Letters to the Editor
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The Comic Nerds Attack!
I figured they'd be out in force and here I am, proven correct.
OMG, how could that vile Douglas Wolk not heap unstinting praise on all of our juvenile power fantasies printed on low-grade toilet paper. All die. Oh the embarrassment.
Not that I didn't used to be there myself, mind you. I collected those four color dreams for over ten years and dragged the long, white boxes behind me like a geekified Jacob Marley for another fifteen until I finally let them go for pennies on the dollar.
Back in the day I too used to defend the artistic merit of graphic literature. It's art people! And then fight off the pain of writing so bad it made my teeth hurt so that I could spend some time with characters that I loved.
Occasionally, word of something new and great in the comic field will reach me and I'll have a peek at it in the store only to out it back on the shelf, my money firmly in my pocket.
Not that there wasn't or isn't some stuff worth reading, the list is left as an exercise for the reader, but those are rare oases in a vast desert of bad dialogue, silly plots, naked marketing ploys and other unreadable nonsense. The late, great Ted Sturgeon is reputed to have remarked that "90% of everything is crud". When it comes to comics, the estimate of a 10% non-crud factor is generous by an order of magnitude.