Welcome

This was originally gonna be about a whole other topic, but I figured I'd shunt that off to the next newsletter and use this one to get out some thoughts about things. So here's part 1, with part 2 hopefully coming later this week.

So It's Been 3 Months Since I Stopped Writing Comics Crit

And it's been great, honestly. In retrospect, there's nothing that I really lost in exiting comics crit; at least, not that I hadn't already lost when I chose to quit. But while I went into some of the causes for me leaving the community in my July newsletter, I never really went in deep about the various things that concerned me about comics crit as a whole in that newsletter. Three months deep into my "Poker King Piano Player Phoenix Wright" era, I've had time to reflect on things.

An artist's rendering of me before and after doing comics crit.

The community always felt like it had a wall around it, whether intentional or not. There was always a certain barrier to entry in order for one to be considered part of the community. The stark truth is that a lot of comics crit is made by 40-50 people entrenched in the community, to be read by those same 40-50 people (and their followers, of course). The craft can feel hard for your average layperson to get into, especially when it can feel like they're being talked at or around, rather than to, when they read (some/most/all, YMMV) essays that are made with the critic community in mind. I should add, it's possible to make any article or essay artistically unique whilst still being approachable, and there are several great critics out there who put in that effort to make their work approachable. But when a lot of what's being put out feels unapproachable to someone who isn't as entrenched in comics as the writers and average readers of said pieces are, it starts to feel like the community is more of an exclusive club rather than an ever-expanding public forum.

Another part of this unapproachability is the miasma of (condescension || pressure || arrogance || hubris) that comes with a lot of crit pieces/critics talking about how people should be reading and engaging with comics. One project I'd been planning before everything went to shit was analyzing the concept of "comics canon": breaking down the idea of what an Important Comic was, and who/what determines what books joins this canon. In a way, critics play a significant role in maintaining and expanding this canon through what they choose to cover.

But this is a double-edged sword, for the critic's tastes and preferences inform what they choose to cover. All this to say, if 40 to 50 writers all write about Grant Morrison's work for 40 to 50 people to read, then Grant Morrison's work will become a mainstay in their canon. This in turn becomes an implicit need for readers to keep up with the pre-established canon in order to feel like they're a part of the ongoing conversation (As a sidenote, after a year of being in the comics crit community — or, the outskirts of it at least — I've lost all desire to discuss GMo's work on Twitter). The worship of these sacred texts just leads to newcomer critics falsely assuming that they need to talk about said texts in order to be taken seriously within the community, which in turn leads to a plethora of writers and Twitter scholars of said texts all waxing poetic about said texts whilst not really adding anything new to the conversation. Once you've read 50 takes on Saga of the Swamp Thing, you're pretty much counting the days until someone takes a hard left into writing something like "Why Saga of the Swamp Thing describes what a libertarian paradise on Earth would be like".

Pictured: A libertarian in its natural habitat.

If the goal is to get people thinking more critically about what they read, and engage with these new ideas, there's an air of exclusivity that the community needs to shake off, be it an excess of formalism, or a general adherence to their considered canon. No one should have to be a Moore/Morrison/Gillen/Ewing/[insert white writer here] scholar in order to be considered a critic, and they shouldn't feel left out if their focus doesn't align with "comics crit canon". I'd rather read in-depth pieces about creators and books I've rarely heard of than listen to yet another take on All-Star Superman or Watchmen.

Comics crit as a tool to teach and nurture readers' critical thinking towards comics almost feels antithetical in a way. Teaching by example only works well when readers take away the right ideas (both about the work itself and how to engage with it) from it, and there isn't any proper infrastructure to guide readers in that fashion. This isn't to say that comics critique needs to be written for the sake of being an educational tool, or a case study for comics education even, but it's hard for someone new to the craft to learn how to engage critically with comics going off just well-written articles.

You can't really point at any given piece and be like, "This is the bar to be met, figure out how to get there" and expect everyone to understand what gets an essay to reach that standard. There's really just....a lot regarding education through comics crit that I could get into, but it can all be summarized as: there isn't enough learning resources that are accessible enough to help newcomers to hone their craft.

I think the part that unnerved me the most about comics crit in general is its closeness to the industry. It feels much like a Remoraid hanging onto the Mantine that is the comics industry. Comics as a community in general is very small, and as a consequence of that size, people know people. More specifically, writers know critics, and critics know writers. While it's fine for writers and critics to be friends, it unnerves me because of the way it seeps into the work. Going back to the whole "comics canon" thing, the matter of which books get passed around the community and considered for entry into the canon can often be doped by these relationships.

Pictured: A comics writer and their comics critic friend.

I should preface this by saying that this isn't me talking about "ethics in comics journalism" or trying to work through my lament for having been fooled into reading Home Sick Pilots, a book I thought was just fine (Okay, maybe it is a bit of that last one), but there is an insularity to it that I can't shake off. It adds to the feeling of comics crit being an exclusive club, as you now have critics with connections to writers talking about books of theirs that they read months in advance (How cool! How amazing! So cool. So amazing.). It's not a jealousy (mainly because I had the same access half of the time, a-ha!) but a head-scratch, working through the logic of it all.

For most, if not all critics, comics crit is a transitional step to their goal of hopefully, surely, eventually becoming a full-fledged Comics Writer®™©, if not working in the Comics Industry in some significant capacity at the very least. After all, critics before them have made the transition, so it's not out of the cards for the current generation, right? But with the industry shifting constantly and the barrier to entry growing higher and higher, the Golden Ticket analogy becomes more and more of a reality with each passing day. All this to say, there is a transactional, symbiotic nature to the relationship between writer and critic. The writer receives coverage through the critic writing about their books, and the critic receives a connection that they can then transact once they have need for it, such as when they make their own comics. (There is a whole other conversation to be had about what critics using crit as a liminal stage to move into other careers means for the state of comics crit, but that goes hand-in-hand with the "comics crit doesn't pay" conversation.)

Pictured: a Comics Critic receiving their first article retweet from a creator in the comics industry.

The result of these symbiotic relationships is a general hesitance from me towards recommendations (especially Indie comics recommendations) from critics who I know have that friendship or otherwise-close relationship with the writer of the book they're recommending. Even if the book is good! Though, the onus of the sus-iness of this relationship goes to the writer, not the critic. The critic does want that connection to transact down the line, yes, but they're not the ones with power in this situation. So if we really want to talk ethics, I think a strong delineation of that relationship should be shown in the work. Either the critic makes it clear in their work, or they just, i dunno, not cover their friend/colleague's work? I don't know how to proceed on that; It's out of my wheelhouse and expertise.

But I also can't hate on these relationships though; given how small the comics industry/community is, these transactional relationships are a necessary evil for creators to thrive in the environment within which they've been forced to toil. But a necessary evil is still evil, especially when it affects critique that skews negative (well-founded critique that is, not shitting on creators and their work with no basis, duh) within the community. How is one supposed to tear down a friend, or hell, a colleague's work? There's a fragility to it. A Mexican Standoff of Kindness, if you will. Be nice, do nice, receive nice; hold the line, stay in everyone's good graces. I'm not saying that bullying is the solution (most of the time, but there are exceptions), but the matter of being too nice can also have a negative effect when it stifles the way we address the unsavoury parts of the industry, community, and medium. Outlets turning down pieces that skew negative about creators and publishers they have rapports with, outlets and critics losing industry access because they dared critique industry big-shots, or even critics getting the side-eye from others in the community for not falling in line with the Standoff; it's all there, but it's up to the community to choose whether or not to address it.

Now, complete hard left, going back to what I was saying before about advance access. Something I loathe, and I mean truly loathe, is when people with advance access lord it over those who don't have that access. Having sat through my fair share of "I've just learned about something big that happens two-to-three months down the line but I can't tell you anything because I've been sworn to secrecy but I'm still telling you that I know about this so that you know that I know about this insane thing that only I have access to due to my connections", it sucks. Simple as. It just sucks. Inside access is a problem with Comics Journalism in general, and the recent Substack wave has only made it worse. It does nothing good for the way comics are discussed; it just turns exclusive information into social credit to wave in front of friends and colleagues. It sucks to have to witness, and if you do it, I'm not saying that you suck, however. So if you've got eeeexxxxxcccclusive access to something others won't see for months? Don't say a thing. Keep it to yourself. Ssssssssshhhhhhhhhhh.

So, three months later, how do I really feel? Truthfully, while I'm glad to have put all this behind me for the time being, I can't say that I've achieved much clarity or closure on various fronts. There's other discussions to be had, such as the nature of comic reviews and their purpose in the current day and age, but those are all conversations for another day. I feel that a lot of the Comics Crit Pseudo-Industry®™©'s missteps come from it being, ironically enough, in a nascent stage. For something that's been around for decades, dare I say even half a century, it still feels like it's taking its baby steps. Maybe it's regressed to that point, maybe it never moved on from it to begin with. Perhaps giving it a new name like "Graphic Critique" is what'll finally get the masses to acknowledge and engage with it? But after over half a decade of talking comics online, a year of meddling in comics crit, and three months beyond it, I'm still no less sure about how I want to talk about comics than I was all those years ago. So maybe I'm just in year one of my "Poker King Piano Player Phoenix Wright" era.

Gasp, An Interlude: "Interesting"

A word I've come to have an apprehensive relationship with is "interesting". While there's a variety of things and people I can blame it on (including friend of the newsletter Kengan Keegan Kiegen Keigen), it really boils down to an abundance of the word being used to end sentences, rather than to bridge clauses. "I thought [thing] was interesting."......Yes, and....? "Interesting" gets used often as a shorthand for in-depth critique, which I understand; sometimes you're too tired to muster more than just a "eh it was interesting". But "interesting" doesn't tell us much about a piece of media. It's a black-box term that's meant to illicit a reaction like, "ah, chunky". It's a reaction moreso than it is a feeling.

I've been trying to move away from using "interesting" as a sentence-ender, and towards actually following up with what I actually thought made a piece of media interesting. If I can't think of even one thing that can justify what makes something interesting to me, I force myself to find another word to describe it. Laugh at me all you want, a it really is a minor thing to contort myself into knots over, but I think it's done a great deal to re-examine the way I describe the media I engage with.

So Anyway, Here's Apollo

I'll write about all the other stuff I've been playing/reading/watching in the next newsletter, but I wanted to focus on one specifically because I've got a lot of thoughts on it, more than a tiny subsection could feasibly allow for.

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney is an interesting video game (comma, comma, comma), because it's a game that I ultimately rank very low in my "Top 4 Ace Attorney Games That I've Completed At The Time of Me Writing This" list, while appreciating what it tried to do. The intent for it to be a deconstruction of the original Ace Attorney trilogy is clear throughout the entire game, but the execution doesn't match up to that intent.

Without spoiling much, the most engaging parts of the game's narrative are all the parts pertaining to Phoenix Wright and the circumstances we find him under at the beginning of the game. As a result, the eponymous Apollo Justice feels rather pedestrian within his own game. As a character, his growth throughout the game's four cases felt rather staggered and stunted. Details like his bracelet (which is responsible for the game's big new gimmick) is handwaved away until it conveniently gets an explanation in the very last case of the game, with the story deep into its endgame. In a way, he feels like a stand-in for the player as they navigate the mystery surrounding Phoenix Wright that hangs over the game's plot. This game's title would probably be more accurate if it was called Ace Attorney: the Wright Mystery (feat. Apollo Justice) instead.

Case-wise, I liked the first case fine, the second case was fun, and the last case's introduction of the M.A.S.O.N system reinvigorated my interest after the absolutely abysmal third case. The third case might just be the worst case I've played in any Ace Attorney game I've played to date. Even worse than Turnabout Big Top! There's a critical detail early in the investigation that makes the trial itself an absolute farce, but even discounting that, it was just an absolute slog of a case to get through, and put a hard brake on the game's momentum.

As for other characters in the game,

• Klavier Gavin is a fun character, but offers no real threat in the court room like previous prosecutors have in the past.

• Kristoff Gavin got taken off the board way too early in the game, when he could've made for a great consistent presence throughout the story.

• Trucy Wright is a fantastic addition to the series, and is a highlight of this game for me.

• Phoenix Wright I feel conflicted about, because while I do enjoy the disgraced hero trope (and he's still got the sharpness and wit he had in the original trilogy), there's just something about his characterization in this game that didn't sit well with me.

• All the male members of the Gramarye troupe suck; didn't like any of them.

• Ema Skye is another character whose characterization didn't exactly sit well with me, though that's something I need to sit on longer to really figure out why.

• Everyone else, I feel indifferent about.

Fuck you, asshole.

All in all, I appreciate the effort Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney took to try and pick apart the more gonzo elements of the original trilogy, but the result of that deconstruction is a story that feels written for people whose takeaway from the Ace Attorney series is to become a lawyer themselves, rather than for people who are fun to be around a deep look into the flaws of the original trilogy through an unconventional redemption narrative. It's a game that I might revisit a few years down the line, but has got me pondering about what specifically I ever liked about the series as a whole.

Question Corner!

This one's actually from friend of the newsletter, and friend of mine, should he find himself reading this, Brason. He took to twitter to poll his followers the following question (which I'm surprised no one elaborated upon in his replies):

Q: In your opinion, is ASM #75 & 76 comparable to HoX #1 & PoX #1 in any way? What makes something so specific in Marvel history like HoX/PoX, and will Beyond be that? Are Rosenberg's last few issues of Uncanny in any way similar to Spencer's last few issues??

I told him I actually had an answer for the question, which I'd reserve until my next newsletter, which is uh, this one. So without further ado.

A: To the question of Amazing Spider-Man #75 & 76 (the beginning of the new Spider-Man Beyond initiative, for those not in the know) being comparable to 2019's House of X/Powers of X X-Men line reboot, I would say no; but that's not a bad thing. Aside from numbering and semantics and whatnot, Beyond and HoXPoX are two very different phenomenon, and that ultimately boils down to the sales dynamics of both Spider-Man books and X-Men books. X-Men comics, at least by 2019, were far past the consistent sales juggernauts they were in the 90s. In June 2019 (one month before HoXPoX hit shelves), the line's flagship Uncanny X-Men title only sold 51,920 issues, ranking 24th in the sales chart for that month. In comparison, Immortal Hulk sold 88,100 copies that very same month, 19 issues into its run.

Basically, the X-line was down horrendous, not aided by various relaunch initiatives, branching editorial directions, etc. HoXPoX trimmed the fat and bloat of the X-Line down into two intertwining narratives that reorganized the line's direction into one unified motion. Now, what happened after HoXPoX is a whole different story, but at the time, it was a shift radical enough to bring back lapsed readers and bring in new ones.

In comparison, Amazing Spider-Man is Marvel's "Ol' reliable". They could sneak anthrax into its pages and it'd still sell at worst 70,000 copies. The thing with flagship titles like Batman and Amazing Spider-Man is that they've built up such a colossal presence that there will always be people lined up at comic shops to ensure that they're amongst the highest-selling books of any given month. These people will buy these books regardless of quality or who's writing it because they're there for their biweekly/monthly/thrice-weekly fix of Spiders and Bats. So y'know, schmucks.

But with sales consistently remaining so high, what's the incentive to do a full overhaul of the line? HoXPoX saved the X-line because it was the radical shift it needed to put wind back into its sa(le || il)s. With Amazing Spider-Man, it's a matter of just tweaking things enough to maintain the book's consistent audience. If the Spider-line has felt complacent or stagnant up until now, it's probably because there hasn't been much incentive to go breaking and remolding what isn't broken (to the editors at least). So as dour as Nick Spencer's last few issues on Amazing Spider-Man were, they weren't the final hurrah of a now-bygone era like Matt Rosenberg's last few issues on Uncanny X-Men were (Rosenberg has described that run as a general wrapping-up of the era that began with House of M back in the mid-2000s).

If there were a extinction-level event that somehow targeted all the schmucks in the world, finally leaving Amazing Spider-Man in a position where it'd need something truly radical to reinvigorate interest in it, then perhaps then I could see it receiving a full overhaul, but until then, Beyond is a fun change of pace.

Afterword

I originally started working on writing my next newsletter at the beginning of the month. But partway through, I got hit with a lot of the questions and topics I covered in this newsletter, so I split it into two: one to cover those questions, and one to do the usual stuff I do. It's now my birthday as I finish writing this, and there is a nice catharsis to getting this newsletter out there. This one probably feels way different in general than previous newsletters, but I think it's good just to spill all my latent thoughts out like a stomach flu-induced vomit attack before moving back to life as normal. Next time, I'll get to what I actually wanted to talk about in this newsletter, as well my usual reading/working/watching/playing updates. If you've got any questions or topic suggestions for me, shoot them here quick. I realize a two-to-three day buffer isn't a lot of time, but hopefully I get some real brainscratchers in there. Till then, I gotta go raid whatever stores are offering birthday deals before the day ends.