The original title for this post was going to be “Canada, Oh Canada,” but due to circumstances well beyond my control (having dinner & conversation with Mr. Tomczak and Mr. Mike Lucas after the Buckeye Comic Con); I had no choice but to make the appropriate adjustments.

Mr. “T” made mention of Douglas Wolk’s book, Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean, detailed in the article(s) below while we were talking about, among other things, bands with peculiar names. Some that were mentioned were The Flaming Lips, Strawberry Alarm Clock, and apparently a 1960s band “The Raging Tyrannosaurus Rex of Despair,” which never actually officially used the name because the drummer didn’t want to be associated with “despair.” Ah…true geekitude. How could I let that go?

Anyway, as per the original title:

What is it about Canada & Comics these days?

Jeet Heer wrote a great review of Douglas Wolk’s “Reading Comics” (which will arrive in my mailbox any day now…) in The Globe and Mail, “Canada’s National Newspaper.” Here are a few paragraphs:

“In his new book of critical essays, “Reading Comics,” Douglas Wolk strikes an uneasy truce between fan culture and the outside world. Wolk is both a fan and a critic, both an insider and an outsider. His fannish credentials are impeccable: He describes himself as someone who breathes “the rarefied air of ten thousand yellowing back issues,” and he often casually draws upon the sort of esoteric knowledge that only the true cognoscenti possess. At one point, Wolk argues that “the Warlock serial that Jim Starlin wrote and drew between 1974 and 1977″ contains “a pointed subtext about the aesthetic and corporate context of mid-1970s comics.” You have to be fairly hardcore to remember Warlock, let alone understand its subtext.

“To his credit, Wolk isn’t content to be a fan speaking to other fans. He’s aware that the moment is right for comic-book criticism to move away from the stifling enclave of insider lore and address a wider readership. In the past two decades, comics (repackaged as “graphic novels”) have won an audience with no allegiance to fan culture. Art Spiegelman’s Maus, Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis were all appreciated by countless readers who couldn’t tell you the difference between Green Lantern and Green Arrow. These newcomers to comics often look for a critical guide who can help map out the strange terrain of this hitherto underappreciated art form. Writing about comics in magazines such as Salon and The Believer, Wolk has found a niche for himself as a knowledgeable insider who knows how to talk to outsiders, a devotee who can communicate his passion to novices.”

Also, if you really want to get into the comics literariness, check out Arguing Comics: Literary Masters On A Popular Medium (edited by Jeet Heer). It features essays by Ralph Bergengren, e. e. cummings, Umberto Eco, Thomas Mann, Marshall McLuhan, Donald Phelps and a slew of others.

Another article I just read (Wolk’s book is getting a LOT of good press) from his hometown Portland’s The Oregonian states: “As comics have matured, comics’ criticism has gained a spine. While this 37-year-old Portlander freely acknowledges that Scott McCloud (”Understanding Comics,” “Making Comics”) is the medium’s leading orthopedic surgeon — “He’s the boss of comic theory right now” — Wolk has produced a volume of analysis that the good doctor would recommend as a provocative second opinion.

“Wolk seeks to provide a subjective guide to the best in graphic novels (and the occasional exhilaration of the audacious failures). He wants to divest readers of the bogus notion that “every comic wants to be a movie when it grows up.” He aspires to describe the comics’ culture with a certain degree of crankiness but not a trace of contempt.”

This truly seems to be a Golden Age of Comics we are living in.

Onwards,

Max