Thesis: Mark Millar is why you still feel guilty reading comic books.

I've mocked this particular panel before, but it bears repeating because I feel like death and death makes me grumpy.  Writing the following sequence of panels doesn't necessarily mean you have no talent:

Even Alan Moore nods &c.  However, patting your own back by having a character in the next issue praise you for this world-horrible line leaves no room for counterargument.

 

Scott's Rule #23 applies: the percentage of time spent lecturing other people about how awesome you are is inversely propotional to your actual awesomeness. 

Comments

[Jonathan M]

Fucking Christ.

...and I thought Grant Morrison was an utter crevice.

[tomemos]

God, that's the worst thing I've ever seen. What is even happening in that conversation? Are we supposed to believe that Cap is saying all that on his way through a doorway?

The author's self-satisfaction is reminiscent of the timeless line from the Transformers movie: "This is even cooler than Armageddon!

[JPRS]

Why would something think an A could stand for France? Wouldn't an F stand for France? I don't get the joke.

[tomemos]

That's the joke. He's Amurrican, dammit! Not Captain Frenchy McSurrender McWhat-Is-This,-2002!

[StevenAttewell]

It's especially ridiculous because Cap is a WWII vet. He fought alongside the French Resistance, and stormed the beaches at Normandy, helping to liberate France. One of the worst elements of the "Ultimates" renovation of the Marvel storyline was the utter confusion between American patriotism of the "Arsenal of Democracy" years and the jingoism of the Bush years; anti-French sentiment is really a product of the 1950s and 1960s, when the U.S got into political strains with France over their failures in Vietnam and Algeria, their nationalism vis-a-vis NATO, and their continentialism vis-a-vis Britain entering the EEC. Cap was frozen in ice through those years and would not have absorbed those attitudes.

And that's one of the geekiest things I've ever written.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

It's even more ridiculous still because, in the comic, he'd only been awake for two months, so all the storming the beaches &c. would've been a recent memory for him.

[ZS]

It's ok - Warren Ellis and Elsa Bloodstone make it all better in Nextwave #9
http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/bloodstoneelsa11.jpg

[StevenAttewell]

Indeed, SEK.

Then again, Millar's ear for politics is tin at best. I remembered the Civil War ending, there's a scene where some newspaper reporters are interviewing the surrendered Cap, and it's painful to read:
Sally: Let me ask you something sir: Do you know what MySpace is?
Captain A: I'm not sure I understand the relevance of that question, Sally.
Sally: No, you just don't understand the question, Sir. I'm trying to illustrate a point here, so bear with me. Do you know who won the last World Series, or who was the last American Idol? When was the last time you attended a Nascar race Watched teh Simpsons or logged onto YouTube to watch a stupid video? Answer?
Captain A: [befuddled silence]
Sally: Exactly. Never. You hold America up as some shining beacon of perfection but you know next to nothing about it.

Had me tearing out my hair. He's talking about the Bill of Rights, and she counters with Myspace? Especially since the reader is supposed to empathize with Sally here.

[tomemos]

Here's another thesis: comics writing has gotten really bad, with everyone competing to be the most "conversational," which is to say breezy, referential, and self-congratulating. I thought the writing in Civil War was just atrocious, but actually most writers seem to have caught the Kevin Smith disease: J. Michael Straczynski, Brian K. Vaughan, and of course Smith himself. Even a (once) decent title like Runaways always had superfluous and jarring pop culture references.

[Timothy Burke]

Pretty much nails it: Millar is painful, and the Millarbendization of a lot of comics at the moment is puke-worthy.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Even a (once) decent title like Runaways always had superfluous and jarring pop culture references.

I way behind on Runaways, but can't we chalk the pop culture there up to Whedon? It was bearable while Vaughn helmed it---as was Ex Machina---and even when Runaways overdid it with the pop culture references, well, the comic concerns pop-culture-obsessed kids, so there's context.

The references really dip when, for example, Nick Fury tells an awake-for-a-day Captain America not to worry about having broken his nose yesterday:

Captain America: Sorry about breaking your nose.

Fury: Don't worry about it. It's been smashed more times than Robert Downey Jr.

Now, that line could be forgivable if it was used in the service of the narrative; that is, if it was followed by a "But you have no idea who that is." Instead, it just hangs there, making Fury sound like a dick for employing pop lingo he knows his interlocutor is unfamiliar with. Not that that's the intent, mind you, and this is the problem:

The intent is to make the reader see that Millar is really, really clever. Who cares about characters or narrative integrity or believabiilty? What's important here is we learn how clever Millar is.

I think ZS's linked panel fingers the problem: Millar wants to be some sort of half-Vaughn half-Ellis hybrid. I mean, Ellis has his faults, but they have nothing to do with him having a derivative narrative voice. (Just the opposite: sometimes his works sound too much like Ellis, but then he goes and writes something like Planetary, in which only Snow sounds like him.) I don't even think that's the first time Ellis mocked that line, either. I half-remember Hawkeye complaining about "these kids with their 'does this "A" stand for France' attitude" in Ultimate Galactus.

[tomemos]

Well, I remember an exchange in the first volume of Runaways--which I believe was written by Vaughan--that goes something like this (I don't own the book, so from memory):

Kid 1: Come on, guys. We're going to have to West Wing it.
Kid 2 (who doesn't know Kid 1): Huh?
Kid 3 (who does know Kid 1): Walk fast, talk fast. When you hang out with Alex, you need to learn his vocabulary.

…which asks us to believe that 1) a 16-year-old watches The West Wing, 2) he has found occasion to make up his own phrase from it, 3) his friends play along, rather than looking at him with disgust or breaking his glasses, 4) they're having this absurd conversation as they walk quickly down a corridor. (That last part maybe annoys me most: isn't an understanding of how time and dialogue work in a comics panel a prerequisite for writing comics?)

So Vaughan doesn't seem immune. But I take your point that Whedon's tin ear is more prominent. Where are the writers who remember the basics of believable voice and dialogue?

[tomemos]

Oh, and regarding "pop-culture-obsessed kids": they still should sound like real people, or failing that, likable people.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

(We're 99.99 percent in agreement. I'm just picking nits here.)

I think the reference to The West Wing makes sense in context. The third kid doesn't necessarily know what The West Wing is either, but the first kid, Alex, is a leadership wonk. He's interested in protocols of power---the first issue has him in a World of Warcraft scenario playing the part of Captain America and trying to organize the troops. It's plausible both that Alex would've obsessively watched The West Wing and that those who know him will have accepted that fact.

As for the next comment: I don't think pop-culture-obsessed kids can be likable people, can they? I mean, they're insufferable not because they don't sound like real people, but because they're insufferable. This, I think, is the difference between Whedon's work on Buffy and his runs on X-Men and Runaways: on Buffy, they don't simply spout references, they build them internally---as I learned, painfully, when I tried to teach "The Zeppo" last quarter. It's not that they didn't like it, just that they couldn't understand what they were saying because the level of internal reference was so dense.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

(Also, terrible as Dollhouse was last week, they've found the one way to draw me back in, damn it.)

[Rich Puchalsky]

I don't really understand why people do read comics these days. I started with First Comics in their heyday, and went on to Vertigo in their heyday, and trailed off with a few assorted indies. But I haven't bought a comic book in years. Criticizing people like Mark Millar is really easy, since he's laughable, but I don't see what can really be sustained around the DC/Marvel superheroes even if it were being done well.

[Johan Rising]

Erm... I realize I'm coming in a bit late here, but I just have to point out that some of these criticisms are somewhat off. First: "having a character in the next issue praise you for this world-horrible line" - this is simply not true. What we see is that one character is praising another character; that's something people do in real life (often for stupid reasons, I might add). And clearly, Mark Millars opinion on these two characters is that they're silly, ignorant fratboys. I think it is quite obvious that he's having fun at their expense. You seem to have misunderstood that, or at least you fail to acknowledge it in your text.

---

TOMEMOS wrote "Are we supposed to believe that Cap is saying all that on his way through a doorway?"

No. Time doesn't work that way in comics. People aren't just standing completely still in their shown positions while they're delivering all their lines. I can understand why someone who believes that to be the case may find that panel confusing, though.

TOMEMOS again:

"Here's another thesis: comics writing has gotten really bad, with everyone competing to be the most "conversational," which is to say breezy, referential, and self-congratulating. I thought the writing in Civil War was just atrocious, but actually most writers seem to have caught the Kevin Smith disease:"

That disease must be a real pandemic, because a lot of people talk just like that in real life, you know. Or maybe you don't, since you believe no 16-year old watches West Wing (I know for a fact that a lot of them do). Maybe it would be better if we all spoke like Mark Twain (or, in my case - since I'm from Sweden; August Strindberg). I can certainly understand if you think that would make people sound more "likeable", but personally- I don't want to read about a bunch of likeable Mary Sues. I prefer if people in fiction talk just like people do in real life. For better or worse.

[tomemos]

"And clearly, Mark Millars opinion on these two characters is that they're silly, ignorant fratboys. I think it is quite obvious that he's having fun at their expense."

Johan, maybe you could tell us the cues in the dialogue or the art that make it "clear" and "obvious," since I can't see any way that's a plausible reading from the panels Scott provided.

We'll have to agree to disagree about what people talk like; I don't think either of us wants to tape record our friends' conversation and report our results. I'll note, though, that you're simultaneously saying that you want comics in which people talk like real people (so do I, by the way), and that you see no problem with someone delivering a monologue while walking away from someone who's standing still. Cap must be about ten feet away by the time he finishes his spiel. I actually own a lot of comics, and a quick flip through yields no examples of someone delivering a monologue while standing on one leg. There may be some, but I would argue that those show bad craftsmanship.

[SEK]

Johan, first of all, welcome to the blog! If you're this invested in comics, you might find a lot material here of interest. (Which is my way of saying: "Don't be a drive-by! We like to argue here!")

And clearly, Mark Millars opinion on these two characters is that they're silly, ignorant fratboys.

I'm just not seeing this, Johan, much less think it's obvious enough to warrant your "clearly." I didn't see much of any evidence of ironic distance: it's a splash page depicting the most tense moment of a fight in a book that's been over-earnest the whole way through, so you can see why I have a problem with the idea that Millar suddenly turned arch. Even when he's genuinely funny, as in Kick-Ass, his work's still weighed down by his awareness of his cleverness. (It works in Kick-Ass because he's created a narrator with this flaw, so it doesn't seem to be coming from the author.) In other words, I'm not basing my evaluation on this one panel---it just happens to be the most egregious case of what is, for him, a general tendency.

Time doesn't work that way in comics. People aren't just standing completely still in their shown positions while they're delivering all their lines.

He doesn't have to be standing still, but typically when you have a person deliver a monologue, you depict them paying attention to their audience. Put differently, there's nothing wrong with that panel if he's saying, "So long, Nick, see you on Tuesday." The composition of the panel can handle a short sentence in a way it can't handle an introspective paragraph.

I prefer if people in fiction talk just like people do in real life. For better or worse.

As someone who taught literary journalism for five years and had a unit on transcription, let me assure you: the last thing you want to read is language the way it's spoken. My transcription exercises are on my old laptop, so I can't reproduce them here, but reading a literal transcription will give you the impression that people don't speak language so much as a crude approximation of it. What you're thinking of is a naturalistic convention: how real people are understood to speak, like they do on Law & Order or what-not. But even the "gritty" versions of naturalistic speech are scrubbed until they shine.

[Gary Farber]

"Especially since the reader is supposed to empathize with Sally here."

Good lord, of course you weren't. The point of that was that she had no idea what Captain America was about. Not vice versa. The point was that his values were timeless, and not seeing that was dimwitted.

"I don't really understand why people do read comics these days."

Also, kids should get off of Rich's lawn.

People's taste varies, and other people like different things than one's self. We all bring different knowledge/experience/emotional sets to the same material. Film at 11. (No offense meant to Rich, but I'm always astonished when people are surprised that everyone turns out to be not just like themselves.)

Also, that line Scott's making fun of was supposed to indicate that the Ultimates Cap was also a jingoist schmuck in ways.

I agree with most of what Johan Rising says, except, of course, that in real life most people mostly talk rather, er- ah, incoherent-ah, inco-oh,sorr-herently, you know, ah, achoo, um, so, ah, that'beunbearahahahbly-*cough**cough-hard, y'know, andumwell, notso -- oh, you know, uhuhuhuhuh, entertaining. I mean, oh, entertaining. I mean unentert-- what? -- aining.

Or: what Scott said at 07:36 PM. "Naturalistic" is not natural.

On the other hand, in my life, I've seen people stand in doorways while conversing, and I've stood in doorways while conversing, uncountable numbers of times.