Daniel Clowes is not, per his insistence, one of those comic book readers.

The title says "per his insistence," but it would be more accurate to say "per his repeated insistence," as he is incapable of writing a book in which he doesn't distance himself from the poor sods who enjoy genre comics.  His dismissal of such readers almost reaches the point of fetish, as if he thrills at the thought of being the comic auteur who produces books that don't belong on the same shelves as Marvel or DC titles.  So strong, in fact, is his desire to not be numbered among the lowly readers of genre titles that despite banking his career on sympathetic portrayals of losers and misfits, he lumps anyone who's ever picked up a copy of Detective Comics and enjoyed it in with the Dan Pussey's of the world. 

Which is only to say that in Clowes hierarchy of worth, there are reasonably well-adjusted people, self-conscious consumers of indie comic art, losers, pariahs, and loser pariahs who read mainstream comics.  The fate of the aforementioned Pussey is, you recall, to have his "silly books" ransacked and mocked by elderly iterations of Ghost World's Enid and Rebecca.  How powerful is his desire to distance himself from mainstream titles?  His new book, Wilson, contains exactly one reference to comic books period, and it serves to demonstrate that while his titular character may be a felonious asshole whose misogyny dresses the windows of a much more malicious psychosis, at least he knows what's what:

Heaven forefend anyone mistake Clowes for one of those readers.*

*That said, my annoyance here is at the gesture more than the gesturer.  Clowes is a phenomenal talent, but just as I can't brook people who claim they can't dig Pavement because they're into Television or the Wire, people who argue that their taste was never sullied by the commonplace strike a populist nerve.  That comparison only makes sense if you know people with an unhealthy fetish for '70s new wave who hate the modern. 

Comments

[tomemos]

As a side note, this:

"That said, of all that he's involved in, the one thing that interests no one is his relation to the "silly books" his father wrote."

is incorrect. When his mother finds the comic, she tears it to shreds, because it represents David's father and contains clues to the obscure hatred between the two of them. That's pretty far from making fun of it.

[Wax Banks]

Thread's gone a bit cold. Nice. I guess the only job left to me, then, is to declare that I find Pavement and The Invisibles awfully (ahem) boring. Huzzah! Ghost World too, but so what.

Also, I can't tell whether the asshole passenger or the cab driver asks about Iron Man in the final panel. I suppose each of the three possibilities (driver, asshole, Deliberately Ambiguous) would suggest a different meaning for the page.

[SEK]

Not cold, just resting! (I'm re-reading David Boring between paper sets and am waiting to comment until I've finished it.)

[Dan Coyle]

You know, I read a comics blog where the proprietor took time out of sucking Grant Morrison's and Damon Lindelof's dicks to review Wilson, and he and the commenters had a good bit of fun with you over this.

A few days earlier the blog proprietor characterized a recently deceased well known message board poster as "the-front-of-previews comics internet's greatest troll" which really backed up your point inadverdently.

Me, I think Wilson was funny, but that little page? Man, he can fuck right off and die. There are 100K-200K superhero comic fans LEFT. If you're still pounding on that audience, hoping they'll see the light when the real world is right behind you, then you're the fucking nerd.

[SEK]

Do you mean this one, Dan? Or am I catching flak somewhere else too?

What's odd about that particular conversation is that they assume that my argument relies on Wilson being a direct authorial proxy, when I thought I'd pretty clearly stated that he's not with the whole "felonious asshole whose misogyny dresses the windows of a much more malicious psychosis" bit.

[Dan Coyle]

Yes, I meant that one. I've been having some issues with Collins lately, because I'm one of the few people who remembers what he used to talk about on his blog besides comics.

Lately I'm just so TIRED of stuff like what you've pointed out. I see so many superhero books that look shameful and trying too hard and seem to be making up for some percieved shortcoming by going grimdark or just an attempt to be "relevant", and I wonder, do the Geoff Johns and Brian Bendises of the world let themselves be haunte dby the the Cloweses and MacDonalds and Ellises and Ennnises and Dorkins? Does it really matter anymore?

[Hob]

Scott, it's not really a "they" thing-- there was just one guy there who said that. I briefly groused and linked, and then Fake Pat said the "authorial proxy" bit, and then I disagreed and said you had a different point of view that I couldn't figure out. Not much of a conversation really, and pretty thin as flak goes-- if you're looking for a new nemesis in case Prager's head explodes, I don't think I'm up for the job.

[Gas]

I'd just like to go on record and say that I find both Pavement and Television utterly uninteresting.
The Fall, however, are awesome.

[Gary Farber]

It always baffles me how many seemingly intelligent people confuse subjective taste with some sort of objective quality.

This is a bane of my interactivity with most people with opinions. I'd prefer to not have to exercise so much patience, which is more a comment on my need to acquire genuine comfortablity with the natural flow of patience. Meanwhile, "even" academics and professional editors aren't immune.

Fortunately, as a half-breed Vulcan, I am.

I would say to Clowes that sometimes, when creative people create things, they're not actually thinking of you.

It's the same problem: we're all the center of our own universes, but a lot of people seem to lack self-awareness of this very fact of the multiverse.

Which is a primary problem of all human relationships and politics, and the cause of war and suffering, which I've now just solved, so I'd like a penny royalty for every peaceful feeling everyone ever has.