of course too. Having Infinite Jest or The Recognitions illisutrated would be so amazing. Saying otherwise is like saying you would rather Gustav Dore didnt exist, or at least punishing him for not existing at the same time as the works he illustrated for.

>>24457747
Chris Ware is literature you're a pretentious pseud for saying otherwise, faggot.

>>24457692
This scene would be better written and have more impact in prose. For that matter it would be better without any words and just illustration, see pic related and imagine chimneys under the grey.
Comics utilize neither visuals nor words tot heir highest capabilities and settle for mediocrity in both.

>>24458258
That isn't better, tastelet.

>a) From Hell is fucking awesome;
and
>b) I read graphic novels and put them towards my Goodreads yearly tally, and there's nothing you can do about it.

>>24456351
>Alan Moore's best work is Saga of The Swamp Thing.
But the best work written by Alan Moore is _From Hell_ as it exceeds Alan Moore while recapitulating him as a useless 77 year old masonic stroke victim working for Elizabeth II to murder the women her grandson copulated with while homosexual. Elizabeth II: not Victoria I.

>>24456631
>How do you guys feel about From Hell though? I really quite enjoyed that one in my adolescence, I'm a stickler for conspiracies and all the occult stuff is very fun to me. I thought it was well made and had its own unique atmosphere going on, quite dense and dark.
From Hell is a book about the London Psychogeographical society's attacks on Elizabeth II and Masonry as apollonian cultism amongst bourgeois men, and a celebration of lesbian working class feminism. From Hell is an attack on Alan Moore by Alan Moore and is more about architecture and psychogeography than it is about Jack the Ripper.

>>24456637
English is a cunt born to be fucked.
>>24456718
>The most overrated comic Moore has ever written and it’s complete and utter shit
Read it in the context of 1970s UK anarchism and Elizabeth II, not in the context of the 19th century. Also read it as a meditation on Kierkegaard or Kristeva about the vast "lack" between men and women. Pay attention to the Bathing of the Pensioner as a sacrifice in time and space and a ritual assassination of masculinity. If you think From Hell is about Jack you don't realise He rapes his sister, Phoebe.

>>24456722
>Overrated art,
How could anyone overrate that art mate?
>Moore slop writing
Read Robert Graves via From Hell and get back to me about the plague of monstrous women and their cunts. White Goddess.

>>24458316
Butterfly, it wasn't released in colour. All the women are high on laudinum when they're killed, and his mutilation is of a "non-other."

>>24458365
It's unreadable in b&w.

>>24458373
>It's unreadable in colour.
>>24458374
>It's unreadable in b&w.

You have to learn how to force a reading: you have to learn how to rape a text. It is basic hermeneutics. It is 1, 2, 3. You can't go to the moon on fractions. You can only go to the moon on infiniteseminals.

>>24455945 (OP)
I think any medium has the potential to make good art but in certain mediums silly stuff is just mainstream instead. Anime is a good example of this where good things exist but shonen is at the forefront so much that’s all people think of anime as. This is to the point that when some anime watchers try to defend anime as a serious medium that they’re so dumb even they only even watched shonen so they only use shonen as examples so you get a bunch of people trying make stuff look deeper then it really is.
I like manga which is just Japanese comic books. Just read seinen like berserk and monster (even tho I only watched the latter as an anime) instead of shonen. Also I like moebius.

I’m glad USA comics are dying and being overtaken by Japanese stuff. Not only is the us comics still stuck with superheroes to this day they’re stuck with the same main characters that have went through so much nonsense and other writers the lore is nonexistent. It’s just silly. I feel like Europe probably has a good view on it. Make use of the medium by making fantastical stuff but also still a bit more mature and convenient. But I’m a stupid dog I’m only basing this view on European comics on the fact I’ve read moebius and I haven’t heard of anything silly coming from there

>>24457977
>literature
>has pictures

>>24455945 (OP)
>Can comics be as intellectual as books
Yes, but hitherto only Tezuka has achieved it.

>>24455945 (OP)
I cannot fathom innately rejecting an entire medium from having artistic value potential. You can argue the present business model status quo precludes production of raw philosophy, but why would a comic book be physically incapable of ever holding erudite quality?

>>24458383
>You can't go to the moon on fractions. You can only go to the moon on infiniteseminals.
I...understand.

>>24458473
>only Tezuka has achieved it.
Tezuka's Buddha is frankly not a particular good work, it is astroboy with big earlobes, except Astroboy was a major work of fiction.

>>24458497
American Football is ballet… yet it has no artistic potential compared to Victorian Rules football.

>>24458520
>Tezuka's Buddha is frankly not a particular good work
Filtered

>>24455945 (OP)
>Can comics be as intellectual as books
In theory.
Though in practice they aren't created as a intellectual medium and don't attract those kind of creatives.
They aren't a lower medium, they just aren't going to focus on the same things.
The market is also very different. Not many "intellectuals" will give graphic novels a chance, meanwhile something too up it's own ass, I mean intellectual would push away the typical reader of graphic novels and comics.

>>24456296
>why is it btw that every American comic has to be some type of capeshitery ?
It's not.
Only shit publilshed by the big two has to be some type of capshiittery.
There are tons of stuff from smaller companies or independent that aren't super heroes.
There are more to American comics then DC and Marvel.

>>24456433
Alan, get the fuck off this board, you marxist faggot.

>>24457663
So around the 90s then.

>>24455977
fpbp
/thread

comics were always doomed

>>24455945 (OP)
You mentally imprison yourselves with ideas about intellectualism in the arts, high/low art distinctions and emotional maturity in the arts always being coterminous and then act surprised when industries driven by that expectation abandon media aimed at children and adolescents who in turn never grow out of their shit taste in shit media that was designed to be shit because you all thought it couldn't be anything else without also not being aimed at them.

>>24459143
A grown man in touch with what he liked as a teenager while aware of the distinction between that and who he is now will always be more introspective, mature, independent, earnest and based than a guy who thinks the man I just described is a manchild and that in order to grow up you have to somehow die and be reborn as someone who was always an adult.

>>24458466
>pedantry
>peevishness
Autism.

>>24458689
I unironically wishes he lurked so I could tell him to kill himself.

>>24458593
Excellent snake sex can't redeem a nativity play. I've seen such nativity plays.

>>24459451
yikes

>>24458258
Lmao. How can you be so ignorant? Every element on that page has been deliberated over and placed with care. You ruined it. You took a massive shit on the page and have the balls to say that you improved it. Only on /lit/.

>>24455945 (OP)
Watchmen is pretty interesting, but I don't think there's a lot in there that you can't get out of other (better) sci-fi novels or films. The best aspect of it is its failure to "decpnstruct" the naive ideal of heroism of most capeshit (a cucked version of medieval chivalry), while accidentally making Rorschach the only character you can actually get invested in.
The same goes for other comics like Berserk (Greek tragedy mixed with the first part of the Divine Comedy: all other influences are just middle men). They're more about using the visual art to make existing concepts more accessible and present them in a different way.

>>24456433
>Dark knight returns
I recently bought this because of the cool cover, and it's fucking awful. It's not very subtle with its critique of American society at the time, and it spends the majority of the time doing it. There's almost no focus on batman or the villains, and then last second you have superman because lol why not

Just a trainwreck from beginning to end.

Ronin/Sin City are miller's best works.

>>24457665
Dunno about the other ones but you can effectively stop reading dragon ball at the end of the tournament/piccolo saga and get a satisfying ending.

>>24456015
for retards maybe

>>24459304
>Autism
>(you)

>>24455945 (OP)
*blocks your path*

>>24456631
Providence is quite good

if you ask Faulkner

NTERVIEWER
Would you comment on the future of the novel?

FAULKNER
I imagine as long as people will continue to read novels, people will continue to write them, or vice versa; unless of course the pictorial magazines and comic strips finally atrophy man’s capacity to read, and literature really is on its way back to the picture writing in the Neanderthal cave.

>https://teogrigoriadis.blogspot.com/2019/09/paris-review-william-faulkner-art-of.html

if you ask me
yes

>>24460107
>not subtle = bad

>>24456718
>Again, no. Greta art though.
Summarize Saga of The Swamp Thing for me

>>24460145
nta but i would unironically rank some manga above many modern western classics, especially when it comes to fantasy and thrillers or genre fiction in general. sure theres a lot of garbage but theres really good ones like jojos, land of the lustrous and pluto to name a few. it also heavily depends on what youre looking for. problem is you kinda have to search for them really hard. ive read hundreds in the past and there were only like 5 to 10 among them that were actually worth reading.
in conclusion id say a works greatness doesnt depend on the medium itself, but how the author utilizes their particular medium. from my personal experience theres simply more great books out there than there are great video games, comics or manga, which is likely because books existed for a longer period of time.

>>24461437
>ive read hundreds in the past and there were only like 5 to 10 among them that were actually worth reading.
Guess what is true about novels.

They can be

>>24461820
It only gets good after his schizophrenic meltdown.

Novels can't do a pause like a graphic novel can. When it comes to that type of rhythm, that dramatic beat, comics are the superior medium.

>>24461844
Wrooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong

>>24456718
We get it, Alan Moore really makes you seethe.

>>24461847
Pleb.

>>24461789
in the case of novels its easier to find the good ones for me because "hardcore" lit circles mostly agree on which ones are worth reading and i judt generally find it easier to filter what i likely wont like. in the anime/manga sphere the works that are considered good by most are almost always shit in my opinion.

I really like Kabuki by David Mack.

>>24455945 (OP)
I think Pat Mills is a genius and he's one of my favorite writers along with Fritz Leiber and Jack Vance. But generally comic book writers aren't that great. Also the medium itself is more constrained than real literature.

>>24455945 (OP)
It's not Western comics, but some of Junji Ito's stories work really well as surrealist short stories. That isn't even mentioning the art work, which obviously elevates it to a whole different level. Unfortunately, most of his long-form work is unfortunately pretty mediocre.

>>24455945 (OP)
Yes, Grant Morrison.

>>24456433
lol. jfc

I don't read non-japanese comics because I am not jewish.

>>24455945 (OP)
I think it is technically possible, in the same way film can be literary, but it has never been done. The people making comics are generally not the right sort of people.

>>24455945 (OP)
They can be but if you just think of "big two superhero comics" (or the same 10 comics that always get recommended - Gaiman's Sandman run, Spiegelman's Maus, Bone, etc) when you think of "literary comics" it's already over for you.
See things like; Eisner's later work like Contract With God trilogy and his later graphic novels, Unflattening by Nick Sousanis, Love and Rockets by the Hernandez bros, the works of European comics creators, and many more.
There are good "western comics" (read; american cape comics) but they will never really be as well respected by wider audiences as straight literature, people need to look at more stuff outside of that.