- @Amelia_Torode It's in the stack of DVDs that Girl One needs edumacating on. in reply to Amelia_Torode #
- Oh dear… Meeting in under an hour, & 100s of Tweets to read through. Have to delete. If anything good happened, you'll tell me, right? #
- @MissNixs Isn't it always? in reply to MissNixs #
- @DimitriMOMB (Who did you talk to?) in reply to DimitriMOMB #
- @DimitriMOMB For the most part, they certainly are! in reply to DimitriMOMB #
- @RebeccaFront @ronskanky Oh hell! Trying to remember my favourite Greene short, can't. It involves a man, on a train, with a baby, in a jar. in reply to RebeccaFront #
- @ScruffyPanther Oh, now, THAT'S a nice picture. in reply to ScruffyPanther #
- @ScruffyPanther Yup. It's serene… in reply to ScruffyPanther #
- Heh… remember this? http://is.gd/1r5nf – She's a big girl now! #
- @RebeccaFront Oh dear… that's not the one, but it is great. Will keep digging. Also not a Greene Freak, but I have a fondness… in reply to RebeccaFront #
- @RebeccaFront When I think of realistic love stories, Greene's "End Of The Affair" & @ronskanky's "Whatever Love Means" are definitive. in reply to RebeccaFront #
- @james__buckley Ha! What about now?!?!? in reply to james__buckley #
- Human Genre Project: http://is.gd/1r5T8 – That's just awesome, @purseonality! #
- @RebeccaFront I'm too shy to do it directly, but he should see that last tweet, I think! in reply to RebeccaFront #
- @ememess #
- @ememess May already have beamed this message to you, but reading Bad Things at mo, & it is ACTUAL page turner. Like your thrillers… in reply to ememess #
- @ememess …But Bad Things is the first where the first few pages didn't make me ache with the loss of the more far-flung stuff of old. in reply to ememess #
- Just realised that in recent @geeksyndicate post – http://is.gd/1r6LA – I totally plagiarise myself on this story – http://is.gd/1r6Pp #
- Huh. Just remembered that nobody managed to get the bad 80s Rock Pop origins of this EW story of mine: http://is.gd/1r7b3. Anyone? Anyone? #
- Hah. Aheh. http://is.gd/1r7qV – "Pounding my adolescent guilt". #euphemismsforwanking #
- @RebeccaFront Heh… they seem largely immune to the pressure – it's the novelty that's bewildering them! in reply to RebeccaFront #
- @steevbishop It is awesome… spun off from your tweet to pictures of Emma Watson's knickers, actually. in reply to steevbishop #
- @RebeccaFront That story title is really going to bug me, now, & I won't be near my bookshelf til MUCH later. Bugger. Breathe. And BLAST! in reply to RebeccaFront #
- @ronskanky Your very welcome, sir. Got The Secret Purposes ready to read, but hasn't yet been an appropriate gap for it… in reply to ronskanky #
- @ronskanky Impressed you choose to write totally different subject matter each time out. Was WLM as heavily Greene influenced as I think? in reply to ronskanky #
- @steevbishop Oh, gosh, I did NOT know that… in reply to steevbishop #
- @ememess Incidentally, it's not that I don't LIKE your other thrillers; I've just always taken a few pages to get into them before. MY bad! #
- @steevbishop Aha! I was sharing the post because of the memory it had triggered – Obviously plainly forgot the age glitch! in reply to steevbishop #
- @ememess Phew! It really, REALLY is working for me… in reply to ememess #
- @ememess …though I'd kind of decided pretty early on that things are going to end badly for everyone involved, & so am full of dread. in reply to ememess #
- @steevbishop I didn't find her sexually attractive at all. Right up until seeing a bit of her breast & her pants. I am TERRIBLY suggestible. in reply to steevbishop #
- @ememess Eep! in reply to ememess #
- About to go & watch Public Enemies. Conversation with @ememess has worried me, so holding out for happy ending. Dillinger lived, right? #
- In cinema! Naughty! #
-
Found Objects
We need comics. We don’t need the comic mainstream – certainly not as much as it needs us. And we wouldn’t even be having this argument about Watchmen if that book wasn’t part of that industry. It couldn’t have existed without it, it wouldn’t have been relevant without it, and most of us wouldn’t have even had the chance to read it without it.
We don’t have to give a shit about Watchmen, or Before Watchmen. We choose to.
We don’t have to fight about issues that we really have no skin in. We choose to.
We should really grow out of it.
Last Friday I wrote a really long post over at my site about Before Watchmen. It was probably too long, fence-sitting and unstructured to get as much widespread attention as some of the more aggressive pieces out there, but I still feel everything in it.
This is the tiniest part of it - a sentiment that I feel is pretty important - you can read the whole thing here.
I AM IN CONTROL OF MY EMOTIONS!
The Newly Announced Before Watchmen Is a Prime Example of What's Killing Mainstream Comics
“I have no idea whether this project will be any good or not. But it sits as a shining example of the fundamental flaw that exists in the comic industry, especially within DC Comics. They spend most of their time chasing the readers that grew up with their iconic characters rather than attempting to attract new readers who are growing up right now.”
Totally agree with this - though I think DC52, being a company-wide initiative, was more indicative of it, and I said as much at the time.
However, that backward looking trait in comics isn’t unique to publishers. Comic readers - many of whom are also comic retailers, which is a bigger issue - run wild with entitlement on either side of any comic-related debate, and stand ready to jump on anything that they perceive as a deviation or affront to comic texts or characters that they feel shouldn’t be touched. It all adds to the stupidly binary way any comic-related issue is handled.
The huge amount of brilliant work that goes un-discussed, unsupported and unbought in-between those two dominant cultures is the only genuine ongoing tragedy in comics today, I reckon. The rest is just semantics and negotiation of contracts.
Yup, yup, yup…the fact that people are wasting their time arguing about the merits of Before Watchmen while amazing books like The Interactives go largely ignored is, quite frankly, criminal.
Not least because it means that yet again we’re all having a conversation about Watchmen. I came to Watchmen a little bit late - like, a year after publication - and loved it at the time. It encouraged me to go on and read so many more other books, to read them critically, and work out why they work and don’t work etc etc etc. But the more people hold it to this impossible standard in such a hyperbolic and aggressive way, the more I find reasons to chip away at it.
If you love Watchmen that much, write about how good Watchmen is in it’s own right. Don’t use it as a stick to bash everything that’s come since. Don’t use it as a way to try and win an argument about whatever your pet comic issue is that week. I think Alan Moore’s biggest issue is that his book isn’t regarded enough in it’s own right, and it’s an important enough work to be handled without gossip-context and all the other bollocks that passes for adults-who-read-comics-talking-about-comics.
Show Alan Moore and Watchmen a bit of respect, and don’t try and impose your fucking context on it. It’s a work of art. It genuinely can’t be ruined by any art that follows, but it can be ruined by every third word spoken about it being bleaty, entitled shite.
Sorry, you said something? The Interactives? What’s that? I have never heard of it, therefore it must not be worth bothering with.
Yep, I completely agree with you here. As great as Watchmen was it has been a big part of what has utterly ruined comics (and I know that Moore agrees with this himself) as so many people have spent the years since using it as a template for what comic should be. It was a work of satire! It was never intended to be a “How To” guide for aspiring comic creators.
And The Interactives is this - http://theinteractives.com/
Huh. That looks ace, actually.
The Newly Announced Before Watchmen Is a Prime Example of What's Killing Mainstream Comics
“I have no idea whether this project will be any good or not. But it sits as a shining example of the fundamental flaw that exists in the comic industry, especially within DC Comics. They spend most of their time chasing the readers that grew up with their iconic characters rather than attempting to attract new readers who are growing up right now.”
Totally agree with this - though I think DC52, being a company-wide initiative, was more indicative of it, and I said as much at the time.
However, that backward looking trait in comics isn’t unique to publishers. Comic readers - many of whom are also comic retailers, which is a bigger issue - run wild with entitlement on either side of any comic-related debate, and stand ready to jump on anything that they perceive as a deviation or affront to comic texts or characters that they feel shouldn’t be touched. It all adds to the stupidly binary way any comic-related issue is handled.
The huge amount of brilliant work that goes un-discussed, unsupported and unbought in-between those two dominant cultures is the only genuine ongoing tragedy in comics today, I reckon. The rest is just semantics and negotiation of contracts.
Yup, yup, yup…the fact that people are wasting their time arguing about the merits of Before Watchmen while amazing books like The Interactives go largely ignored is, quite frankly, criminal.
Not least because it means that yet again we’re all having a conversation about Watchmen. I came to Watchmen a little bit late - like, a year after publication - and loved it at the time. It encouraged me to go on and read so many more other books, to read them critically, and work out why they work and don’t work etc etc etc. But the more people hold it to this impossible standard in such a hyperbolic and aggressive way, the more I find reasons to chip away at it.
If you love Watchmen that much, write about how good Watchmen is in it’s own right. Don’t use it as a stick to bash everything that’s come since. Don’t use it as a way to try and win an argument about whatever your pet comic issue is that week. I think Alan Moore’s biggest issue is that his book isn’t regarded enough in it’s own right, and it’s an important enough work to be handled without gossip-context and all the other bollocks that passes for adults-who-read-comics-talking-about-comics.
Show Alan Moore and Watchmen a bit of respect, and don’t try and impose your fucking context on it. It’s a work of art. It genuinely can’t be ruined by any art that follows, but it can be ruined by every third word spoken about it being bleaty, entitled shite.
Sorry, you said something? The Interactives? What’s that? I have never heard of it, therefore it must not be worth bothering with.
The Newly Announced Before Watchmen Is a Prime Example of What's Killing Mainstream Comics
“I have no idea whether this project will be any good or not. But it sits as a shining example of the fundamental flaw that exists in the comic industry, especially within DC Comics. They spend most of their time chasing the readers that grew up with their iconic characters rather than attempting to attract new readers who are growing up right now.”
Totally agree with this - though I think DC52, being a company-wide initiative, was more indicative of it, and I said as much at the time.
However, that backward looking trait in comics isn’t unique to publishers. Comic readers - many of whom are also comic retailers, which is a bigger issue - run wild with entitlement on either side of any comic-related debate, and stand ready to jump on anything that they perceive as a deviation or affront to comic texts or characters that they feel shouldn’t be touched. It all adds to the stupidly binary way any comic-related issue is handled.
The huge amount of brilliant work that goes un-discussed, unsupported and unbought in-between those two dominant cultures is the only genuine ongoing tragedy in comics today, I reckon. The rest is just semantics and negotiation of contracts.
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