Philosophy and The Comics Journal

If you're not a comics creator or a really hardcore fan of sequential art in general, you don't need The Comics Journal (TCJ). You just don't. It's the independent underground fanzine of independent underground comic books - most of which are total shit, which is why they forever remain independent and underground.

That may sound harsh to you - reading it aloud, it sounds pretty harsh to me - but it's true, it's damn true. The vast majority of their comics have two things in common: they're autobiographical and the art is just plain awful. 90% of them look like any 4^th-grader's entry into the 24-Hour Comic Book Contest and you'd literally think they were done by kids, until you read the story. The story for 90% of them focuses on one (or more) of three things: WWII, homosexuality, and just plain sex and drugs in general. I have nothing against any of these subjects, but let's face it: there's a whole world out there, so why is it that 90% of these independent underground comics deal with the same 2-3 issues and do so so incredibly poorly? And why is it the TCJ gives them any credence whatsoever, much less dedicates issue after issue to them? In fact, pretty much everything I think about TCJ is summed up by Bud Plant in a letter at the very front of the latest issue.

At any rate, TCJ is a great magazine if you are really into comic books - and/or a writer/artist of your own underground zine which you self-publish. And, at $9.95 an issue, the real audience of this magazine can't afford it.

That being said, I'm flipping through page after page of artwork that basically looks like someone put a pencil in their butt and drew on a dare, page after page of "Who's-Its," "Never-Wases," and "Never-Will-Bes" and I come to the end of the whole book. But wait! There's one last article that has no art whatsoever (and there were a lot of pages of really good comic strips from the early, early days - think 1920s-30s) and I was slightly intrigued.

It was by a former professor of Philosophy named Kenneth Smith (I believe - if I have that wrong it's because I don't have the magazine near me now to double-check) and it blew me right away! I don't know if Dr. Smith has read my works online, here or elsewhere, or overheard me after a few too many in some random bar, club, con, or shake joint, but he literally took the words right out of my mouth... well, and an Oxford Dictionary. He basically summed-up pretty much everything I have said about the media, the government, and current society - and even managed to subtly mention a return of the Aristocratic class (yes, I... I tend to leave that bit out because it just causes a stir amongst others who - like I and Dr. Smith say - are just too damned stupid to argue with on any real level and so will likely resort to violence to make their "point," which is that they're too stupid to be a member, so they hate it and you shut up, Mr. Smartypants!). In fact, he even calls the vast majority of society "retardates," which I love! It sounds so much more doctorly and smartypantsed than "buncha effing 'tards."

TCJ did have a pretty in-depth and insightful article on Marvel's Civil War (which I'm not reading, by the way) and Ed Brubaker was mentioned in many folks' top-ten lists for Daredevil, but aside from those and a few choice bits here and there, the majority of the issue was dedicated to porn (Lost Girls, in particular) and just shit, underground comics about lesbians and lesbians with agendas and aimless lesbians and politically-active lesbians and lesbians who had to hide their homosexuality growing up and then discovered themselves in college and then some stuff about WWII... yeah, you know, Mr. Groth, if that stuff is so antiestablishmentarianist and avant-garde, why is that stuff the only subjects all of these independent, underground comics with shitty art focus on?

I'm just asking.

And if you don't know Gary Groth, number one, you should, and number two, this definitely is not the magazine for you. Still, at a whopping $10.00 an issue, if I wanted a porno rag, I'd have bought one with real people... hell, I'd have bought a PPV movie! I don't mind the black and white print (there are also a lot of full-color pages which balance it out anyway) and I love the real paper and not the slick paper of the modern comics, and it's certainly a hefty mag with not too many ads, but for $10.00, I could use a little more... quality art and artists.

I'm not asking for wall-to-wall (he said, tongue firmly in... cheek) superhero action or anything, but just like Mr. Plant said: there are a whole lot of us out here who really love superheroes - even horror, sci-fi, and other genres! While I really appreciate the focus on independent comics, maybe you could find some that don't suck... or is it that in keeping with the all-porn-all-the-time theme?

Kenneth Smith's article alone was worth the price of admission, though, and all of the articles I read were very well-written and insightful. And don't get me wrong - as I feel forced to say every, single time I mention pornography - there is a place for porn and I don't mind it, but a little goes a long way and something like 3-4 articles on Lost Girls in the same issue is... overkill.