CBR: When Words Collide - Feb 21, 2011

[CBR News]

After a recent rereading of Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451," Tim ponders what it all means in this fast-paced world of the 21st century, and why it conjures up thoughts on "Scalped" and "Deadpool MAX."


Full article here.

[ian33407]

My writing teacher used to say that comics made talk about themselves by manners close to terrorism - he was thinking as Breccia' art than Sienkiewicz, while paradoxically authors were trying to improve the strenght and pertinence of the medium, to the point comics weren't read because they were TOO intellectuals...All this problematic is dissolved where we come about the nature of it all : when it is -or not - a 'product'.

As some writers were suspected to not writing books but ready-made screenplays, we can ask the same about some comics-writers today...comics are the raw material for our dreams...sorry, our entertainment (look at the Marvel adaptations, the most significating stuff of characters' background is ingested and spitted to make a show that works in 2 hours..).The race to the bottom is absolutely the main problem of our societies, because it is the fabric of obscurantism : the disappearance of complexity ( and the ability to decypher it ) will only produce the end of grade and that gives rise to knowledge' monopols.

This is a problem who is faced both in litterature and in comics and history will tell us who were the collaborators.

[DarkBeast]

This was a really really great article, Tim. I honestly can't think of a better article on the comics blogosinternetsphere that I've read. Maybe I'm praising it too much because I just read it and because I agree with so much of what you said, but, put it this way, I don't recall having read a better article about comics that's not just about comics.

On the one hand, I think you're being a little too hard on comics. Comics in general, I mean, "the art of comic books". I'm sure that the denizens of Bradbury's fiction wouldn't've had any mindless fun reading comics by Grant Morrison, for instance. At the time, of course, Bradbury was only dissing '50s comics for being shallow. Which is understandable. But we all know comic works from the last 30 years which are just as complex as Fahrenheit 451 itself. So let's not be too hard on the medium.

On the other hand, I do think you're right in sort of chastising yourself for spending so much time reading recent comics that are sort of insubstantial. I've chastised myself for the same habit a few times in my life. And then I've cut down on my light comics reading and opted for slower, more focused reading of all sorts of literature, comics and otherwise. This weekend I reread a bunch of Promethea. There were pages (and two-page spreads) that I spent ten minutes reading. Not just "looking at" (although the art was great) but READING and rereading before turning the page. There are indeed comics that present incredibly complex and meaningful ideas that are worth staring at for ten minutes and puzzling over. And, yes, after you get done reading comics like that, it's hard (for me at least) to justify having spent so much money and time on certain superhero comics which as a whole contain ZERO new ideas, whose sentences are not worth thinking about for one millisecond after your eyes pass over them. It's good to have fun sometimes, but when your intake of cheap entertainment starts to challenge or surpass the time you devote to serious reading, then it's probably time for a readjustment of your reading-time budget. It speaks to your self-reflection and honesty that you would get to a point like this, acknowledge it and write about it.

As far as the whole "acceleration" theme going on in our culture: I want to say something about that, but it's such a big subject, and yet it's something so important. Without being too dramatic, I think that if the intellectuals of the early 1900s could see our culture now, they'd probably think we were ALREADY in another Dark Age. There're definitely still spots of creative brilliance in our art and artists, but it's no longer clear how the best can compete and survive, much less make a beneficial impression that will affect humanity en masse. For every great, helpful artistic influence, there are ten million distractions. If even the smart people are having trouble concentrating for very long on anything of any depth or complexity, then there isn't much hope. And that's really, really the situation that we're in, at least as far as literature/art goes.

As a stranger writing to you on a message board, if I could offer any advice, it would be to try to learn to be adaptable. Not "be adaptable" (which is passive, and suggests just going along with the accelerating, gibbering flow of culture), but consciously, actively "LEARN to be adaptable". You have to learn how to slow down (in your reading processes, in your life) and also speed up (to swim along with the accelerating current), and you have to be able to manage that kind of change without much stress.

Today I listened to an interview with Alan Moore from like five years ago. He talks about how he thinks in 2017 information is going to double every second or whatever. And as part of that discussion he says that people must "not fight change, but just accept it and go with it". I don't think that's quite right. It's too thoughtless (and I don't even think Moore's following his own advice, since he's been slowly working on a "grimoire" of magickal history couched in 1950's nostalgic tropes). It is true that you can't just "fight" the acceleration, because then you'd end up like a hermit, just reading old books from the past and not being able to live at all in the present, or influence the future. But you can't just passively "accept it", either, because then you'd just miss out on the benefits of "slower" culture: you'd find yourself unable to learn from the past, or read more than a book or two per year. So I think you have to consciously learn how to adapt to all of this. To be successful in different situations, you have to be able to adapt your "speed" of culture-comprehension to attain whatever specific goal you prudently choose to pursue next. In order to think and plan and learn the wisdom of the past, you often have to shield yourself off from the onrush of the current "current". But after you're done toiling away in one of those little alcoves or "bubbles", you have to be able to accelerate back up to speed. Otherwise you get too "culture shocked".

Long rambling post. Hope you find some of it comprehensible and useful. Great article, again.

[rev sully]

Hey Tim!

Which book would you "be" at the end of Fahrenheit 451?

I'd be the Iliad. Or the Bhagavad Gita...I can't decide anymore. ^_^

crea shakti,

[Trey]

The best writer about comics on the internet strikes again. Just like the author, I always read with 2 or 3 eyes.

Never, ever, read a work thinking "how does this relate to me?" That's only a golden nugget if it somehow parallels you.

Why?

Because its not all about you.

Also, well said Darkbeast about the acceleration of our culture/society. Its the main drive of so many big picture aspects of society.

[NinjaZilla]

Books are great, but putting down Maus to read A Shore Thing by Snooki because one is a comic and the other is a book is not recommended.

[BillR]

Maybe my favorite thing of yours I've read, Tim. Excellent piece.