You know what I'm getting sick and tired of hearing about?
The whole "Art Comics" thing that the media has grasped like a fat man holding a Hostess Pie. (Being a man of generous proportions, I can tell you that we hold on to our sickly sweet pastry treats with the force of ten average men.) Now, don't get me wrong - I don't want to understate or diminish the impact that people like
R Crumb or
Chris Ware or
Dan Clowes or Craig Thompson have had on the industry. Ware's
Acme Novelty Library and Thompson's
Blankets are among my favorite books in the last few years, but there's been a few things coming out of Marvel and DC of late that are, for the most part, getting ignored outside of (usually) poorly-written reviews on medium-specific sites
1.
What prompted this train of thought was a bit of hyperbole on the part of Yale Press, who have just published
a book about Chris Ware. Once again - I admire Ware's work. He puts a lot of craft into each page and his storytelling is sublime, but the page linked above quotes the
New York Times Book Review's claim that he's "the most versatile and innovative artist the medium has ever known." Apparently the reviewer lives in a vacuum where Jack Kirby never put pen to paper.
If you don't know who
Jack Kirby was (and
most people who read my blog do,) he was the most important single figure in the history of the comics medium. A popular artist in the golden age, and consistent producer during the fifties, it was his work with Stan Lee that helped bring the Silver Age to light with the publication of
Fantastic Four #1. Providing a previously-unseen level of depth to the superhero concept, it was
Kirby and Lee's synergy that brought comics onto college campuses and created a level of fandom that rivaled the science fiction community's. During his first period with the publisher, Kirby drew thousands of pages and created many characters. Kirby left Marvel because of several issues and went on to create what was dubbed
The Fourth World - a pantheon of gods, waging war for the fate of the universe. Written and drawn by Kirby, this was his most personal epic that was cut short for reasons that are still mired in controversy but it proved to many that he was the driving force behind much of the Marvel Universe. His return to Marvel in the 70s was under less than ideal circumstances and much of this work is considered to be flawed or goofy by some - I love it for the pure energy that he still put on the page, even in stuff like
2001: A Space Odyssey and
Devil Dinosaur. His later years in the business featured a lot of material that was driven by sheer
ideas more than execution. In the end, he created over 400 characters and did every genre of comic that existed - war, romance (which he helped invent), superhero, crime, even funny animal stuff was handled by The King at one point or another.
Tell me how Chris Ware stacks up against that. To use a clumsy analogy, Kirby is Orson Welles while Ware is Todd Solondz - undeniably talented, but
not at the same level of impact or scale. Yes, Ware's design sense is sublime. Yes,
Jimmy Corrigan is a devastating piece of work. No, he is
not the most important talent the medium has known.
1 For Example: Darwyn Cooke's
New Frontier, a gorgeous and well-crafted look at the Silver Age of DC Comics that makes superheroes simultaneously more human and cool and Brian Michael Bendis's run with Alex Maleev on
Daredevil, which has been
fascinating from the start.
