"Graphic novels" - what a joke. They're comic books, dammit. Does the Reaganite elevation of all things mediocre have to so long survive not only his presidency but now his death, and even the repudiation of his program that is the George W. Bush?? With the notable exception of The Dark Knight Returns, I have not seen or "read" a single comic book that was worth more than a cursory browse in a bookstore stack. It is a sad statement on the continuing decline of educational standards in this country that so money intelligent people waste so much energy obsessing over comic books.

Do yourselves a collective favor: Go out and read War and Peace. Then read it again. Once you've awoken from your slumber, burn your comic book collection.

Go here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFRhs3-pP8w

Jim Coughenour, no one who uses so many ten dollar words has any business criticizing Tolstoy's greatest work.

Folks,

I HAVE read Cerebus, Maus, Sandman, "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay", Love and Rockets (when it first debuted), R. Crumb's best work (Mr. Natural, etc.), collections of Winsor McKay's stuff, and so forth. While aspects of SOME of these works have a certain cultural cachet, most of it is just plain crap. Do you know why so many of you think "War and Peace" is boring? Because you can't be bothered to expend the mental energy to really read it. ANYBODY can read the classics and be enthralled. One of the great canards of our misbegotten age is that classic literature is only for the ivory tower. Though paesants may not have bought and read them, thousands upon thousands of average Europeans made Tolstoy a very wealthy man by purchasing and reading "War and Peace", "Anna Karenina", "The Death of Ivan Ilych" and others. Now, here, in America, thousands upon thousands of people read comic books. That's called "regression", folks. Deal with it.

Tom Reed,

Please read my posts more carefully before commenting. I specifically stated (in bold no less) that I felt the exception to the rule was Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns." It was a brilliant analogy of the 80s ethos. But then again, it wasn't nearly as good as "Bright Lights, Big City." Those pesky writers and their novels; they bite you in the ass every time.

And Neil Gaiman is one hell of a writer. Too bad he had waste so much time and talent churning out crap like "Sandman."

Allow me to quote Jerry Lewis - visiting professor of film at USC - on television writers:

"Television is bad for writers because it eats talent. You have to crank it out, week in and week out, and eventually you burn out."

The fact that "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay" won the Pulitzer Prize is proof positive of my very point. Oprah Winfrey wouldn't know great literature if it bit her on her ever-shifting ass. Ditto the Pulitzer committee. And let us not forget that Toole's mother had to work for ten years to get "A Confederacy of Dunces" published. Meanwhile, her son, the author, lay moldering in his grave. God Bless America.

You - and every other person who poses similar arguments - do such a good job of proving my point that I need write nothing more.

Except this, to the lit grad student: Please do this country and its culture a favor and drop out. Based upon your letter, you're not going to teach anyone anything of value.

Someone asked me "who I like." Nobody. There is not a single writer I can think of who is alive and writing who is worth a damn except, perhaps, Philip Roth. But then I'm a great admirer of Saul Bellow, and was a student of his friend Leo Litwak, so perhaps I'm "out of date." If I am, God help us.

...is just kidding themselves.

I kid you not.

Having buzzed around Facebook, and been a member of MySpace since 2005, I can confidently state that the former is made up of snobs and the latter is made up almost entirely of creative, talented and sometimes simply amazing individuals and groups. There's a reason that MySpace is approaching 200 million members, and it's not teenagers swapping MP3 files and "pimpin'" their pages. It's because MySpace, unlike Facebook or, God help us, Friendster, offers the tools one needs to create a home page that expresses one's creative essence, to share music, video, photographs, artwork, and writing both literary and journalistic, with an enormous community of like-minded, like-talented people.

Facebook can't and probably won't touch that any time soon. Add to this the fact that MySpace is manifestly easier to use and, like Google, is constantly adding new features and improving old ones, and the idea that Facebook is superior and/or will "overtake" MySpace is, again, nonsense.

The friends list of my MySpace page is filled with genuine artists, working musicians, outstanding comedians, talented (and working) filmmakers and just plain friends. It is, in effect, my cyber-shingle, how people can get to know my talents, skills and beliefs. I can't imagine bothering with the insular world of Facebook.

But this ludicrous "book review", along with granting the reviewer his own customized daily blog, is yet another example of Joan Walsh's on-going campaign to turn Salon into a House of Dreck. Manjoo is an incredibly stupid writer. Just check out his blog from yesterday, comparing MySpace and Facebook. Full of inane observations and manufactured contrasts (MySpace is for teenagers and "freaks", whereas Facebook is for the "elite" - riiiiigght). I mean this guy really just eats it. So of course he was wrong about both Fark and the real problems with the MSM.

But apparently he makes Joan's tiddly wink, so expect a whole lot more of him.

SHUT UP.

Though it's hard to believe so many New Yorkers are so...dumb.

I once grabbed Jennifer Connelly's ankles from beneath a table at Spago's. Does that count?