All PostsOver at the ever-amusing (and often confusing) Co-Mix site, Blaise Larmee offers a definitional post on “art comics.”
His definitional statements are, “Art comics are rooted in an appreciation for American male-oriented genre comics,” “Art comics emphasize the surface and object-ness of the page,” and “Art comics creators are image-makers first, writers second.”
He contrasts this with “indie comics” which are (and I’m putting my interpretation on what he’s saying here) more about writing and a traditional “literary” sense. Comics as writing, rather than comics as art, which I think is a good general shorthand for the differences
I agree with his latter two statements, but I’m not sure the first statement is representative as a whole, or else there is a whole other world of comics out there that are neither “mainstream,” “art,” or “indie,” comics. I think of people like Warren Craghead, Dash Shaw, Frank Santoro (at least all his non-Cold Heat work), Aidan Koch, Austin English (who Larmee puts in his list of example, but who doesn’t, as far as I have seen, been rooted in those male-oriented genres), some of Jason Overby’s work, even Larmee’s work, (to stick to comics I can see from my desk right now) and probably others I’m not coming up with right now (such a host of european creators for the more avant-garde/indie publishers) who often have what I would consider a more poetic approach to comics, or at least a focus on visuals and texture and materials without being rooted in the “male oriented genre comics”.
I’m not sure how much we’re SUPPOSED to agree with anything in that post. Being provocative toward people just outside his immediate peer group is kind of Blaise’s “thing,” it seems. I also think there’s a certain amount of ax-grinding going on given the fallout from that minicomic version of KE7.
Fallout minicomic?
After all the pontificating on what comics are and what they’re not, who makes what and who’s mates with who; it’ll be interesting to see how Young Lions turns out.
I saw an early version, which was rather more traditional (narratively straightforward) than Blaise’s other works. I’m curious to see how much he’s changed it since then.
Thanks for the tip, Derik. I went over to Blaise’s site, read his post, questioned his definitions, and left a comment there.
I wasn’t aware that “art comics” constituted a distinct genre, as opposed to a broad set of attitudes toward comics. Blaise treats “art comics” as, basically, Kramer’s and the like, which from my POV does not correspond to the general use of that term.
I always assumed that indie comics are mainstream comics done by every publisher but the big two: Dark Horse, Image, etc…
Domingos: But do you “mainstream” as “superhero” or…?
I think the idea of indie/alt/mainstream has changed a lot in the past 20 years.