You might be familiar already with a guy by the name of Graeme McMillan. He’s one of the other columnists at Broken Frontier, and if you’re not reading his column Grim Tidings each week right after you read mine, then shame on you. (In fact, if you want to dash over to it right now, go right ahead. My column will be here still when you get back.)
Well Graeme and I had an argument a while back on the Millarworld message boards. I think it’s what actually led us to become friends (as much of friends as you can be with someone via the Internet, anyway) and what led him to suggest me to Broken Frontier’s all-powerful leader as someone who could possibly do a column. Anyway, now that I’m actually writing this column, the position I was trying to defend during that argument is one that seems to tie in quite nicely to all the things I’ve been expressing here.
Our argument was about lettercolumns. For those who don’t know, the editors of a comic used to devote a few pages in the back of each issue to comments from readers. I say “used to” by design, because it is quite possible for the modern comics reader to have no idea what a lettercolumn is. Those who read only TPBs or GNs completely miss lettercolumns, and those only recently beginning to read comics will find nothing but ads at the back of their single issues.
You see, a few years ago, DC decided it would be smart to cut costs on books published in their Vertigo imprint. Lettercolumns took time to write, and time is money. They also took up page space in the actual book, space that could be devoted to more advertising, and of course advertising is also money. So despite the fact that Vertigo’s lettercolumns were the epitome of what a lettercolumn could be, they were done away with.
Cut to the present, in which we’ve slid quite far down that slippery slope. DC has just a few months ago completely gotten rid of lettercolumns in all their books. Marvel still lets one slip in on odd occasions, but they are few and far between. Now all we are left with as an example of a lettercolumn, at least the most popular and best known, are the final pages of Powers, and although these pages are somewhat amusing, serious analysis they are not.
It is truly a shame, I feel, that the lettercolumn is going the way of the dodo, because these letters have great importance. Letters in issues of years gone by allow us to place the issue in context, to gauge the reaction of the fans at that time and to understand the climate in which the issue was published, be that clime historical, social, political or philosophical. Will Brooker, in his excellent book Batman Unmasked, did just that, used fan statements derived from letters as evidence of his thesis, stating that the lettercolumns he studied “show fan discourse engaging with some of the complex issues arising from the nature of comic book storytelling” (Brooker 259).
Though the reasons for eliminating a lettercolumn from a comic book are almost always financial, those who support their removal often try to soften the blow with other arguments. Graeme himself voiced many of these same arguments during our debate on the subject, yet each one can be fairly easily rebutted.
The Internet allows us to interact with creators on a more personal level and it is almost instantaneous. While this is true, Internet message boards are also impermanent. Boards can crash and posts can be lost, or posts can be modified, edited or deleted entirely. What is there one day may not be the next. Therefore we cannot rely on such an ephemeral form of commentary, for things that are said today may not be there for future generations to peruse. Even when lettercolumns simply re-use the posts from a message board, they give them a durability that the Internet alone could never hope for.
Similarly, Internet comments are often written in the heat of the moment, without serious thought given to their meaning before they are posted. The sheer act of writing a letter and mailing it requires more energy be put into the task, thus allowing for the possibility that the words in the letter be well-reasoned.
Lettercolumns rarely contain serious analysis. They are usually just filled with unabashed praise, amounting to little more than a page full of brownnosing. First I would argue that this is not always the case. Some lettercolumns do end up merely reflecting the opinions of those already in love with the book, completely ignoring criticism. But it is not always so, and those lettercolumns that allow dissenting opinions are the ones that stand out as the best, pages in which actual debate was encouraged. Just because lettercolumns are sometimes full of butt-kissing doesn’t mean they always are, yet all such possibility for serious debate ends when lettercolumns are cut out all together. Even if lettercolumns never amount to more than blind praise (or blind hate), they are still important, if only for the value that future generations will get from them in analyzing and criticizing the opinions of their ancestors.
Besides, if lettercolumns rarely contain serious analysis, how can you explain the fact that most independently produced comics, those that are often the bastion of serious exploration of the art form, continue to have lettercolumns even after mainstream publishers have cut them? Is it simply to reward their fans for their continued support, or might it be that they see the possibilities those letters contain?
Serious literature like novels and films don’t have fan criticism at the end of them, so neither should comics. We have Warren Ellis to blame for this one, for in his opus Come In Alone he ranted about how absurd it would be to have viewer comments on Mission Impossible after the credits of MI2, concluding, “In no other narrative artform is there the expectation that equal time will be given to the audience’s opinion within the confines of the work itself. Deleting the letters pages… [is] a clear step towards a mature medium” (Ellis 129). But what he failed to recognize is that comics are not movies or novels. They are a different medium and thus different rules apply to them. Any comparison between comics and either of these two mediums is automatically faulty, on the basis of their different production rates, methods and costs.
Another important point to note is that films often have test screenings in which audiences give their opinions of the movie, opinions which are used by the producers of the film in creating the final product. Novels similarly have readers who search for inconsistencies in the texts before publication. Because comics have nothing similar prior to their release, lettercolumns do their best to fill the void after the fact.
Similarly, Ellis seems to imply in the above quote that any criticism of comics is pedantic and thus unwelcome. As I’ve already said, though some evaluations are quite devoid of content, others are meaningful, and there needs to be a forum for those analyses. Commentaries from both professional and amateur scholars is a must if we want comics to be taken seriously as a medium, so we must allow there to be a place where those critiques can see print and be permanently available for research purposes. If not lettercolumns, where would such examinations be made available?
And therein is the real problem. Ellis feels that serious criticism does not belong at the end of the work; it belongs elsewhere. I agree, but there currently IS no elsewhere for it to go. The various comics magazines out there are either just the same kind of puff pieces that we despise when in lettercolumns (Wizard) or, if they are serious, are strictly controlled as to content and are not open to submissions from amateurs (Comics Journal). So where does the amateur critic turn?
It seems we must give that critic a place to turn to. If the lettercolumn is becoming extinct as trends certainly seem to show, there is precious little we can do to prevent it, since our only recourse would be to write letters that we have no guarantee would ever be read nor would ever lead to open debate on the issue. Instead we must give the amateur critic another forum to fill the void left by the lettercolumn’s demise.
Where would such a place be? The answer is simple when you look at other mediums; comics need a literary journal. Film has numerous scholarly journals designed for the task of analyzing various works, and the journals devoted to both fiction and poetry are innumerable. Someone needs to follow suit and offer up a journal in which serious criticism of works in the medium of comics can see print. We need a magazine that will accept submissions from anyone and everyone as long as they have some depth to them, a magazine where an analysis of the theme of self-loathing in Cage can be read right after an in-depth comparison of the works of Adrian Tomine to Raymond Carver’s fiction.
And while we’re looking for a publisher, you can assume this column is my official call for papers.
References:
Brooker, Will. Batman Unmasked. New York: Continuum Books, 2000.
Ellis, Warren. Come In Alone. San Francisco: AiT/PlanetLar, 2001.
