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brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 26,636 Likes: 40 |
Is that an insult? And what are you supposed to be, by the way? Nice? It isn't very nice to call people sacks of excrement, Wonder Boy. It isn't very nice at all. I'm not antagonistic, you are. If I was a sack of excrement, how could I be sitting here typing this? By not being one, you moron! Note that I called you something you actually are, as opposed to naming you a bag full of manure, which would be simply ridiculous and absurd, the product of a deranged mind. You've again created a strawman argument against me, "Curse you, Fantastic Four! You've again created a strawman argument against me!" alleging me to take a position I never actually took, alleging I held up Moore's and Miller's 80's work as the ultimate beat-all storytelling. Excuse me, at what point did I say that you hold Moore and Miller's 80's work as the ultimate beat-all storytelling? (...when did I even mention Miller...?) Could you quote the post where I said that, please? You can't? Why not? Is it because IT DOESN'T EXIST? Yeah. Probably. You can't quote stuff that doesn't exist, Dave. That's fucking silly. I said that you LIKED that stuff, Dave. Reading isn't so hard, it's just a matter of applying yourself to it. Go back and read me post (more carefully this time, concentrate in getting every word), go back and read it, then weep. No, let me make it easier for ya: Ok. Now weep. And then challenging me to defend a position that is  You're just too damn cute. When in truth I've repeatedly voiced reservations about these stories, precisely because of the over-the-top cynical elements you allege me to praise. "over-the-top cynical elements you allege me to praise". When did I say you praised those elements, Dave? All I did was mention that they were present in stories that you like. All you've ever done to argue that Preacher is shit is mention moments contained within that comic. When I mention that equally questionable moments are present in comics you DO like, you flip. You start weeping uncontrollably. That anger you're feeling is your brain telling you that you're wrong, Dave. Learn to listen to your brain. It's your friend. The stories of Moore and Miller are multi-layered, and have bright moments, and redeem themselves beyond their darkness by having something meaningful to say I don't know HOW I got the impression that you like them! All that said, if I were to recommend to someone some of the best written and illustrated comic series of the last 40 years, I would name at the top of the list Moore's SWAMP THING, MIRACLEMAN, V FOR VENDETTA, WATCHMEN, and SUPERMAN: WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE MAN OF TOMORROW. Miracleman, otherwise known as the comic in which a teen sidekick is raped by other teens (who he then kills in a violent and graphic manner). It's more than that, of course, but who the fuck cares. As long as there's something questionable depicted within the comic, it's depraved and it's crap. I assure you, Wonder Boy, that if this comic came out today you would fucking hate it. So once again, I made my argument clearly, and the only way you could launch your little mockfest was to misrepresent me. Dave, in all seriousness, everyone here knows that the more faithfully we describe you in our posts, the more insulting they come out. If I've ever misrepresented you it's been in your best interest. This has unneccessarily been dragged through multiple topic pages, and actually similar personal attacks on me across multiple topics over several years, where I voice distaste for some comic books that you like, and you have a little hissy-fit and call me all sorts of names. No no no, this is how it goes: 1. You claim something is crap (generally using the word "depraved") 2. I argue that it's not using actual arguments 3. You place your counter-arguments in the form of weeping 4. I point and laugh THEN I call you names. Because I don't share your questionable taste in comic books. Hate to be the one to tell you this, Dave, but the people who DO share your impeccable taste in comics are literally dying out. You may take solace in the fact that when I'm old, as you are, kids will probably find my tastes as outdated as I find yours. I hope to be able to take being phased out into irrelevance with more dignity than you, unless of course I suffer severe brain damage, in which case I'll begin calling everything and everyone depraved for disagreeing with me. On a more serious note, Dave, I do share some of your tastes: I love Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four comics, among other things. I think they're silly and over the top, but I'm able to look past that and enjoy them. I feel sad that you're completely incapable of doing the same thing and enjoy current comics. You're missing out on a lot of great stuff. If only you weren't such a fucking idiot. Just ran across this topic again. The level of rancor and insult you need to post, Mxy, redeems me from whatever you have to say, even if I never answer it. But since I'm here, and the the usual jackasses felt a need to make it this personal, I'll answer. You selectively quoted me, to strawman me yet again. If you haddn't quoted me out of context, with selective omission, you never could have made the argument. Here's what I quoted on page 2, from over 5 years ago: I'm Not Mister Mxypltk said:
The "dark" comics by people like Moore, Morrison, Gaiman and (sometimes) Miller are dark only in the surface. They use the "darkness" as a vehicle to touch deeper topics, as opposed to the people that followed Moore and Miller, that wrote comics with a dark surface and nothing under it. People who read Watchmen and DKR and say "wow, how dark" are missing the real point of those comics. Well, opinions vary on that. I think the work of Moore, Morrison, Gaiman and Miller, even from the 80's, are pretty dark.
The stories of Moore and Miller are multi-layered, and have bright moments, and redeem themselves beyond their darkness by having something meaningful to say, but are still unmistakeably dark.
Rorschach in the WATCHMEN "The Abyss Gazes Also" chapter... I don't think there's a bright way to interpret that.
Alan Moore in a COMICS JOURNAL interview (issue 138) said it depressed him deeply to crawl inside the mind of Rorschach to fully flesh out the character in this chapter.
And as I said on the previous page, Moore said in a COMIC BOOK ARTIST interview that himself and others had unwittingly brought about a Dark Age in comics with their 1980's work, and that he was attempting to bring back an optimism and upbeat heroism that had been lost, when he created new titles like TOM STRONG and other ABC titles.
[ COMIC BOOK ARTIST # 9, August 2000, in an issue on Charleton characters and creators, pages 108-109.
http://twomorrows.com/comicbookartist/articles/09moore.html
- CBA: But you were able to purge yourself pretty quick, right? You didn't write that many, maybe four or five Superman stories?
Alan: And that was enough. Those were ones I wanted to write, but since then, most characters have changed so much that they no longer feel to me like the characters I knew. So, I wouldn't have that kind of nostalgic interest in those sort of characters anymore. At the time, I was also saying I didn't feel that if there was some strong political message I wanted to get over, probably super-hero comics were not the best place to do it. If I wanted to do stuff about the environment, that there didn't need to be a swamp monster there, for instance. When I did Brought to Light, about the CIA activities in World War II, that story would not have been greatly enhanced by a guy with his underwear outside his trousers, you know. And also, there did seem to be a rash of quite heavy, frankly depressing and overtly pretentious super-hero comics that came out in the wake of Watchmen, and I felt to some degree responsible for bringing in a fairly morbid Dark Age...
]
Miller's work, from RONIN forward, is deeply cynical, and arguably paranoid in its portrayal of government. DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, DARK KNIGHT STRIKES BACK, GIVE ME LIBERTY, SIN CITY, ELECKTRA:ASSASSIN and HARD BOILED being prime examples. I could find a few stories in Gaiman's SANDMAN that are upbeat (issue 50 in particular) but mostly I just found it very somber and morose. I read the first four trades and scattered issues after, and fail to see what people rave about. It's not horrible, but it's far from the best I've seen in comics. I personally despise Morrison's works, although there are a few Morrison stories I somewhat like conceptually, although I find his work likewise pretentious, and (Gaiman-like ) full of quickie references to literature characters without really fleshing them out in his stories beyond the slightest cameo-reference, so I constantly envision Morrison musing to himself (and Gaiman as well) : Ah, look how clever I am to know this !I'm not impressed. All that said, if I were to recommend to someone some of the best written and illustrated comic series of the last 40 years, I would name at the top of the list Moore's SWAMP THING, MIRACLEMAN, V FOR VENDETTA, WATCHMEN, and SUPERMAN: WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE MAN OF TOMORROW. And also Miller's DAREDEVIL, BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, and BATMAN: YEAR ONE. Nothing by Morrison or Gaiman, despite some decent stories, would make my list though. But because these above series are dark works, I have a much greater fondness for: - Wein/Wrightson SWAMP THING 1-10 (DARK GENESIS trade)
- Joe Kubert's TARZAN 207-235
- Goodwin/Simonson MANHUNTER
- Jack Kirby's FOREVER PEOPLE, NEW GODS, MISTER MIRACLE, JIMMY OLSEN, KAMANDI, and O.M.A.C.
- O'Neil/Adams DETECTIVE (just out in hardcover) and BATMAN
- O'Neil/Kaluta THE SHADOW
- Englehart/Perez and Shooter/Perez AVENGERS 141-178, and Michelinie/Byrne AVENGERS 181-191
- Englehart/Rogers Batman in DETECTIVE 471-476 (reprinted in the BATMAN:STRANGE APPARITIONS trade)
- Michelinie/Romita Jr/Layton IRON MAN 115-156
- McGregor/Russell/etc.'s AMAZING ADVENTURES/Killraven 18-39
- Bruce Jones/Brent Anderson/Ron Frenz KA-ZAR 1-27
- Levitz/Giffen LEGION 285-306
- Stern/Romita Jr AMAZING SPIDERMAN 224-250
And many other series. While I've re-read the Moore and Miller stuff many times, I've re-read these latter books and other series far more often. They're a heck of a lot more fun. I'm impressed by the brilliance of Moore's and Miller's prose, and find that exciting as well. But the humor, warmth and heroism of the latter series I listed are what I more often prefer. I'd agree that the ones, as you say, Mxy, "who followed Moore and Miller" imitated the dark surface elements without replicating the enduring quality and complexity of Moore and Miller's 80's works. Which is why these 80's works are still regarded as the high-water mark of comics storytelling, and the works that have followed are regarded as pretentious, derivative, and inferior by comparison. --------------------  "This Man, This Wonder Boy..." So once again, while I acknowledge the Moore and Miller mid-1980s material as some of the best written material, then and now, I clearly label it as dark work that I enjoy with reservations, and SPECIFICALLY LIST what are the gold-standard works that I love and re-read and go back to far more often than the Moore and Miller material. Once again Moore and Miller THEMSELVES acknowledge that their work was dark, and that their work plunged the industry into a Dark Age. As the interview I quoted earlier makes clear. As well as many other highly regarded comics creators who see the ongoing Dark Age as a decline in the industry, as expressed in interviews with Alex Toth, Paul Smith, Joe Kubert, Keith Giffen, and on and on.
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