« Dining Out | Main | Closing out the Season »
January 06, 2005
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
The fact that The New York Times, the self-described newspaper of record, devoted considerable space to Will Eisner’s obituary on Tuesday and then took note of Frank Miller and Jim Lee working together on All Star Batman in the Arts section confirmed something I had been thinking about.
Comic book characters and, more importantly, their creators are finally receiving their overdue respect.
I first thought about this when I saw how many different publications ran notices of Julie Schwartz’s passing 11 months ago (and he’s still missed). And I was reminded again when the Times and other publications noted the passing this past fall of Harry Lampert, the first Flash’s original artist.
Thanks to pop culture observers like Entertainment Weekly, comics have been receiving similar column inches compared with stage, books and other forms of entertainment. The Times’s George Gene Gustines has steadily covered out field while the venerable
The inclusion of comics and their creators in the mainstream media has as much to do with the success of collected editions in the bookstore market as has the steady flow of comic book movies. Together, the general public is more aware of comics and what comics can be. The Road to Perdition and Men in Black 2 were often reviewed with a notice that these stories began in graphic form, so the word is out: comics are more than just spandex-clad heroes and villains. Hellboy showed that lesser known comics can be well adapted and very, very entertaining. And when done right, the classic heroes can also be tremendous audience magnets.
While comic publishers duke it out with manga for inches of shelf space in the chain bookstores, we need to pause a moment and recognize that we’re in the bookstores, some of these titles even get prominent display space. Reviews of these books and interviews with these creators show up everywhere now.
And that’s pretty damn cool.
If there’s a regret, I’m sorry this happened too late for Jack Kirby to get the press his passing deserved.
Posted by Bob Greenberger at January 6, 2005 04:04 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.malibulist.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2366
Comments
You've got some sort of italics problem going on with this post, and it's leaking onto other posts on your main page.
Your point is well taken, but the Times did also run a review of Alias this week in which the reviewer took a lot of cheap shots at comic books. There's still a bit to go before comics get all the respect they deserve.
Posted by: Michael A. Burstein ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://bgb.malibulist.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 6, 2005 05:46 PM
You've got some sort of italics problem going on with this post, and it's leaking onto other posts on your main page.
Your point is well taken, but the Times did also run a review of Alias this week in which the reviewer took a lot of cheap shots at comic books. There's still a bit to go before comics get all the respect they deserve.
Posted by: Michael A. Burstein at January 6, 2005 05:47 PM
"If there’s a regret, I’m sorry this happened too late for Jack Kirby to get the press his passing deserved."
So maybe those of us who blog or have some pull with media should do something for The King, either on Feburary 6th (the date of his passing) or August 28th (his birthday)? A tribute or memorial of some sort?Posted by: Alex Baker at January 6, 2005 07:22 PM
This should get rid of the italics in the individual post. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to delete the extra post I made.
Posted by: Michael A. Burstein at January 7, 2005 04:06 PM