Websnark

Comment from: coldcut posted at October 19, 2005 11:50 PM

Dateline 2019: an aspiring art student is told to research the history of webcomics through the works of Eric Burns and Wednesday White. Two weeks later, said student delivers a treatise linking Sailor Moon, Jack Chick, and late 20th century word processors to an obscure statue in upstate Vermont. Three weeks later, said student switches majors to accounting.

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at October 19, 2005 11:51 PM

That would be one freaky accounting major.

Comment from: JSW posted at October 20, 2005 12:01 AM

And this, my friends, is why the day that webcomics become recognized as a respectable artistic medium worthy of academic critism is the day that they will become absolutely worthless as an actual medium of expression and entertainment.

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at October 20, 2005 12:05 AM

Because of accounting?

Dude -- harsh.

Comment from: Nate posted at October 20, 2005 12:12 AM

Honestly, I'm not sure if that makes me more or less want to get involved in the whole critic thing. Heh.

Though I do have to question the 2019 date, I can't really say that I've seen regular comics, or animation get the same treatment. Despite all the "OMG graphic novels" kerfluffle in the 80s.

Comment from: kirabug posted at October 20, 2005 12:20 AM

Well-said, Eric. The hard part about criticism is that, unless they *are* academically trained by way of a Lit degree or similar, most people are ignorant of the fact that it's a process with rules and expectations... folks think that producing criticism is as simple as sitting down and writing, "Bob's new comic sucks because I hate it."

In actuality, if you want to criticise Bob's new comic that sucks, you have to explain what's wrong with it, and then prove that those things that are wrong with it are significant enough to say that it sucks, and if you're doing it for a well-taught class or a community that pays attention to such things (journals or magazines or snarksites....) you might even need to cite the things that Bob is doing right and then proof that it's not significant enough to turn around the suckage.

(Oh, and the Bob in question is described on my cast page. Bob's been a victim of this shit for years.)

One might argue that without criticism there wouldn't be literature (or comics or movies or....) because without criticism, there would be no way to separate the wheat from the dross. When you read something that strikes you to the very soul, grabbing all of your friends and saying, "Wow, you've got to read this! It's like, really good." just isn't going to get the message across. On the other hand, being able to talk about the layers of meaning and various symbols used in choosing the characters and the setting provides you the tools to not only convince your friends to read said lit, but also to discuss it on the same level afterward.

And you learn about your own opinions, too. When I had to write a critical essay on Moby Dick in undergrad, I started with the sentence, "I hate this story," and spent about four hours from that point trying to figure out why -- in a way that I could explain and support. I didn't know why I hated it when I wrote that sentence, but by the time the paper was done I did. (And, annoyingly, I didn't hate the book quite as much, having taken the time to really look at its structure. Now I understand it and hate it.)

My question is: Can Scott Kurtz write a critical essay on why the Webcomics Examiner article was, in fact the most rediculous piece of shit? Because hey, if he's got a good argument and can support it, I'll listen :)

Comment from: William_G posted at October 20, 2005 12:28 AM

Eric, again you cut through the crap and get to the core of it.

Good job.

Comment from: Snowspinner posted at October 20, 2005 12:35 AM

I'm a PhD student in English at the University of Florida.

Yesterday, I spent the day in the special collections library working on sorting out the Dick Tracy strips they have in their massive collection of comics. I handled newspapers from the 1930s that the library bought in the last two years just for the comics section. Today, the library made an offer on a massive collection of comics that they're trying to acquire - to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.

On Saturday, hurricane willing, I'm driving down to Orlando to see Mirrormask with four of the other comics studies people in my department.

A week from Thursday, I'm attending a reception for the exhibit commemorating the 75th aniversary of Blondie that I helped set up. The professor who donated a massive chunk of Sunday strips ranging from the 30s through the 50s will be speaking at the reception. It's a bit outside his area - he's actually the world's foremost authority on Carl Barks, the creator of Donald Duck.

We also run a listserv here for comics scholars. At a quick thumb through the recent messages, we have posts from Tennesse State, Southern Connecticut State, University of Alberta, Georgia Southern, and Walsh University. And that's just the ones who sign their posts with their universities - almost everyone on here is an academic, and they're from across the world.

We also run an eJournal called ImageText, that's devoted exclusively to comics.

So yeah - I'd say comics are getting some academic attention.

Comment from: RoboYuji posted at October 20, 2005 12:42 AM

Ha ha, actually, when I want my friends to check out something I like, I DO say "Wow, you've got to read this! It's like, really good." And then they usually do.

And statements like this . . .

"One might argue that without criticism there wouldn't be literature (or comics or movies or....) because without criticism, there would be no way to separate the wheat from the dross."

. . .are often part of the reason WHY creative types aren't overly fond of critics, since it seems to suggest that the critic is more important than the individuals doing the actual creating.

Comment from: jjacques posted at October 20, 2005 12:42 AM

Webcomics are a creative medium, and as such are just as open to critique and discussion as popular music, artwork, movies, television, or whatever. Trying to pretend that we're somehow above being criticized or that it's not necessary for our medium of choice is ridiculous.

That being said, I do often get a "man, these guys are taking it a LITTLE too seriously" vibe from Webcomics Examiner articles, and I strongly suspect I'm not the only author who feels this way. I'm much more concerned with *doing my comic strip* than with addressing the critical response to my webcomic or webcomics in general. I only skimmed that particular article when it ran, because I'd rather be DOING something I care about than just sit around on the Inter-web talking about it. Which isn't to say it's a worthless article, just that from my point of view the discourse is strictly secondary to the work itself- when the discourse starts to sound like it thinks it's more important than the work, I tune out.

Shit, aren't I a hypocrite. I'm writing this instead of finishing Friday's strip.

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at October 20, 2005 12:50 AM

"One might argue that without criticism there wouldn't be literature (or comics or movies or....) because without criticism, there would be no way to separate the wheat from the dross."

. . .are often part of the reason WHY creative types aren't overly fond of critics, since it seems to suggest that the critic is more important than the individuals doing the actual creating.

There's a difference, for the record, between interpretation and review. (I hate that 'criticism' has come to mean 'negativity' or 'reviews for quality' in modern circles.)

Comment from: JSW posted at October 20, 2005 1:12 AM

The difference being that reviews actually serve a purpose.

Sorry, if I sound a bit harsh, but reading this entry has really ignited my loathing for the "literary criticism" community.

Comment from: Snowspinner posted at October 20, 2005 1:29 AM

As a firm member of the literary criticism community, I have to rise to this bait. So why? What about the community bothers you? That we don't tell you what to like and what not to like? That seems silly - if anything, reviews serve less purpose than criticism, in that most people, when confronted with a comic, can figure out if they like it or not.

Figuring out why they like it - that can be harder. But that's really only the tip of the iceberg for criticism - I mean, we also deal with the consequences of it - what it says, what it alludes to, what it wants. I mean, why wouldn't you be interested in the consequences of art? To my mind, unless you believe that art works as some sort of pure transmission originating in the creator's mind and ending in yours, whereby you recieve, perfectly revealed, the Truth of the piece, discussion about why the piece affects you the way it does, what its consequences are, what it's trying to say, and where the failings of what it's saying are seem to me a natural response to it.

I mean, if not that, the only real responses you're going to have to art are "Hey, art!" and "I liked/hated it." Which, if that's all art can do, is pretty boring of it, no?

Comment from: Kristofer Straub posted at October 20, 2005 1:46 AM

It's not wrong that it should exist. Criticism needs to exist, even in forms I disagree with personally. It is fascinating to me that we, as humans operating within a culture we developed, could have opinions, however well-informed, presented as objective fact. (Of course I would believe far more a critic who was trained in that field of study than a person who says he's a critic, proclaiming that "it sucks" or "it's awesome.")

Fine arts degrees are the same way. I really believe everything in the world is art. A crumpled-up Doritos bag is art if its crumpler intends it to be. It carries whatever statement about humanity he wishes to impart to it. (Whether or not I, as an observer, find it effective is a different story.)

Things like the Webcomics Examiner, Comixpedia, The Comics Curmudgeon and Websnark need to exist. They are bound to exist, and they should exist. And it's even impressive that they exist to this degree in such a relatively-fledgling artform as webcomics.

However, I never believed I had to respect a critic's opinion simply because he has written a lengthy article referencing Balzac and Frank Lloyd Wright and the Bangles, anymore than I have to respect the art student who crumples a Doritos bag ten minutes before a graduate critique, and tries to convince his professors that it's really a profound statement about the fleetingness of life, war, childbirth, you name it.

So the only issue I take with this particular snarking is if you are saying that, by virtue of a criticism being a criticism that it cannot be seen as invalid and unpretentious.

When the Webcomics Examiner writes a fourteen-paragraph analysis of style, I think it's a little pretentious. Let's use the word academic instead; it's a lot less insulting.

Sometimes I feel like it's academia for academia's sake. There are examples of this in the physics world. A clever graduate student develops a random paper generator, submits the output to Physical Review Letters, and once in a great while, it gets published! And the following issue contains an embarrassing retraction from the editors. "We thought it was real."

When criticism is indistinguishable from a parody of itself, it's in serious danger.

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at October 20, 2005 2:04 AM

Snow -- some folks have bad experiences with Litcrit. That's perfectly acceptable. If they don't see the point of it, we can't blame them for that.

(Though I sometimes wonder why someone needs to so vehemently dislike something they don't have to participate in. ;) )

M. Straub -- I have no problem with you disliking a given piece of criticism. I just have a problem with the implication it shouldn't exist in the first place.

You're more than free to see a criticism as being pretentious. (Invalid is harder, if it's supported, but that doesn't mean you have to accept the validity of the supporting arguments.0

Comment from: Benor posted at October 20, 2005 2:06 AM

See, I wasn't all that happy with the "Art History of webcomics" feature in general. There were many things I didn't agree with in there. But hey, it's the Internet, we all have opinions. And I accept that critiques aren't meant to be objective.

But you decided to talk about 8-Bit Theatre over Bob and George. And that's terrible.

Now, let no one mistake me for an avid Bob and George fan. I read it for a while, but now, I don't particularly care for it. I don't like 8-Bit Theatre at all, but that's actually not the point of this.

The point is that in this "art history" discussion, the people involved not only admitted that Bob and George came some time before 8-Bit Theater, but that it was (and presumably is) more influential on other sprite comics than 8-Bit Theatre. But 8-Bit Theatre was selected instead.

...so Bob and George came first, thus being a more important marker for webcomic history when it comes to sprite comics...and it has influenced more people, thus being an important marker for webcomic art. But 8-Bit Theatre was clearly more important for the discussion in question.

I get that it's criticism. It's not objective, and people can be equally right.

But I'm a prospective historian, and I can see some disagreeing facts. That's what troubled me.

Oh, and for some sprite comic fun: http://home.att.net/~miller.daniel.r/index.htm Because I love me some Kidd Radd.

Comment from: Ian K. posted at October 20, 2005 2:49 AM

Well said, sir. Well said.

I sometimes get the vibe, and perhaps this is a leap, that Scott just doesn't think PVP is worth your time as a critic. I don't believe that, but it seems like Scott does sometimes and so it becomes more an issue of 'why are you wasting your time analyzing my 850x270 gag strip when you could be analyzing something worthwhile?' and it all comes out as 'that's dumb.'

I could be completely of base, I'm just saying that's a vibe I'm getting. That Scott doesn't think of himself as significant as much as he thinks of himself as lucky.

Equally, when I listened to the podcast on Monday (which I thought was funny) I was thinking "they're going to be pissed."

Comment from: Merus posted at October 20, 2005 3:01 AM

First I heard of this article was from Penny Arcade, who thought their section was absolutely brilliant and insightful. So clearly not everyone shares Kurtz' opinion. Although admittedly, they may have been doing it to get a rise out of Kurtz.

Isn't it usually pretty easy to call people being pretentious for its own sake, though? I know that I can construct bullshit arguments for something and as soon as someone looks at it, it'll collapse under the harsh light of day. Crumpling a chip packet can't be much different - any meaning that one ascribes to it can be easily shown to be full of shit.

I'm saying that either Kurtz can consider the participants as being full of shit (and I do get that vibe from Kurtz whenever he mentions Websnark recently) or actively demonstrate the inaccuracy of their position, but just going out and saying that they're full of shit without backing it up more than, well, they're critics, they write lots of words. That's not special! Look at this comment, for example.

Where it gets surreal is Kris Straub agreeing with Kurtz, himself not exactly an economist with words and running a comic that was full of criticism itself until he decided that he had too much backstory and stopped the criticism so he could purge the backstory from the last time he stopped the criticism. That's not exactly the sort of person I would have expected to be saying 'criticism is full of shit! (unless it's in comic form, then it's okay)'.

Comment from: Shaenon posted at October 20, 2005 3:11 AM

Seldom have I been so glad I don't listen to podcasts.

If I can just stop reading blogs, I'll really be on top of things.

Comment from: Scott Kurtz posted at October 20, 2005 4:21 AM

I never questioned whether criticism or critics were a valuable part of our culture. I only questioned the motivation of the webcomics examiner and it's over-analysis of my gag-cartoon. Who was that for? Me? Readers new to webcomics? The "industry" as a learning tool?

In my opinion it only serves to falsely elevate the reviewers to some lofty status. Something Straub, in a conversation we had earlier this evening, dubbed as "cognoscenti."

PvP and Penny-Arcade are not forms of literature that can stand up to the levels of academic review that these reviewers need to properly define themselves as connoisseurs of "the future of comics." You can't get blood out of a turnip.

Take that review of PvP and replace my name with "Jim Davis". Then replace PvP with "Garfield." How pretentious does it sound now? Guess what, kids. Their ain't much more to PvP than you find in Garfield. Seriously.

Shaenon, T, Joe and William. These are people who have at one point in their life experienced the hunger of wanting to draw comics for a living. How can they remove themselves from that experience and the biases created by that experience to give an objective opinion about PvP?

Go back and read Shaenon's part of my review. It's mostly about me and my competancy as a cartoonist, not about my work itself. The one thing she wrote about my work was incorrect: that it's a gamer comic. That's something that Eric called her on shortly before I stopped reading.

Would it be nice if there was an institution dedicated to examining and lifting up webcomics to the world? Yes. Should webcomics itself be doing it? No.

At least, that's MY opinion.

Comment from: Kristofer Straub posted at October 20, 2005 4:25 AM

I'm definitely not saying criticism is full of shit, nor am I saying that Webcomics Examiner is full of shit. I suppose the message of MHA is, "in criticism, there is a lot of room to hide shit, and you have to be careful."

As far as lengthy webcomic reviews packed with symbolism analysis and discussion of form, I just don't know what their function is, to whom they are speaking. Are the reviews intended for the general public? For other webcartoonists? For other webcomics reviewers?

It's always been up to individuals outside a given community to analyze and note what importance it may have. Actors don't write the reviews for movies they would have liked to have starred in. Movie reviewers do it. I don't know what the function of all this deep thought about webcomics is, when no one outside webcomics gives a damn about that, or about webcomics themselves yet.

I wish we could focus this energy on finding ways to present webcomics to the general public, before we enter into all these detailed analyses of an art form only the participants of the art form appreciate.

Comment from: Kaychsea posted at October 20, 2005 4:25 AM

I got bogged down in a discussion like this on a website a few weeks ago. Nothing to do with webcomics, but a thread on art created from bodily waste products (don't ask). The two sides of the flamewar were "eewww!!" and "It empowers women". I tried to take the sting out of it by viewing it from a critical standpoint and ended up fighting off both sides and phenomenally hacking off one person because I suggested she was would be disappointed if the artist had lied and it was just brown guache, despite the fact she had said exactly that two days earlier! And these guys didn't actually create anything, they just talk about it!

Comment from: Merus posted at October 20, 2005 4:44 AM

"I sometimes get the vibe, and perhaps this is a leap, that Scott just doesn't think PVP is worth your time as a critic. I don't believe that, but it seems like Scott does sometimes and so it becomes more an issue of 'why are you wasting your time analyzing my 850x270 gag strip when you could be analyzing something worthwhile?' and it all comes out as 'that's dumb.'"

"Guess what, kids. Their ain't much more to PvP than you find in Garfield."

A winner is Ian K.

Then again, I can't remember the last time Garfield had a character arc. Or a storyline about a character's concerns about change. So I'd really have to argue that Kurtz is super-selling himself short when he claims his work's on the same level as Garfield. (super-selling: like normal selling, but with special powers.)

Comment from: Ray Radlein posted at October 20, 2005 4:53 AM

How can they remove themselves from that experience and the biases created by that experience to give an objective opinion about PvP?

There's that word again. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Comment from: Ray Radlein posted at October 20, 2005 5:01 AM

As far as lengthy webcomic reviews packed with symbolism analysis and discussion of form, I just don't know what their function is, to whom they are speaking. Are the reviews intended for the general public? For other webcartoonists? For other webcomics reviewers?

I would think that it was obvious: For anyone who is interested in a critical analysis of the form. That can include cartoonists who wish to view their medium through other, trained, eyes; it can include reviewers who wish to understand the current state of critical thinking on the subject; or it can include readers who wish to interact with the art on an additional level, or to glean new insights into it to add to their own. What is so unexpected about any of those motivations?

Comment from: J Ryan Beattie posted at October 20, 2005 5:21 AM

Well, first off, I agree with Eric. I think that criticism of webcomics is important, and I think that webcomic creators are just as valid critics as anyone else. Saying otherwise is like saying that authors can't review novels, which is ridiculous. A critical review's success or failure shouldn't depend on who wrote it. It should depend on how well they supported their point through argument and citation.

Mind, I haven't actually read the article in question, so I can't comment on the criticism in question. It may be flawed. But not because of the participants.

I also think in-depth criticism serves a purpose. It gives the reader something to think about that they might not have caught. It helps them see connections they might have missed before. It helps them see what a comic is doing on more than one level. It's aimed, so far as I can tell, at anyone who reads the comics and wants to see what someone else thought.

Incidentally, Snow, Carl Barks was not the creator of Donald Duck. He was the creator of Scrooge McDuck, Duckberg, and many other things associated with Donald, but not Donald himself.

Comment from: J Ryan Beattie posted at October 20, 2005 5:35 AM

Excuse me, on that second paragraph, I meant "not because of who the participants are." Clearly, if the criticism is flawed, then the fault probably lies with the critic.

Comment from: Doc posted at October 20, 2005 6:07 AM

/Disclaimer: this is horribly longer than I intended and make a lot of assumptions about why people are saying what they are, if these are wrong please call me on them but don't take offence, I'm only trying to figure people's motivations based on how I would act in a given situation.

I think the main problem (if you want to call it a problem) here is that Kurtz and Straub (Mainly Kurtz since I don't read Straub's stuff as much) are just approaching this from a different angle than the Examiner crew.
Scot Kurtz has always seemed to me to be a republican kind of guy, and I mean that in the old school conservative economics, you should only get what you work for way so I'm not being critical here (wouldn't be any point, me being in another country and all). Anyway, approaching something like the Examiner article from that point of view will of course leave you feeling wanting, I mean there isn't a whole lot of *point* to it.
Scott makes his comic but I think it wouldn't be out of line to say he sees it as more craft than art, he does it because he is good at it, people are entertained by it and most importantly it pays the bills for his family. So I'm guessing that for him this sort of article could be akin to someone writing a two page essay on what Eric's school shifting ISPs really said about the world.

On the other hand for the Examiner round table folks in a lot of ways I'd imagine that the article *is* an end unto itself, because it contributes to the whole sphere of human knowledge thing, it gives other people something to draw on in the future when *they* write about the subject and so the overall level on knowledge is increased, and sometimes that will have a practical application (in this case, say a theoretical guide to how to design a business model for a webcomic based on what has worked in the past) and sometimes it won't.
I'm a science student, I finish next year and I'm intensely aware that I can either go towards industry or try and get a research gig at uni. The uni pays less but unlike working in industry it is more freeform and less focussed on objectives and profits, which makes no sense if you are a business but the result is that a lot of research that would never get done in industry is done and as a result things are discovered which improve the field overall.
So that's my piece, though I took a long time getting to it, I just think some people have a more immediate, and to some extent practical, view of what is worthwhile and what is not.

While I'm taking up all these inches I'd just like to point out that this is a civilized and reasoned discussion on how some people said that some other people's stuff was silly and it is happening on the internets! Way to go people.

Also Eric, thanks for some insight into the checks and balances side of critique, what you described was fairly similar to how I understand scientific journals to operate and that never would have occurred to me otherwise, just nice to know that people still realise they need to justify an argument. It's getting decidedly rare.

Comment from: William_G posted at October 20, 2005 6:10 AM

There's that word again. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I loved that movie, Ray Radlein.

Comment from: rukkh posted at October 20, 2005 6:52 AM

In some circles its considered the norm to have your work reviewed by your peers.
No scientific document is published without some form of peer review process.

So why not art? Well creative works have always been harder to take critisism for,
perhaps becuase they come from the heart and not just empirical data or theoretical musing.

I tend to agree with Eric, criticism is hardly an objective realm however I wonder if critics are
really important to an art historians. Do we care what Shakespeare or Picasso's contempories
thought of them? or do we judge their works by their own merit?

Comics are a peculiar form of art, there is no doubt that they are art, but critics and fans
demand the artist have a utilitarian approach to their work. How many times have I read Eric
telling us here that the key to success in webcomics is regular updates?

And so if we are demanding this of them, are they still artists, or are they designers?
"Scott I want that strip on my screen by monday morning, and I want a panda joke!"
A graphic designer does not answer to critics, he answers to his clients, if they don't
like his work they will go elsewhere.

Unfortunatly, so long as people create things there will always be critics...
and apparently they are immune to the defence

Comment from: Merus posted at October 20, 2005 7:18 AM

Has anyone actually tried criticising Twisp and Catsby, though? I'd guess that Kurtz could probably get away with using the Penny Arcade Defense on PvP, which would be hilarious, although sadly that would mean that Eric could never talk about Scott's work again.

Comment from: Meagen Image posted at October 20, 2005 7:48 AM

I only questioned the motivation of the webcomics examiner and it's over-analysis of my gag-cartoon. Who was that for? Me? Readers new to webcomics? The "industry" as a learning tool?

I'm not sure who it was for, but I read it, and thought it was very interesting.

I'm not a webcomic author (though I've toyed with the idea at various points), I'm not a critic (if anything, I'm a reviewer, but I've never applied that skill to webcomics). What I am is a webcomic reader (30+ titles in my bookmarks) and a thinking person.

Is webcomic critique "for" me? No idea. But I read it, and I'm glad it's there.

Comment from: Ahzurdan posted at October 20, 2005 9:09 AM

I never questioned whether criticism or critics were a valuable part of our culture. I only questioned the motivation of the webcomics examiner and it's over-analysis of my gag-cartoon. Who was that for? Me? Readers new to webcomics? The "industry" as a learning tool?



Definitely a learning tool, and most assuredly directed at the web-comics "industry".



How can you ever get better at what you love to do if you don't look around and ask, "What is it that makese this good? What is it that makes this other thing bad? How does that influence both myself and anyone else that is trying to do the something similar?"



I can't believe that there is any web-cartoonist that doesn't look at their own work and the work of others without thinking about what they liked, what they didn't, and how that could be incorporated into what they do.



That's what the article was about. In well established forms of media there are so many people with opinions that those doing the creating can divorce themselves from the critical dialogue. I assure you, though; every medium started out with a group of people walking the walk, and talking about what everyone else was doing in an effort to do it all better.

Comment from: John Lynch posted at October 20, 2005 9:13 AM

I thought I'd chime in. I'd like to write reviews myself and I do have a webcomic of my own that I'm experimenting with, so I'm hardly objective. But I agree with Eric in that I don't think you need to be objective when it comes to criticism. I like Wikipedia because it strives towards a neutral point of view, in an attempt to present articles in an objective manner. But when it comes to criticising a piece of work, I don't think you need to be objective. Viewing "art" is inherently a subjective experience. Any thoughts (no matter how many citations you come up with) on that experience won't be objective.

NOTE: I haven't read the original article, nor have I listened to the podcast (I don't do podcasts ;)), so I'm just talking generally. But I see no problem with either existing. The internet is a large thing, and as long as one person reads or listens to something, and they get something positive out of that and the creators are happy, who cares?

Scott Kurtz said "In my opinion it only serves to falsely elevate the reviewers to some lofty status."

In my opinion, that's getting personal. The people who review it, do so (I assume) because they enjoy it, and people read it because they get something out of it. To say "I think they did it for reason X" (especially when X is not a good reason) seems to me to be mean spirited. If you don't like what they said, thought it was pretentious, whatever. That's fine. But to then go and say what I just quoted seems unnecessary to me.

Scott Kurtz said "Would it be nice if there was an institution dedicated to examining and lifting up webcomics to the world? Yes. Should webcomics itself be doing it? No."

I don't see anything wrong with a movie actor reviewing another movie. In fact, I'd probably be more inclined to listen to it then most of the movie critics out there (whose opinion I don't hold very high). Everyone has an opinion, why should people who make webcomics not voice theirs? People will take from what it what they will, but I don't think it should be done to "lift up webcomics to the world."

Then again, I don't put much stock in people proclaiming Shakespear's work to be the greatest of all time, or analyzing the hidden subtext in a painting. They're fine to express their opinion, I just won't pay much attention to it. And that's the worst that can happen. People don't pay any attention.

Kristofer Straub said "I wish we could focus this energy on finding ways to present webcomics to the general public, before we enter into all these detailed analyses of an art form only the participants of the art form appreciate."

I've heard people say there's no such thing as a webcomic community. And they're right. There isn't. There are people on forums, blogs and websites who view content and discuss it. But because there's overlap in traffic, you could say that a community has formed. But there's no overarching goal of everyone in the community, some people might have a goal of bringing webcomics to the mainstream entertainment industry, some might have a goal of making it easier to view webcomics. Others will have more personal goals, and some people might have a goal to analyze webcomics as an art form. There's room for everyone to do what they want, just because they might talk with people in the "community" about webcomics, doesn't mean they all have to conform to a single goal. You want to focus on getting webcomics to the general public. That's great. But you can't expect other people to put their goals on hold until yours has been completed. Life doesn't work like that. Instead lots of people will work on their own goals, sometimes in groups, and if webcomics do make it to mainstream media, they might look at some of the analyses made beforehand. That's where I disagree with Eric, I think it much more likely that he won't be remembered, neither will anyone whose posted here. But who knows, perhaps I'm wrong.

It's like when people say "Why is there another Linux distro? We should focus on what we already have." People working on Linux don't all have one single goal, they have lots of goals and will work to achieve them. Sometimes they'll be the same as others, other times they won't be.

(I apologise if this comes out horribly formatted).

Comment from: kirabug posted at October 20, 2005 9:14 AM

Kristopher Straub said:

Actors don't write the reviews for movies they would have liked to have starred in. Movie reviewers do it.

Ah, but the kind of criticism we're talking about is not a "review". A "review" is something that says, "Hey, you should see this because the special effects are an A, the plot's a b+, and the acting's an A-. Oh, and there's kittens." But rarenly does a reviewer have the freedom of analyzing a movie's stylistic elements, symbolism, the actor's approach to the material, etc. etc. If they did, it would either ruin the plot for those who haven't seen it, and a "review" is ultimately about talking you in or out of going to the theater in the first place, or make no sense unless you'd seen the movie.

Criticism of a movie is for people who've seen the movie. Reviews of a movie are for people who haven't. And whether we see it on TV or in the papers or not, actors constantly critique the movies they want to be in. They do so just to determine if they want to be in the movie. In order to choose whether to be in the movie, they have to critique its elements and determine whether it's worth their time and effort - and whether it's a character they want to represent. So yeah, constantly. Just not for you and I to read.

And how is a critique by a comic author different from the meta-humor used in Checkerboard nightmare? That in itself is artistic criticism -- it just uses the medium of art to express itself.

Scott Kurtz said:

Shaenon, T, Joe and William. These are people who have at one point in their life experienced the hunger of wanting to draw comics for a living. How can they remove themselves from that experience and the biases created by that experience to give an objective opinion about PvP?

Depending on their style of literary/artistic criticism, that's not only legal but encouraged. Certain styles of criticism require you to cite yourself - what you feel about a piece, but only after you criticise your own motives.

Why would someone who had never hungered to draw a comic be interested in a critical review of techniques? (You could argue that Eric was -- but the now-existance of Gossamer Commons invaliates your argument.)

If each of these comic authors had written well-cited criticisim on their own websites and posted it, would it have been pretentious? It would have been a well-thought-out review of techniques by someone experienced in the craft, with an eye toward their own biases, but validating both the specific comic and comics as a whole. It seems to me that most the arguments here against the piece come down to "we don't like critical essays when written by large groups of people in the know -- but when done individually we seem to think it's OK."

Now Benor, on the other hand, nailed a legitimate criticism of the review (choice of works included), and backed it with citations, which is a great example of how the critical review process works. I'm curious to know how the comics for the Examiner piece were chosen, now, when I wasn't before.

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at October 20, 2005 9:15 AM

Then again, I can't remember the last time Garfield had a character arc. Or a storyline about a character's concerns about change. So I'd really have to argue that Kurtz is super-selling himself short when he claims his work's on the same level as Garfield.

As I said before, anyone can be a critic over any work. But the person who has the hardest time providing decent, citable evidence for his own interpretation is the creator himself. Always.

It can be done, mind. But it often isn't. My opinions and interpretations of Websnark are likely to be off from what other critics will think, because I'm so close to it.

Kurtz's contention that he's not doing anything of note or worthy of critical consideration is part and parcel of that phenomenon. I submit it would be hard to support such a thesis, because he honestly is doing good work, and he honestly is having an impact on the comics scene.

Comment from: kirabug posted at October 20, 2005 9:19 AM

Wow, Eric, thank you for writing this essay, by the way. I'm dusting off some skills (not very well, if it's not obvious) that I haven't taken out of the toolbox in a loooong time. Maybe if I did this more often, my own crap would be more well-written.

Just in time for NaNoWriMo too, whoo!

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at October 20, 2005 9:21 AM

Do we care what Shakespeare or Picasso's contempories thought of them? or do we judge their works by their own merit?

The act of said judgement is criticism, of course. ;)

This is again the unfortunate result of conflating the act of review with the act of interpretation under the blanket term "criticism." What Shaenon, Joe, William or I think of PvP on a pure reader-response level is in fact irrelevant to PvP's overall significance to the medium of webcomics, except as a guidepost to the response other readers have to the work, which helps shape the course of our research and interpretation. And our assertions on the overall significance to the medium of webcomics are only as valid as the evidence we can cite to support them.

Comment from: Christopher B. Wright posted at October 20, 2005 9:28 AM

As I said before, anyone can be a critic over any work. But the person who has the hardest time providing decent, citable evidence for his own interpretation is the creator himself. Always.

Sorry, Eric, but I don't buy this. The artist may not WANT to interpret his own work, or may intentionally play down that interpretation, but unless he is an idiot-savant, he knows pretty much exactly what he's trying to do. Or she.

Whether that intention can be communicated is another thing entirely, but that has nothing to do with whether the work is the artists -- it has everything to do with the ability to communicate.

Comment from: John Lynch posted at October 20, 2005 9:32 AM

rukkh said "Do we care what Shakespeare or Picasso's contempories thought of them? or do we judge their works by their own merit?"

Actually, I'd be quite interested to hear what Shakespeare's contempories thought of him. With everyone calling him a literary god, it'd be interesting to see if people from his own time period were as delusional :P

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at October 20, 2005 9:37 AM

Sorry, Eric, but I don't buy this. The artist may not WANT to interpret his own work, or may intentionally play down that interpretation, but unless he is an idiot-savant, he knows pretty much exactly what he's trying to do. Or she.

The problem is, what said artist is trying to do inevitably gets in the way of their interpreting what they actually did. The artist can see in their head all the bits and pieces that were intended that never made it on the page. They can also fail to see all the bits and pieces of what made it on the page that they never intended.

Let me give an example of a part of the conversation Scott and I had yesterday. (Not a part of the argument.) We were talking about yesterday's strip, and I brought up how effective it was that Brent's daughter, as she said the most direct questions -- the ones that in their innocence make Brent question his worldview -- she lifted her Skull Plushie to the level of her chin. These were exactly the questions that Skull would ask in the waking world, with exactly that same sense of innocence. As a result, there was a conflation of imagry -- and a very effective one.

Scott thought that was cool, but also mentioned that what he intended was for the Skull plushie to be the daughter's security blanket. She was nervous, asking that question, so she hugged it close to herself.

(Note that this example also highlights how good the daughter's characterization has been.)

It's not that Scott was wrong, and the daughter didn't treat it as a security blanket. But because Scott knew what he intended when he drew that part, he can't distance himself to see what else might be there. That doesn't mean I'm wrong, any more than he is -- but it's harder for him to have a general interpretation of his own work because he has a clear understanding of his own intent.

Comment from: Paul Gadzikowski posted at October 20, 2005 9:39 AM

Oddly, I only just read the roundtable Wednesday. The thing I brought away from it was someone's (Shaenon's?) observation in the PvP discussion that lots of webcomics creators are in it to say something but Kurtz's only ever been after making people laugh. I, too, but I was in need of the reminder.

But the moment they talk like it's wrong to have it exist, then I get pissed off.

This is what bothers me about William G.'s criticism of webcomicdom. In comments at Comixpedia and in that infamous review, he seems to me to be saying that everyone who's in it just because we can, without any training or with hope to make a living or without a clear idea of what we're doing (the hobbyists, as one thread at Comixpedia calls us), are screwing things up for the fine artists - because it's us that the mainstream notices, when they notice webcomicdom at all - and (here's the rub) ought to quit. I think he even made a bald-faced statement to this effect at Comixpedia once, though despite Eric's emphasis on citation I haven't tried to find it. It ticks me off because, basically, people are being told their contributions are worthless, counterproductive even, and I'm one of them.

And I write this here not despite that I know William reads and comments here (twice on this snark already), but because I know he does, because I'd like him to let us know whether I've read his position correctly. I'm not even interested in arguing about it, because the best and only rebuttal I have or could have is my continued commitment to draw Arthur, King of Time and Space daily til 2029.

I only questioned the motivation of the webcomics examiner and it's over-analysis of my gag-cartoon. Who was that for? Me? Readers new to webcomics? The "industry" as a learning tool?

I guess it was for me. I was in need of that reminder.

Comment from: UrsulaV posted at October 20, 2005 9:41 AM

I think criticism is like fan fiction.

No! Put down the chainsaws! I can back that up, sort of!

Fan fiction is basically a sort of expression of love--or at least passion--from the fan base of a given creative endeavor. Fan art, same thing. It's not meant to replace the story it's based of, it's not, y'know, nearly as important as the original story, but it's often a big part of the community of any given fandom. It would not exist without the original story, and in a sense it's parasitic, but it's based, primarily, on The Love.

The point of fan fiction is not to entangle someone who has never heard of the story. If I write Star Trek fan fic, it doesn't stand in for having watched the show, and the point is not to attract people who've never seen it. It's an expression of love, it's a way to engage the community, and the time we spend fighting over whether McCoy would REALLY eat a tribble if he was starving is time spent in a kind of fangeek bliss. It's a wallowing in The Love.

Criticism has a lot going on that's important. Writing, even of fan fic, has stuff going on that's important, and there again, the people who know the tools will blow past the person typing with one finger in l33t. And, as with anything, most of it's crap, but there are some gems.

For people with a literary background, who can speak with authority about literary devices and actually know who Balzac was, this sort of criticism can be FUN. Frustrating, tough, sure, granted, geeky, hell yeah, but it's basically an English major equivalent of arguing about where access panels on the Enterprise were located. It is an expression of passion for the form, in the idiom that these people enjoy. It's all about The Love, or at least an analysis of why The Love failed in this particular case.

So the argument that we should be trying to get people interested in webcomics before we start writing criticism of them strikes me as failing to understand some of the motives of criticism. It's like saying "We shouldn't write fan fiction, we should be putting up billboards for the next Star Trek movie." This is about the love. The geeky English-major love. This is how these people SHOW their love of the fandom.

We may not always like it, we may often be baffled by it, but the motives, at least, we can probably all understand.

Comment from: John Lynch posted at October 20, 2005 9:45 AM

Christopher B. Wright said "but unless he is an idiot-savant, he knows pretty much exactly what he's trying to do. Or she."

Having bullshitted my way through many English essays, whenever someone reads meaning into a piece of art (whether it be painting, novel, comic) it isn't the meaning that the artist put into it that they're reading, but their own. You can see plenty of meaning in something, or no meaning in something. The important thing is to not claim to know what the artist was trying to say with it (unless there's no chance he'll read it).

I've heard a story where an author went to class, and told them straight out that the meaning the teacher had told them was in his book was bullshit. He wasn't trying to communicate anything, it was suppose to be entertaining. Now he wouldn't have been able to produce any citations from his work, while the teacher could produce many for her points. That doesn't make the teacher right and the author wrong. It just depends on whose opinion you're going to put more stock into.

this comic comes to mind with this, along with quite a few others at Candi.

Comment from: vilious posted at October 20, 2005 9:48 AM

I've got a cartoon up on the refrigerator. No idea who drew it. It came out of Eastern Europe as the Soviet Union fell apart. A prisoner is kneeling before a chopping block, and an executioner has just chopped off his manacled hands at the wrist. The prisoner is maimed, but unchained. His bleeding stumps are raised up above his head, and his face is a mixture of exaltation, grief, and laughter.

It is a one-panel line drawing. Very possibly the artist dashed it off and considers it of no account. I have been thinking about it for about 13 years now. I do not believe that I could have been so deeply engaged by a drawing that took longer to do. Some cuts have to be made very quickly to reach the heart.

One thing that Eric did not mention about criticism: readings of a work that make it more interesting, moving, and engaging are superior to readings that do not. To take an extreme example, reading the Iliad as an etiquette book, no matter how well one supports one's argument, is inferior to reading it as an epic, because the Iliad makes a terrible etiquette book.

So, critical treatments of comics that let readers get more out of them, by making them conscious of more of what is good in the comics, are better than those that do not. This presumes ideal readers, of course; nothing good can be done with lazy or obtuse readers.

I can see how intense critical scrutiny would embarass cartoonists, who may have done the work quickly and unthinkingly. But we are not artists; we are readers. We have a craft too, and it counts. Once the cartoon is out there, it is our job to get as much out of it as can be had.

Comment from: Kail Panille posted at October 20, 2005 9:52 AM

The article was for me.

Just wanted to clear that up.

Comment from: Christopher B. Wright posted at October 20, 2005 9:54 AM

But the moment they talk like it's wrong to have it exist, then I get pissed off.

Well this has been a part of webcomics since the beginning of time. Some people have a vision of what webcomics SHOULD be, and expend far more effort than seems practical in order to keep everyone else out of it. Certainly Kurtz and Straub can be accused of that at various times (Kris has a particular flair for it on occasion) but it also took place in that roundtable discussion.

Comment from: T Campbell posted at October 20, 2005 9:55 AM

"Would it be nice if there was an institution dedicated to examining and lifting up webcomics to the world? Yes. Should webcomics itself be doing it? No. At least, that's MY opinion."

This comment of Scott's actually begs a huge concern of mine. But on the other hand, Kris has frequently denounced those pretentious fellows who try to use long sentences and citations to compensate for their lack of understanding.

Once you eliminate those who have done webcomics and those who do not understand webcomics, who's left? Theoretically, prominent, competent people who know webcomics well but have no interest in creating them.

Name five of those people.

Most critics are writers or wannabe writers of the thing they criticize. That's not a situation unique to webcomics, but the coziness of the medium means the social spheres overlap.

Scott seems to feel like discomfort with being criticized is unique to him. It's not. I blush every time I'm praised and blanch every time I'm criticized. ("T Campbell, he's... you know, he's..." WHAT, Scott? He's WHAT???) But criticisms like these-- and The History of Webcomics-- and all the rest of the examination out there-- is not for me. It's for people who are trying to grok this thing.

It's not for you, Scott. It's ABOUT you.

And as long as you are successful, people will be interested in figuring out why.

You can't have the fame without the microscope.

(This is all concept, incidentally. I'm far less sure of myself when it comes to discussing the Examiner's execution, including my own part in it. But concept is where the discussion began.)

Comment from: Christopher B. Wright posted at October 20, 2005 10:00 AM

Well John, that doesn't actually contradict what I'm saying. I was reacting against the idea that Eric seemed to float out (but then partially took back) that an artist isn't qualified to talk about his or her own work when it comes to criticism. I'm not sure Eric meant it quite that harshly, but I've met other critics who HAVE, and it doesn't fly.

If the artist is seeking merely to entertain, then that's pretty much the point. Anything else coming out of it is incidental -- which doesn't make anything else coming out of it unimportant or not worth noting, but I'd certainly think the artist should be allowed some input on the "meaning" behind their work, instead of being dismissed as "just that guy, you know, who did the thing, and should now get out of our way while WE decide how it is important..."

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at October 20, 2005 10:07 AM

Well John, that doesn't actually contradict what I'm saying. I was reacting against the idea that Eric seemed to float out (but then partially took back) that an artist isn't qualified to talk about his or her own work when it comes to criticism. I'm not sure Eric meant it quite that harshly, but I've met other critics who HAVE, and it doesn't fly.

Let me make it explicit -- an artist can be a critic of their own work, and their work can certainly be as valid as anyone else's. Period.

My point is, the artist's interpretation is not the controlling interpretation. It's no more valid than anyone else's. It all comes back to what you can support.

Comment from: Christopher B. Wright posted at October 20, 2005 10:13 AM

A student of Foucault, are you? :)

Comment from: John Lynch posted at October 20, 2005 10:19 AM

Eric said "My point is, the artist's interpretation is not the controlling interpretation. It's no more valid than anyone else's. It all comes back to what you can support."

While that might be true under the theory of New Criticism and true for those who follow it, I think your average person is more inclined to listen to the author then a critic on what meaning was in a piece of work.

Everyone has an opinion, different people have different opinions and some people will be more inclined to listen to one particular person over others. I'm more inclined to listen to the author on what meaning is in a piece of work. I'll listen to a critic on whether or not they succeeded, but I'm not likely to listen to them on symbolism or meaning that the author says they didn't put into it. But that's just my preference. Everyone's different.

Comment from: 32_footsteps posted at October 20, 2005 10:27 AM

Wow, so much for me to pick at...

"Criticism isn't journalism."

Not inherently, Eric, but it sounds almost like you're making the two mutually exclusive. Criticism needs facts to back up its opinions, as you say, and quite often real journalism skills are required to help that. Moreover, sometimes when writing journalism you need to apply a critical eye to determine which information needs to be processed into an article. The two disciplines are intertwined much more than practitioners of either often want to admit.

"It's impossible to be objective when rendering a critique, and if you're not objective, your critique, interpretation or review is flawed and very likely worthless."

I've seen people throw that at me so often of late it drives me nuts. Generally, that statement is a code for saying, "you don't agree with my opinion; therefore, you must be wrong."

"In my opinion it only serves to falsely elevate the reviewers to some lofty status."

Scott, given the general consensus of critics is that their status is "pond scum, but with a rose smell," I think we could use a little elevations into something higher.

"PvP and Penny-Arcade are not forms of literature that can stand up to the levels of academic review that these reviewers need to properly define themselves as connoisseurs of "the future of comics." You can't get blood out of a turnip."

But you can get some tasty turnip puree, Scott.

I'm sure plenty of authors would have said the same about their work at the time they made it. I seriously doubt Rabelais, back in the 13th century, thought his collection of ribald tales and silly puns would be worth any serious consideration. It's pretty clear that his purpose behind Gargantua and Pantagruel was to entertain people and get them reading. Oh, and to indulge his appetite for puns. (Especially clear if you read the book's foreword.) However, it does merit serious discussion today - I did back when I was earning my degree.

Heck, since someone brought up Moby-Dick, it's worth noting that Melville didn't think the book was symbolic at all until it was pointed out to him. Just as Scott didn't see all the symbolism of the Skull plushie at first. Which ultimately leads me to believe that PvP is much more worthy of intellectual analysis than Kurtz realizes.

"Do we care what Shakespeare or Picasso's contempories thought of them? or do we judge their works by their own merit?"

Actually, I've had to read critical essays by contemporaries of works studied in class back when I was in school. As much as I wasn't enjoying letters about Les Liaisons Dangereuses (oh by, letters about a book in the form of letters), I appreciated the purpose behind it, to better understand the work in the context of its day.

Though all this does make me wonder about my own critical style. I obviously have one, I know that much for certain. I guess it's an adaptation of modern literary criticism, altered to fits the particulars of video gaming. With a healthy dose of 16th century French essay writing care of Chateaubriand, mixed with a knowledge of the failures inherent in New Journalism (which was a going fad in video gaming for a few months).

Comment from: Nate posted at October 20, 2005 10:44 AM

In regular paper pamphlet comics, one thing I've seen mentioned by a number of writers is, essentially "every fan thinks they could do your job." Everybody wants to write Superman, or Batman, or whatever. (Of course, given the quality of some of the stories that have been published, I can't say the fans are completely wrong in this.)

In webcomics, it's the same, only moreso. Anybody can go grab a keenspace account and upload scribbles, or clip art, or photographs with captions added. There is essentially no line between "fan" and "creator" because the barriers to entry are so low. So you're going to find very few people who care enough about webcomics to read them and critique them and don't care enough to think about trying their hand at it. Even if it's just a randomly updated bit of strangeness made in ComicChat.

So you can't really disqualify someone's criticism because of that. And even if they haven't made a comic now, if they hang around posting regularly, chances are they'll look at all the things that work, get ideas of their own, and bump into people who can help them make it.

Even if webcomics go "mainstream", that'll still probably be there. There's little difficulty in finding somewhere to host image files, so there'll always be plenty of "hobbyists" in webcomics. And those are the people most likely to be trying to find out what the good ones did that made them good, and how to get better. So one of the main audiences for this kind of discussion.

Comment from: William_G posted at October 20, 2005 10:46 AM

How do I do blockquotes?

Ah, who cares...

"In comments at Comixpedia and in that infamous review, he seems to me to be saying that everyone who's in it just because we can, without any training or with hope to make a living or without a clear idea of what we're doing (the hobbyists, as one thread at Comixpedia calls us), are screwing things up for the fine artists - because it's us that the mainstream notices, when they notice webcomicdom at all - and (here's the rub) ought to quit."

I suppose this is really my fault for not constantly restating my point until it becomes a nice, easily understood sound bite: "...he seems to me..."

That's what it really comes down to. People making assumptions, filling in the gaps, and basically projecting their insecurities upon me. Hey, that's the internet, I expect that.

What I didn't expect is someone to actally ASK ME instead of hurling accusations at me about my mental and emotional state! Holy, fucking shit! Thanks, Paul!

Let me seperate a few points:

1- Art vs Hobby is a mcguffin of an argument. It's bullshit. Even if you do it as a hobby, comics are art.

2- When the argument came up, hobbiests (is that spelled right) WERE a problem if you want a system where people have to pay for the comic itself instead of the t-shirts being offered along with it. Why pay for something you can get for free? But the webcomic market, such as it is, has settled that argument already. Your comic is nothing more than a pretty sign in front of the t-shirt store. I don't like it, but I accept it.

3- Hobbiests, by their nature, will eventually quit. This is just natural as life's responsibilities pile up on them.

4- Now, here's where I assume your problem with my opinion lies. et me know if I'm off here:

Appealing to the non-nerdy masses... the grannies, the soccer moms, the MP3 downloaders... is doomed for failure because almost no one is making a comic that appeals to the non nerdy masses. We write for ourselves. It's niche programming. People want the webcomic version of... uhm.. I dunno what's popular back home now, so I'll just say American Idol... and what most of us are offering is Queer As Folk.

Okay, clumsy metaphor.

Straub wants us to focus on "...this energy on finding ways to present webcomics to the general public." But there's pretty much nothing they'd be interested in. But that is EXACTLY where all of us horribly pretentious folk are doing, and that's what makes us so fucking important.

If people are out there talking about a wide variety of material like it matters, like it has value, the "mainstream" will start to take notice, and they will start paying attention.

And eventually they will convince themselves that webcomics are worth getting into, just like they did with superhero comics back in the 80s when everyone was talking about them... even if most of them weren't all that good.

But as it stands now, we got people promoting comics like, "This is the best webcomic out there: A 12th level elf and an orc skewer Mircosoft about delays in shipping the new XBOX. They swear, so it's edgy!" and most people don't give a shit about that.

They need to be convinced that there's good material out there. The Examiner does that, and it's becoming quite good at drawing the attention of people who see webcomics as the little people who aren't good enough for a real job in comics.

And the Examiner doesn't talk down to anyone while it's being done, despite what some folks may think.

JESUS ERIC! The "preview" function on this doesnt do line breaks!

Screw it! You get it as is, Paul!

Comment from: Kris@WLP posted at October 20, 2005 10:53 AM

Simple statements:

(1) To me, criticism is nothing more than an examination of how creativity works in practice. Everyone does it- that's how we determine what we like and don't like.

(2) The people who know best how comics work, and how to make them better, are those who work in comics themselves, who have studied the form more intensely and who have put this study into practice.

(3) The same logic which says that webcomic creators make bad webcomic critics because of their bias would have it that plumbers make superior movie critics to movie writers, directors, etc. because of their lack of bias.

and finally

(4) The world at large could not possibly care less about artistic criticism of any sort. Dress it up with as many citations and defensive arguments as you like, a critique is an opinion, nothing more- and everyone has one, and very few people care about anyone else's but their own.

Comment from: Bookworm posted at October 20, 2005 10:57 AM

I just read through the article and comments, and I'd like to point something out that's been overlooked.

Part of the discussion wasn't over the criticism itself, or the advent of critics, or even who is or isn't valid as a critic. It was over the absurdity of the length of the criticism. I've heard eight and fourteen pages given as lengths of actual critiques. That's ridiculous. It's rare that something as full as a stage play gets 8 pages of critiquing, unless it's from the director. Most critics, _writing for the public_ keep their entire articles down to less than what would fit on one double spaced page - and that's for a movie. I'm certain you could easily do the same for a single strip of a web comic.

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at October 20, 2005 11:07 AM

While that might be true under the theory of New Criticism and true for those who follow it, I think your average person is more inclined to listen to the author then a critic on what meaning was in a piece of work.

The "death of Authorial Intent" is pretty common to all modern critical theories. In fact, it's foundational.

Is it intuitive? No, not particularly. But it's how critics have to proceed.

Comment from: Christopher B. Wright posted at October 20, 2005 11:16 AM

Is it intuitive? No, not particularly. But it's how critics have to proceed.

OK, I'll bite. Why?

Comment from: larksilver posted at October 20, 2005 11:18 AM

I think Ursula's got the right idea. We must remember that these guys love webcomics. They're not the critics who hate musicals and for some sick reason continue to immerse themselves in the Broadway scene, with the ensuing consistently harsh reviews to show for it. Rather, these guys love the medium, and the art form.

And yes, it's obvious they're seriously chuffed about being the first (and foremost) members of their community on-scene. So if they get a wee bit carried away, who can blame them? As with so many other things out there.. if you don't like it, or it makes your brain all hurty or you think it's a bit over the top... don't read it, aye?

Someday, as has been said above, this stuff could be the substance of courses in school. It could end up being reference material some English or Art History major will have to sift through. English majors may just eat this stuff up, and be just as excited as the critics who are publishing now, and there's no harm in that. None! The discussion has merit because it matters to the authors, and to those for whom the more in-depth critical analysis resonates.

I enjoy the more.. accessible examination of webcomics that we receive here on websnark immensely. The more academic critiques over yonder, well.. I must admit, they're not (insert Penny Arcade Defense here). But neither is "Dude, Where's My Car?"

Who am I, however, to say that the former, high-brow approach, or the latter, low-brow comedy, aren't valid and appropriate for their target audience? And who is anyone else to make that judgement, either? Hubris is such an unattractive vice.

Comment from: Paul Gadzikowski posted at October 20, 2005 11:22 AM

What I didn't expect is someone to actally ASK ME instead of hurling accusations at me about my mental and emotional state! Holy, fucking shit! Thanks, Paul!

You're welcome. Perhaps I ought've asked sooner. And thanks for the clarification. I think I got it now, and no longer feel persecuted. (I like to think my webcomic has appeal for a broader audience - but I also like to say that it's King Arthur fanfiction. Can it be both? Time will tell.)

Comment from: djcoffman posted at October 20, 2005 11:22 AM

I'm late to the conversation, because I've been trying to think of a way to best relate my thoughts, and how not to spoil a movie in Eric's comments section...

OK.. A very smart writer I've worked for told me something once, he said "If you can DO it, then do it, never "DO ABOUT"." -- Basically saying that I should put 100% of my time an effort into my comics and work. I'd get these flights of fancy about writing a "HOW TO" book or a webcomic news blog, I've had that idea for years! And every time he'd hear me spouting off these crazy exciting ideas, he'd tell me "don't do about." And it just stuck for me and sunk in.

Here's the thing though, i can't discount anyone who's authentically excited about webcomics. Be they a creator, whatever. I came from the realm of the comic book industry, where just about EVERY friggin writer or critic is a failed comic writer, or wannabe of some kind. I think you get that in ANY industry. You kinda have to know the ins and outs of something you're talking about, almost be an authority on what you're talking about... so I have no problem with other creators being critical.

But some really great questions have been raised... does it matter? Who IS if for? The readers? The egos? Who knows... probably different for everyone. I know there are a TON of bitter idiots who've never made it on their own, and seem WAY trollish and bitter about things-- and yeah, those people probably shouldnt be reviewing comics and passsing it off as a fair review of a comic.

I've collected probably 3 people in my head that I love reading about webcomics from. You have to find those sources you trust. And always call a spade a spade.

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at October 20, 2005 11:23 AM

Part of the discussion wasn't over the criticism itself, or the advent of critics, or even who is or isn't valid as a critic. It was over the absurdity of the length of the criticism. I've heard eight and fourteen pages given as lengths of actual critiques.

Hm. How to be diplomatic.

Hmmm....

Well, let me just put it this way. The length of a critique, essay or interpretation should be wholly determined by the depth of the thesis and the required citable material to support the thesis. Period. If you only have enough evidence for a page and a half, two pages is guiding the lily. If you have fifty pages worth of interpretation and evidence, then forty-eight pages is insufficient.

When you get into Close Reading, wordcounts explode, it's worth noting. Jacques Derrida's close reading of Ulysses, entitled Ulysses Gramophone, once devoted eighty pages -- eighty pages -- to supporting Derrida's intepretation of a single use of the word "yes" in the text.

It is worth noting that even New Critics felt that was... perhaps excessive, however.

Anyway -- the concept that there's a word count limit on what we can "possibly" write in interpreting a webcomic is one I wouldn't just oppose but vehemently oppose. I'll write as much as I want on any given topic.

You, of course, are free to say "wow, he's really overwritten this," and not read it. Of course. ;)

Comment from: 32_footsteps posted at October 20, 2005 11:24 AM

Ah, cracks on word count. Even more familiar territory.

I think it's an incredible disservice to a writer to complain about word/page count. Word count is something dictated by editors to put as many different types of pieces into a limited space as possible.

However, on the web, we have as much real estate as we want. When Scott McCloud spoke of the Internet and the Infinite Canvas, he meant it for more than just webcomics. He meant it for everyone who produced an artistic work on the web, and that includes critics.

(There's a beautiful irony in that Eric has been less than entheused by infinite canvas when his own writing, without cuts, is a vibrant example of infinite canvas in action.)

A critic on the web has only the boundaries they put upon themselves. We no longer have to submit to the tyrrany of column inches.

Comment from: Robotech_Master posted at October 20, 2005 11:25 AM

Hey, Eric, you know what you ought to do? You ought to use one of those "create your own web personality quiz" pages to create a "to what school of criticism do you subscribe?" quiz. Might serve as a good method of introducing folks to the various schools of criticism and what they mean.

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at October 20, 2005 11:31 AM

OK, I'll bite. Why?

Because lacking telepathy or prognostication, we cannot know the mind of the author. Because an author's intent might not reflect the work he's created. Because taking anything other than the evidence as foundational to a given work leaves the study of literature and enters the realm of faith. Because what a person does unconsciously or inadvertantly in the production of work still has value, can still be interpreted, and can still have meaning to a reader.

And if something in the text can have value, is capable of interpretation, and can have meaning to a reader, it becomes a necessary component to a critic attempting to interpret the work.

The author saying "but I didn't mean that" can't control. When an author finishes and publishes a work, and releases it into the world, he is exposing it to other people. Those people neither have the responsibility nor the capacity to know the author's mind as they read, and when their response differs from the author's intent that response remains legitimate. It is the response they have to a work they're reading. The author doesn't get to tell them they're wrong for how they respond to his work.

The only way that can work, in a critical environment, is to base critical validity on what can be supported.

Is it possible to take statements of intent on the author's part and use it as evidence to support a thesis? Of course. But that doesn't create a controlling thesis compared to a work that supports an antithesis with stronger evidence from the work in question. "That may be what the author intended, but it's not what's on the page" has to be legitimate, or criticism fails at the gate.

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at October 20, 2005 11:34 AM

Hey, Eric, you know what you ought to do? You ought to use one of those "create your own web personality quiz" pages to create a "to what school of criticism do you subscribe?" quiz. Might serve as a good method of introducing folks to the various schools of criticism and what they mean.

R_M -- I'm nowhere near that good a programmer, theorist or philosopher.

But Snowspinner might be a good person to ping. ;)

Comment from: fuz posted at October 20, 2005 11:48 AM

I must quibble with this:

"The critical dialogue can survive disagreement. Hell, it thrives on it. The one thing it can't endure is the implication that those people over there can't be critics."

It clearly can endure that implication. This very essay is evidence to that effect.

What the dialogue could not survive would be a preponderance of the potential participants disbelieving the validity of the dialogue. I think you presented a stirring and impassioned defence of the dialogue, which I seem to completely agree with. It appears that most people who read websnark agree with you. Which is, if you think about it, not terribly surprising. We've already voted with our browsers.

Tangent: I am fascinated by your passing discussions of schools of literary theory. I would like to learn more of this. You told R_M you weren't that good a theorist, which I must passionately disagree with, but that aside, who do you think is a good theorist, so that I can go and read them?

Comment from: Snowspinner posted at October 20, 2005 11:55 AM

I actually long ago made , but it limits itself almost exclusively to postmodernism, and is about theory, not criticism (Which is a difference that this thread mercifully hasn't begun to touch on yet).

I'll work up a school of litcrit one sometime when I'm not drowning in stuff that needs written this week. Or, more likely, when I'm just pissed off at the stuff that needs written this week.

Oh, and the authorial intent thing - the tide is shifting there. Most notably, Stanley Fish, who's the highest paid academic in America, sometimes with reason, is a firm advocate for authorial intent now - although he doesn't think advocating authorial intent actually answers the question of how one goes about interpreting a text - he just uses it to answer "what is the meanng of a text." How one goes about discerning that meaning is an open question.

But also, a lot of the more politically charged criticisms - Marxism, post-colonial, even psychoanalytic depend on the text as an attempt to communicate. And as such, who the speaker is and why they might be saying what they're saying become very relevent.

Comment from: A.G. Hopkins posted at October 20, 2005 11:56 AM

I find it interesting that Kurtz dismisses the "review" after jumping ship halfway through. If we tried to critique a strip, especially if we dissed it, and had only read the first half, there'd be no credibility at all.
Just a note Scott, it wasn't a review. They were discussing why they thought your work had influence on others.
The reason it seemed long was because each person had something to say about that.
As has been pointed out, your opinion on this issue isn't relevant. They each believe you were influential, for the reasons mentioned in the article, which is all that matters for the purposes of the article.

Ursula nailed it. We do this because we love the medium. Whether we do it well or not is open to discussion.

For the record, I'm not an artist, nor have I ever written a webcomic or fanfic. I don't 'dream' of doing a webcomic, as I know my talents, and what I am incapable of doing. To say I wouldn't enjoy it would, of course, be disingenuous, but I'm realistic.
I participate because I enjoy the artform. I'm not particularly well educated in artistic criticism, I'm just reasonably capable of clearly expressing my opinions.

I'm glad to see that at least some people actually enjoy the work. That's enough for me to keep doing it.

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at October 20, 2005 12:20 PM

fuz -- thank you. ;)

I am fascinated by your passing discussions of schools of literary theory. I would like to learn more of this. You told R_M you weren't that good a theorist, which I must passionately disagree with, but that aside, who do you think is a good theorist, so that I can go and read them?

First off, it's worth acknowledging the possibility that, seeing my own failings as a theorist, I'm not any more objective about my strengths in that field than Scott Kurtz is about his significance to the medium of (web)comics art. ;)

However, I believe that theory I know I apply well. Or, at least well enough to publish on the web. However, I'm not nearly strong enough in Structuralism, Post-Structuralism, Deconstructionism, Linguistic Critical Theory, New Historicism or several of the political theories to call myself a strong theorist. I think I am strong enough in New Criticism, Myth Criticism, Jungian Criticism, traditional Historicism and good old fashioned Estheticism to be a good critic. However, as Snowspinner mentioned in another post, there is a significant difference between actual literary criticism and critical theory.

(In short, Critical Theory is the philosophy of criticism. And, like all good philosophy, it actually has very little to do with the real world of interpretation and criticism.)

Comment from: Snowspinner posted at October 20, 2005 12:27 PM

Oh, bother - I botched the HTML posting this, which is the closest to a criticism quiz that I've already made.

Comment from: Nate posted at October 20, 2005 12:33 PM

See Eric's list of lines of criticism up there? That's why my motto, which I should start putting on my LJ snarkposts, is "Fanboy first, critic second." I didn't even know there were that many schools of criticism. Me, I go for the "I like this because..." or "I don't like this because..."

I guess this is why Eric has the famous high paying weblog, and I just have an LJ. :)

Comment from: Snowspinner posted at October 20, 2005 12:40 PM

Yeah! Eric has a weblog, Nate has a LJ, and I have tens of thousands of dollars in student loans!

Comment from: Scott Kurtz posted at October 20, 2005 12:57 PM

Okay Eric, I'm about to be a little unkind.
you said:

"Scott thought that was cool, but also mentioned that what he intended was for the Skull plushie to be the daughter's security blanket. She was nervous, asking that question, so she hugged it close to herself.

(Note that this example also highlights how good the daughter's characterization has been.)

It's not that Scott was wrong, and the daughter didn't treat it as a security blanket. But because Scott knew what he intended when he drew that part, he can't distance himself to see what else might be there. That doesn't mean I'm wrong, any more than he is -- but it's harder for him to have a general interpretation of his own work because he has a clear understanding of his own intent."

It's not that Scott was WRONG? This is what I'm talking about when I mention the pretentiousness of the webcomics examiner.

I wasn't wrong, Eric. You were. Your interpretation, you analysis, our examination was off the mark. That's not what I meant. And when I told you that, all you could do was tell me that my way "worked too."

Wrong. YOUR way works too. But you're not the author of the works. I am. I know exactly what the message is. You don't need to mine the art for some hidden subtext. Especially considering that I'm not dead, and I'm easily accessible to you.

You didn't ask me "Did you mean to do this." You informed me of the symbolism you discovered. That's pretentious, dude. That's not insightful.

To me, the examiner comes off as serving one purpose: showing how YOU guys have figured out FIRST that webcomics are this deep, complex art form of the future. It's not about improving things, or presenting comics to new people or looking at webcomics through the eyes of academic review. It's all about you.

You said it in your snark. One day people will examine the roots of webcomics and the examiner will be there.

Look at William G's rant where he flipps out about the podcasts. I'm the forrest gump to the examiner's well read and critical thinking intellectuals.

People tell me I have a huge ego. I'm here telling you that I'm not the big-shit you guys are making out. And you're STILL kicking my ass????

So now I'm egotistical for insisting that I'm not the king of the internet.

Comment from: Snowspinner posted at October 20, 2005 1:13 PM

(Ooh! I get to lash out at Scott Kurtz! FANBOI DREAM!)

And here's the problem - the same one I criticized JSW for above. Scott, you're right only if the comic is some sort of Pure and Holy communication, whereby what goes on in your brain lands on the page perfectly, and emerges from the page into my brain with similar perfection. But it's not - there's a layer of translation that is happening from ideas in your head to page, and another one from page to my head. And other than a sentimental attachment to the allmighty and visionary Artist, there's no particular reason to decide that your translation went perfectly - in fact, there's perfectly good reason to decide it didn't.

After all, looking at the comic, it's clear that the paralleling of the daughter and of Skull is in the comic. It's there on the page, clear as day. If it wasn't part of what you were putting into the comic, that's all well and good, but it's just as clearly your error for letting it get in there when you didn't mean for it to be there as it is Eric's for noticing it.

Which is not to say "Scott Kurtz sucks for not perfectly realizing his artistic vision," but rather to say that the notion of who's more or less right here is silly, because it assumes that the translation from mind to page or page to mind is somehow better, more accurate, more transcendent, or whatever. And it's not. It's just communication. Communication can't happen without a sender and recipient, and they're both equally important to the process happening.

Comment from: William_G posted at October 20, 2005 1:48 PM

Ah, sweet insecurity...

To me, the examiner comes off as serving one purpose: showing how YOU guys have figured out FIRST that webcomics are this deep, complex art form of the future.

The Examiner wasn't the first to figure out that webcomics are a deep complex art form of the future. Best I can remember, that would be "I Can't Stop Thinking!" by some guy named McCloud.

The simple fact of the matter is that MANY people saw the potential of webcomics, and they had been commenting on it for quite some time before the Examiner's arrival. The Examiner, even if it had been created by an entirely different group of people, would have still come into being. And only because that's the natural evolution of a medium.

"It's not about improving things..."

As I stated above, the Examiner IS improving things, as is every last single webcomics blog, as are the WCCAs for that matter...Because they are making noise about, and giving respect to a medium you seem to be ashamed you're making your coin from.

And people outside of our little world ARE noticing because people are talking. That NYT article didn't come out of nowhere, and it certainly didnt come the first day PvP got over 100,000 UIPs. Someone had to talk about it first, and other people had to take notice.

It's called "buzz" Scott, and I'm shocked that a man who prides himself on his business saavy doesnt recognize that.

or presenting comics to new people
You're saying that you were a regular reader of EVERY last webcomic reviwed in the Examiner? That you never looked at a review of something and went, "Huh? what's this comic?"

You must have a fair bit of free time to stay so on top of webcomics like that. You should start a review site, then.

looking at webcomics through the eyes of academic review
So what was the point of all of the academic approach?

It's all about you.
Okay then... prove it. Show me Joe Zabel's top secret notes where he said, "Now the world shall know the name of Zabel and monunments shall be raised in my honour all across the internet!"

Well?

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at October 20, 2005 1:58 PM

I wasn't wrong, Eric. You were. Your interpretation, you analysis, our examination was off the mark. That's not what I meant. And when I told you that, all you could do was tell me that my way "worked too."

Wrong. YOUR way works too. But you're not the author of the works. I am. I know exactly what the message is. You don't need to mine the art for some hidden subtext. Especially considering that I'm not dead, and I'm easily accessible to you.

Well, what you know is the intent of the message. Which is not necessarily what a reader's response will be.

The point is, you can't dictate how a reader responds to your work. You can try your level best to convey a specific intent in your work, but once it goes out there, readers are going to see what they see in it. They're not going to necessarily see what you intended.

When I say your intent "works too," what I mean is "yeah -- I can see that. You conveyed that. I can see that." I don't mean to affirm whether that was or not your intent. It was your intent. I accept your word on that. You were there when you did it. ;)

However, that doesn't mean it's what I saw when I read it.

This is why authorial intent can't control -- and why you and I can both be right, but I'm not "wrong" for seeing it differently. Because my honest reaction -- my honest understanding of the comic strip I see before me -- isn't wrong. It is in fact what I saw when I read the strip. And by building that into a thesis and supporting it, I can show how I came to that conclusion.

Let's take a hypothetical example. Let's say your intent, in having the daughter lift the Skull plushie, was feeling a physical sense of fear -- she wanted Skull to protect her from the big mean Dad. And let's say you told me that was your intent -- not that she was insecure or nervous or scared of what Brent might say, but that she physically was scared he might attack her.

(I am in no way saying that was your intent, by the by. This, I reinforce, is a hypothetical.)

If you told me that, I'd look at it again and say "well, that might have been your intent, but that's not what's on the page. I can't see it. Sorry. Guess you didn't pull it off."

By agreeing I could see how the passage could work as you intended it to, I'm affirming that you pulled it off. That is certainly easily interpretable. And if someone else were to write an essay about it, they could certainly point to your statement as supporting evidence.

However, that doesn't change the fact that when I read the strip, that wasn't my response. And that doesn't make my interpretation of that response wrong. And, by being able to demonstrate through evidence the reasons for my evidence, I'm able to show support for my interpretation.

You, as the author, don't get to tell me I responded differently than I actually did. You only get to hope I'll respond the way you want. And sometimes, someone's response will blow you away, because they saw tons of stuff you never intended in your comic. And if they can support what they've seen, if they can show evidence of it... then maybe, just maybe your comic's deeper than you initially thought.

Which, if you get right down to it, is amazingly cool.

Finally... the question of pretentiousness.

I submit that the idea that there is one and only one meaning to a creative work is pretentious.

The idea that anyone who can find meaning in the work and support it, whether it's what the author intended or not, is innately democratic. It says that each and every reader gets to have his or her own response to the work. And if they can all support those responses, from a critical standpoint they're all right.

It's a philosophical point, to be certain. But I can't agree that it's pretentious, because by its definition it means everyone gets to be right.

Comment from: 32_footsteps posted at October 20, 2005 2:00 PM

Okay, Scott, how can you say Eric was wrong in his interpretation when you say his way works too?

But to some extent, you're right Scott. Criticism often is all about the critics who write it. It takes a huge ego to think that your criticism is somehow much more valid than that of anyone else. It takes a huge amount of ego to think that you could speak for someone else. Even the most self-depricating amongst us in the critic's fraternity sincerely believe that they're doing it because they're the only ones who can, and it should be read.

Maybe it's my own ego talking, but I think that doesn't make it any less important, though. You might think that every word I've ever written is complete and utter bullshit, and that might in fact be true. (I'm egotistical, but I do at least try to be honest to myself.) However, if someone gets something from my writing (just as if someone gets something from your comic), then it was all worthwhile and not just an exercise in emotional masturbation.

If they in fact have written their pieces at the Webcomics Examiner just for themselves and their own egos, then it's pretentious. But if even one person outside of that circle got something out of it,then their pretentions have been fulfilled - they did write to add to the record about comics and added something to it.

Finally, if hubris is so unattractive, why do so many people flaunt it and grab for more?

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at October 20, 2005 2:00 PM

William unt Scott alike -- be careful to debate the topic and not each other. Remember, you only get to insult me on here. ;)

Comment from: Robotech_Master posted at October 20, 2005 2:00 PM

Art is kind of like a Rorschach ink blot.

When Rorschach made his ink blots, was he intending to make a butterfly, a skull, or whatever else people see when they look at them? No, he was intending to make an ink blot. That doesn't make someone else seeing a butterfly or skull invalid—for that person. In fact, that person describing what he sees and why he sees it that way is the whole point of the test.

Likewise, people see stuff in art that the artist never intended to put there all the time. Sometimes it may be a result of subconscious intent on the part of the artist; sometimes it may just be a result of the mindset of the audience being different enough from the artist to see these things in different ways. That doesn't make either of their viewpoints "wrong."

Scott might see Skull's presence there as a security blanket. Eric might see it as symbolic of the girl's resonance to Skull. I might see it as a cute instance of product placement for the plushies Scott sells through his website. And our viewpoints are all correct.

Criticism, as I understand it, is not meant to say what the artist meant when he made the work of art. It's meant to say what the work of art means to the critic, and why. In that respect, it's impossible for anyone's criticism to be "wrong." An artist can't tell a critic what the critic thinks. He can say, "That's not what I had in mind when I created the art," but he can only control what he puts into it—not what other people take out of it.

Criticism is useful to the audience because often seeing what other people saw in a work can cause you to reconsider and think more deeply about what you yourself saw in the work. It is useful to the artist because he can see how successful he was in conveying what he intended to convey, so he can revise his approach if necessary—and it might even show him things that he didn't realize he meant to say. Or not.

At least, that's the way I see it. I could be wrong—for you. But I'm not for me!

Comment from: William_G posted at October 20, 2005 2:32 PM

William unt Scott alike -- be careful to debate the topic and not each other. Remember, you only get to insult me on here. ;)

DAMN YOU TO HELL, MR. LADYBOY!!

(All apologies to Ryan Estrada, the original Mr. Ladyboy)

Comment from: Ian K. posted at October 20, 2005 2:44 PM

Straub said I'm definitely not saying criticism is full of shit, nor am I saying that Webcomics Examiner is full of shit. I suppose the message of MHA is, "in criticism, there is a lot of room to hide shit, and you have to be careful."

And I think there may be more citations for this being true than for me being short.

Rock out, Kris.

I have to agree with all the negative things being said here about webcomics criticism/the Webcomics Examiner not as true but as potential dangers.

Equally, they're necessary dangers. It's really easy to just go off pretentiously and in a solum loquacious manner about anything art related and never accomplish anything. Most critiques of Picasso are really just saying "it's nice work, if you like blue," likewise a lot of the stuff said about PVP is really just saying "Apparently lots of people think it's funny. Let's guess about why." It's hard to find the critique explaining that Scott has managed to couch an occassionally compelling story inside of archetypical characters using the neuro-associative conditioning of the pop-culture in the eighties to achieve cultural resonance with his readership.

It is often the case that pages upon pages of feculent words must be slogged through before finding something like that, which might also still be feculent and then, in the case of the Webcomics Examiner (for me) there are writers whose tone I just don't like. I'll skim a paragraph and say to myself, "I wish Eric had written that so I could bear to read it."

Thank you, Eric, for presenting this as both a site for critique which I enjoy reading and also as a forum where I can participate in decent conversation without feeling like an asshat fanboy.

Also, since no one has insulted you yet, you are a doodiebrain... sorry, I can't reference solum loquacity without also saying "doodiebrain."

Comment from: Kristofer Straub posted at October 20, 2005 2:57 PM

My point is, the artist's interpretation is not the controlling interpretation. It's no more valid than anyone else's. It all comes back to what you can support.

Man, I just don't know if I can get behind that. I think that individuals can interpret for themselves, and that that is valid for themselves, but I have a hard time believing that one pedophile's belief that the current PVP Brent-meets-his-daughter storyline is a veiled reference to Brent's pedophilic leanings, and that the lifted Skull plush is semiotic code for consensual statutory rape, is as much a part of the work as Scott's own "she was scared."

That is allowed to be that guy's own interpretation for himself, and it would be interesting if he could find enough material there for a paper, but should "Brent is a pedophile" now fully enter the discourse?

Now let's move on from hypotheticals like that. Eric, you say it is pretentious to maintain there is one "true" interpretation of a work. I can see that, and I agree -- even if I think the artist's own interpr