Comics and Literature #5: Comics Versus Art Versus Literature
In which I draw a chart, and bring this introduction to a conclusion
The bulk of my analysis will focus on the methods which creators and critics used to advocate for literature becoming the primary intermediary of alternative comics, and not the reasons for this choice. The justification for comics-as-literature in these arguments, when the arguments are made explicitly, is that the literary world is synonymous with the artistic autonomy that comics lack – a claim that would surprise many literary scholars. But the question remains as to why the bookstore is the only source of this autonomy, as opposed to the art gallery or the record store or the newsstand. One aspect is a crudely material one: that, unlike the art world, the bookstore promised a continual stream of revenue and exposure to an audience that was substantially wider than that of the comics specialty store. The art gallery and other “highbrow” cultural spaces could not offer this. Conversely, explicitly commercial spaces such as variety stores, where comics had reigned in the postwar era, or other sites of visual culture such as video stores did not offer the image of prestige and learnedness that even the commercialized bookstore did. Art Spiegelman perhaps expressed this most openly in saying that comics’ survival depended on embracing “a system that includes university studies, museum shows, the literary ‘respectability that allows them to exist in bookstores […] [S]ome kind of pact with the Devil has got to be made for comics to survive” (Groth interview 62). This pact with the devil was a modest and unreliable one -- few alternative comics artists made more money, or became more famous, than they would have if they had drawn superhero work for the Big Two. But the bookstore at least opened the possibility for both these things. And the ideological work of Groth and his allies was to make this transaction seem less like a deal with the devil and more like ascension.
The mainstream book industry was also in a state of flux that allowed for comics to enter it. The rise of the graphic novel as a bookstore product coincided with the rise of big-box bookstore chains such as Borders or Barnes & Noble as well as the consolidation of major book publishers under a small number of large corporations (Squires). The result was a literary market less interested in conventional notions of prestige and more invested in economic profit. The “class of ‘87” texts which established a beachhead for graphic novels in bookstores (Maus, Watchmen and The Dark Knight Rises) all became perennial sellers, although many of the subsequent alternative comics published by mainstream houses would not. For an industry that was increasingly dependent (and increasingly comfortable with its dependency) on formulaic bestsellers, celebrity autobiographies, magazines and lifestyle goods, a shelf of comics was not out of the question. At the same time as comics were seeking the literary world for its cultural capital, the book industry sought comics for their economic capital.
Pierre Bourdieu famously illustrated the cultural field as a graph with two axes, prestige and autonomy (Fig. 2). Rather than autonomous artists being disinterested in this literary field, Bourdieu instead argued that they were actually canny and intentional actors within it, seeking to place their work in a particular area. Comics creators can be discussed the same way – as the body of my work (especially the first chapter) will show, alternative comics creators were often deeply invested in the reception and distribution of their work. Comics was, in the post-underground era, a medium firmly positioned in the bottom left of Bourdieu’s graph: it was both poorly regarded by cultural arbiters and offered its artists little freedom or independence. The goal of publishers such as Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly, or independent comic creators such as Harvey Pekar and Dave Sim, was to progress diagonally upwards and to the right, obtaining both more freedom and more respect. In the critical belief system most commonly associated with alternative comics, forcefully embodied in The Comics Journal, these two axes are collapsed into one: to work independently is often assumed to result in work automatically demanding respect, while producing more “literary” and prestigious work is treated as a benefit for all creators. This is, of course, when things are done “properly”: Gary Groth frequently denounced independent work that was not sufficiently alternative, while Sim mocked alternative artists who laboured under the yoke of a publisher. Autonomy and quality had to be achieved together, or not at all. The literary world seemed to offer both.
This dual belief in independence and artistic greatness was the source of much activism by comic fans and professionals in the 1980s and 90s. The drawn-out legal battles through which artists such as Kirby, Siegel and Schuster attempted to obtain everything from original art to back royalties from publishers who had accorded them very little rights were a flashpoint attracting interest and indignation from all types of comic readers. The Comics Journal broke with its general disinterest in the superhero world to dedicate an entire issue to Jack Kirby’s lawsuit against Marvel over original art (The Comics Journal No.105). Current artists, unsatisfied with Marvel and DC’s slow rollout of royalty payments, also advocated for greater remuneration and freedom to work for multiple companies. Alterative artists Dave Sim, Scott McCloud and others advocated for a “Creators’ Bill of Rights” that would give creators full control over their work and the products thereof. These economic struggles were generally seen as part-and-parcel of the struggle for independent-minded and artistic comics.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Eternal Couch Potato to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.