I have complained about The Comics Journal in print before and I maintain my position on that: I have yet to receive an issue that has much of anything I consider worthwhile. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate being turned-on to new artists and ideas, but most of the artists and ideas featured in TCJ are long-dead, foreign, completely obscure, and almost totally unavailable to me in any other format... so, like, why the hell do I care?
Bud Plant echoed my sentiments exactly several months back in the letters column, but I guess we're both being ignored by the good Mr. Groth, whose tastes have always veered toward the very old and very obscure. Yes, yes, these are some very subversive works; yes, yes, it is important to support independents and recognize their points of view; but the result is that TCJ is just as bad in the opposite direction as Groth and its supporters claim the mainstream comics slicks are in the other: they have a complete dearth of superhero and mainstream comics coverage in favor of nothing but ashcan, foreign, and indie pap. Just completely out of touch with the fanbase.
But I can deduct it from my taxes, so I keep giving it "one more month." But a few months back, I added a new glossy to my order, Comics Buyer's Guide, the longest-running, true authority on mainstream American comics. CBG was started by a cat in his basement back in 1971 (same guy who organized the first comics convention, IIRC) and the last copy I saw or received was back when they used to be in newspaper format (I'm friggin' OLD!). Since then, that guy has died (if it is the same guy I'm thinking it was), many comics companies have come and gone, new formats and processes have sprung to life, and CBG has adopted a full-color magazine format.
And it is plain-old chockful of information. I mean new comics, current comics, past comics, upcoming and past events, comics history and futures, people, places, things, events, ideas - the whole shebang. And where TCJ eschews the mainstream comics and superheroes altogether (unless they're lesbian superheroines possessed of indefinable powers drawn by gay Republicans who live in Oregon), CBG turns not a blind eye to anything in Comicdom; true, it's concerned primarily with what hits the American newsstands, but, like, uh, that's the market!
All told - and mind you, I like Gary Groth (theoretically, I don't know that I've ever met him and, if I have, I didn't know who he was when I did) and I love Fantagraphics - I have nearly an entire year's run of TCJ and have read a single issue (though I do read the news items at the front each month); I received my first copy of CBG on the 10th and read it cover-to-cover in one sitting.
The More You Know...
Bud Plant echoed my sentiments exactly several months back in the letters column, but I guess we're both being ignored by the good Mr. Groth, whose tastes have always veered toward the very old and very obscure. Yes, yes, these are some very subversive works; yes, yes, it is important to support independents and recognize their points of view; but the result is that TCJ is just as bad in the opposite direction as Groth and its supporters claim the mainstream comics slicks are in the other: they have a complete dearth of superhero and mainstream comics coverage in favor of nothing but ashcan, foreign, and indie pap. Just completely out of touch with the fanbase.
But I can deduct it from my taxes, so I keep giving it "one more month." But a few months back, I added a new glossy to my order, Comics Buyer's Guide, the longest-running, true authority on mainstream American comics. CBG was started by a cat in his basement back in 1971 (same guy who organized the first comics convention, IIRC) and the last copy I saw or received was back when they used to be in newspaper format (I'm friggin' OLD!). Since then, that guy has died (if it is the same guy I'm thinking it was), many comics companies have come and gone, new formats and processes have sprung to life, and CBG has adopted a full-color magazine format.
And it is plain-old chockful of information. I mean new comics, current comics, past comics, upcoming and past events, comics history and futures, people, places, things, events, ideas - the whole shebang. And where TCJ eschews the mainstream comics and superheroes altogether (unless they're lesbian superheroines possessed of indefinable powers drawn by gay Republicans who live in Oregon), CBG turns not a blind eye to anything in Comicdom; true, it's concerned primarily with what hits the American newsstands, but, like, uh, that's the market!
All told - and mind you, I like Gary Groth (theoretically, I don't know that I've ever met him and, if I have, I didn't know who he was when I did) and I love Fantagraphics - I have nearly an entire year's run of TCJ and have read a single issue (though I do read the news items at the front each month); I received my first copy of CBG on the 10th and read it cover-to-cover in one sitting.
The More You Know...
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