In Reinventing Comics, you write about the chilling effect of the Comics Code. Are today’s syndicated newspaper comics still victim to this self-approved censorship from fifty years ago?
Oh God, yeah.
Do you think this will ever change or are the mainstream newspaper comics, except for Doonesbury, pretty much doomed to permanent irrelevancy?
I don’t think we can use the word “permanent” and “newspaper” in the same sentence anymore.
Fact is, comics and newspapers were a marriage of convenience. It’s a shotgun marriage that began back at the beginning of the last century. And the shotgun was pure commerce. And I think that there’s been a certain amount of resentment ever since. I think good journalists have always resented comics a little because they didn’t like the idea of comics in their newspaper, not because of their brilliant reporting, but because of goofy little cartoon characters hitting each over the head with rolling pins, which is horrifying. I think the editors, gradually, have only been too happy to shrink things down. I think of like Joe Pesci’s head in a vice in Casino, squeezing and squeezing. Wait, it wasn’t Joe Pesci – it was some other guy.
Right. I think Pesci was doing the squeezing.
Yeah whoever, whoever the guy was. But it’s just – I don’t know – newspapers are in flux, comics are in flux – you know, it was a matter of delivery. It was the convenience of shared delivery, a method of delivery. And if the method of delivery changes then the form changes.
I think short-form comics are alive and well on the Web. So the art of the comic strip is fine. And the art of journalism is fine. And maybe it’s time for the two to just get on with their lives, recognize their differences, and stay friends. You know? Still have joint custody of the kids and just get on with their lives and find their true path. I do think newspapers would benefit from rediscovering some of the beautiful graphic sensibility of early 20th century newspaper comics. That’d be really exciting if papers went that route. But somehow it doesn’t seem likely at this point.
I think that horse has left the gate. I could see arts weeklies like the Phoenix, I could see them ramping up the alternative comics that are in their pages. And we’ve started to see that to a degree. We’ve seen some significant comics inserts in places like the L.A. Weekly. And I think you guys have done it once or twice as well. You know, really really splashed out the comics — and that’s marvelous and I think that does attract readers because you’re playing on some of the strengths of the graphic possibilities of a big sheet of paper. You know, even the smaller papers, spread out, are bigger than a computer monitor.
