/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.3580944]

High art? Yay or nay?

[Anonymous No.3580946]

nay
but it's still a good read

[Anonymous No.3580950]

There are better comics.

[Anonymous No.3580952]

God, no.

[Anonymous No.3580972]

>>3580944
Gonna go nay on this one. I'm a fan, but I would't put it in the category of high art. I'd call it a classic piece of literature though, along with Maus, Sandman, and Black Hole. I'd also claim that some of the best comics published in recent history are much better than most other art created in recent history. So personally, when it comes to high art, I would put the medium of comic books above modern painting, photography, sculpture, etc. As far as lit goes though, regarding watchmen.... eh.

[Anonymous No.3581005]

>>3580972
>Sandman
>remotely in the same league as Watchmen and Maus (haven't read the other one)

no taste confirmed

[Anonymous No.3581021]

What do you guys think of comics? Any writers you're fond of?

[Anonymous No.3581026]

>>3581005
You're hilariously wrong.

[Anonymous No.3581028]

>>3581005
Sandman is the most ambitious, most intelligent and most accomplished comic I've ever read, though admittedly I'm not THAT well-versed in the medium. Sheer brilliance, though.

[Anonymous No.3581030]

>>3581021
Hergé.

I'm not sure if he was good, but I love him

[Anonymous No.3581032]

>>3581021
I read "history of violence" today
writing was pretty bad and full of grammar mistakes, but them pen drawings

[Anonymous No.3581033]

Sandman is a comic for people who hate comics.

[Anonymous No.3581106]

>>3581021

Grant Morrison, particularly his run on Doom Patrol.

[Anonymous No.3581123]

It's interesting how I've seen poignant and excellent excerpts from all genres and mediums posted here EXCEPT comic books.

It's beyond me how you faggots can lap up garbage like >>3581106 and beg for seconds.

I suppose there is no accounting for taste, but do you have to be delusional enough to think this stuff is high literature?

[Anonymous No.3581139]

>>3581021
I'd have to say that alt-cartoonists like Daniel Clowes and Chris Ware produce "high art." Then again, I've never understood the appeal to the superhero comic scene.

[Anonymous No.3581137]

>>3581030
He's unanimously recognized as good. Great, in fact.

[Anonymous No.3581150]

>>3581005
>hasn't read sandman
>hasn't read Black Hole
>has only read Watchmen and Maus

You're one to talk.

[Anonymous No.3581164]

>>3581137
>He's unanimously recognized as good

and ... the greater number of people agree on something, the more true it is?

[Anonymous No.3581172]

>>>/co/

[Anonymous No.3581183]

>>3581021
I really, really like the 30s, 40s and 50s pulp horror stuff. Those stories were genuinely great literature and still contain some of the best art that can be found in comic books. I detest pretty much all cape comics, though. Especially the current ones, mostly because of that omnipresent trend that emerged post Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, during the 80s and 90s. You know, that thing where everything has to be really gritty and ultraviolent and shocking. It's an incredibly lazy writing tactic, but the real irony of it is that it only makes the stories more absurd, not less.

>>3581164
Well, sometimes. I just threw that out there as a quick aside, if you want I could talk about the skill of his technique and such, but that would probably get real boring real quick for both you and me.

[Anonymous No.3581184]

>>3581123
>Thinks genres and mediums are defined by their excerpts
Are you delusional enough to dismiss an entire medium when it doesn't satisfy you with a single excerpt?
>>3581164
Fine, in my personal opinion, as well as the opinions of a whole lot of other people who have actually read Tin Tin, it's great. It's really great. You should read it some time.

[Anonymous No.3581205]

>>3580972
> I'd also claim that some of the best comics published in recent history are much better than most other art created in recent history.

This is why comics are considered a low art. It's generally followed by uneducated, uncultured philistines who don't know what the fuck they're talking about. I doubt you even know anything about the medium you hold up so highly, let alone any other medium.
And the best comics published aren't commercial industry shit like Watchmen, Maus. The shit by Woodring, Brinkman, CF easily blow them out of the water, and that's just what's widely published.

What's your definition of high art?
Because traditionally comic artists have been showing in respectable museums and galleries for decades: Chippendale, Panter, Ciocci.

[Anonymous No.3581209]

High art?

[Anonymous No.3581224]

>>3581209
If Jojo isn't high art then I don't know what is.

[Anonymous No.3581226]

Question for you guys: do you think that due to the infancy of comics books as an art form, judgement on the potential quality of the medium should be spared for at least another little while? When answering this, do you take into consideration the fact that for at least half of the time comics have existed, they've either been heavily censored or thrown out literally directly after being read?

[Anonymous No.3581228]

>>3581226
For the most part, manga > western comics.

[Anonymous No.3581232]

>>3581209
god did they even translated part 4 properly now?

i'm still on part 3 it's super fun.

[Anonymous No.3581235]

>>3581226
>judgement on the potential quality of the medium should be spared for at least another little while
No.

[Anonymous No.3581241]

>>3581232
Like half of it is translated properly I think, the rest is still Duwang.

Read the entire thing in Duwang like the rest of us do though. It makes things more fun and nothing is really lost in translation, even if the grammar is really bad.

[Anonymous No.3581242]

>>3581228
>manga > western comics

[Anonymous No.3581251]

>>3581226
>infancy of comics books as an art form,
Graphic narrative has been in the arts since ancient civilization, I can't remember any examples but I know it was definitely seen in medieval manuscripts.

Just because they've been bound like a book doesn't really change anything. Being relabeled Graphic Novels and sold in B&N doesn't change much either.
It's always been an art form, and the American underground of the 60's, Crumb, Shelter, Panter, is an example of it in bound form that quickly achieved academic respect.

[Anonymous No.3581256]

>>3581242
bitch please
am I right?

[Anonymous No.3581270]

>>3581228
>manga > western comics.
yeah fanservice and gore is just soooo mature right?

[Anonymous No.3581287]

>>3581242
Yeah pretty much.

[Anonymous No.3581303]

>>3581270
More mature than men in tights.

[Anonymous No.3581315]

>>3581270
That's like claiming all of literature is Twilight and 50 Shades.

Go back to tumblr.

[Anonymous No.3581331]

>>3581303
By what measure? Elevating manga above western comics by the virtue of it being 'manga' is patently silly. But, keep suckin' dat eastern dick, bro. It'll get ya' laid some day.

[Anonymous No.3581338]

>>3581331
We're not elevating it above western comics for being 'manga' we're elevating it above western comics for being, on average, superior quality.

[Anonymous No.3581344]

>>3581315
Do you know anything like Yuichi Yokohama?

[Anonymous No.3581346]

>>3581344
Nope, sorry.

[Anonymous No.3581350]

>>3581346
What about anything like the writing of Ryu Murakami, or japanese pink film?

[Anonymous No.3581355]

>>>/co/

[Anonymous No.3581362]

im surprised no one has mention from hell. I Believe From Hell is Alan Moore's best work, probably the best graphic novel or comic writeen. I think this is one of graphic novels that are high art

[Anonymous No.3581368]

>>3580944
yay. 100% yay. Anybody who says nay didn't pay attention.

[Anonymous No.3581367]

>Western Comics suck because superheroes are lame, MANGA is like way more mature
>Manga suck because stupid ninja detergent ballz, Western comics are way more mature

The same percentage ratio of shit-to-great exists in every medium and country. Except in Canada, they make terrible cartoons.

Wait, this isn't /co/

[Anonymous No.3581374]

>>3581367
I live in Canada and I didn't even know we had cartoons

[Anonymous No.3581386]

>>3581374
Yes, you guys are responsible for all manner of horrid flash animated shows, like Johnny Test.

[Anonymous No.3581393]

>>3581386
have you watched captain star?

[Anonymous No.3581415]

Watchmen was amazing. I tried Sandman and kinda hated it. Didnt get very far though

[Anonymous No.3581422]

If Weathercraft by Jim Woodring isn't high art, nothing is.

[Anonymous No.3581435]

>>3581303
>Ballet has men in tights, and it's art.
>Anime has giant robots and moe girls which makes it more mature.

[Anonymous No.3581468]

>>3581374
Scott pilgrim.

[Anonymous No.3581495]

I'm new around here and I'm ambivalent about Watchmen. The grand anticlimax of the finale, all that pirate stuff. I can't say I was enjoying myself for a lot of it.

[Anonymous No.3581526]

>>3581338
Bullshit. It's just that most of the shitty manga doesn't get a fucking translation, because it sucks. Obviously you're only getting the cream of the crop in any western country, you deluded fuck.

[Anonymous No.3581540]

>>3581526
You could also look at it that they only get the most popular, commercially appealing stuff translated, and nothing radical or interesting.

[Anonymous No.3582519]

>>3581150
I've read Sandman, it was laughably juvenile. Gay Man should stick to writing children's stories.

[Anonymous No.3582624]

>>3582519
>Gay Man should stick to writing children's stories.
Uh, isn't that exactly what he's doing?

[Anonymous No.3582688]

Gaiman is good creating at whimsical, appealing characters and kernels of idea. He consistently fails to turn those kernels into fully-fledged novels or plot arcs for comics longer than a one-off story. Mr. Punch and Murder Mysteries are the best things he's done.

Anyone who recommends Sandman is a girl, or under the age of 14, or both.

Black Hole is dumb, there's no real content to it. It's just a well-executed, comic-style interpretation of those 70's horror B-movies designed to put teenagers off sex.

Maus is great if you want to teach your children about the holocaust.

Watchmen and V both have some very good bits. They set a standard very few other writers have met. From Hell is probably the closest thing in the comics world to a real novel for taking seriously; in terms of complexity, research, character depth, writing standard, lack of sensationalism, emotion, etc. Long and dry, it needs a lot of attention to be enjoyed. I didn't enjoy it, but I know quality when I see it.
Moore's most mature and best developed works i(n my opinion) are Promethea and Lost Girls. One's good for your soul, the other's good for your sexuality. I think they both excel at their intended purpose.

Calling comics graphic novels is stupid pretension; comics are not directly comparable to literature; I've no doubt some anime is worth reading I just don't care to learn the visual language; British comics are on average better than American, Mainland European and South American comics are on average better than British.

[Anonymous No.3582696]

>>3582688
Oh, forgot to add:
Dave McKean is the best comic book illustrator there has ever been.

[Anonymous No.3582718]

>>3582688

>Mainland European and South American comics
>good

Why is it that anyone who holds this opinion is invariably a moron trying to sound educated?

[Anonymous No.3582729]

What about Fun Home by Alison Bechdel or Blankets by Craig Thompson?

[Anonymous No.3582730]

>>3582718

I don't know.
On what grounds am I a moron?
On what grounds do you think I haven't been educated, but am simply trying to sound as though I have?

Why are you attacking me personally, instead of trying to give me a reason to change my opinion, which is quite obviously what you really object to?

[Anonymous No.3582756]

>thread this long on relevant graphic novelists
>no mention of Garth Eniss
>mfw

Seriously faggots: Preacher, The Boys, Crossed? Where you nig nogs been?

[Anonymous No.3582767]

I thought high art is the type of stuff you have to wear a suit to go to, and costs you what a normal person earns in a week

[Anonymous No.3582771]

>>3582767
Serious readers haven't used the term 'High Art' since the 40s.

[Anonymous No.3582783]

>>3582729

>Fun Home by Allison Bechdel

Reading the book I got a strange vibe that Bechdel was delusionally thinking that her father was a closet homsex.

[Anonymous No.3582786]

>>3581362

I think its as much Eddie Campbell as Alan moore.

[Anonymous No.3582789]

>>3582783

I haven't read Are You My Mother
but let me guess, does she claim that her mom was a closet lesbian in it?

[Anonymous No.3582862]

>>3582756

[Anonymous No.3583394]

>>3581526
>not reading your manga in Japanese

Disgusting. No wonder you think Western comics have any artistic value, you disgusting philistine.

[Anonymous No.3583404]

Yay for me, because of themes and characters.
I, however, am a sucker for caricatures.

[Anonymous No.3583444]

>>3583394
Fuck, you're right. What am I doing with my life?!

[Anonymous No.3583454]

for the record this belongs on /co/

as for Watchmen, well it's a very detailed and intelligent story coupled with great art, by comics standards i would say it is a masterpiece for all times, as for how well comics fit into a category of high art, i really see no reason not to include them, the combination of drawn visuals and storytelling alone makes comics unique and helped pave the way for animation which is an important art in its own right, but i don't think i can decide, it really isn't up to me, right now comics are only considered high art by its own community, and i don't think that will change in the forseeable future

tl;dr nay, here's an Alan Moore list i took from /co/

[Anonymous No.3583479]

Anyone recommend good manga that has been released in english. I have drifting life, it's pretty huge so I haven't started it yet. I'll probably go through it sometime during the summer.

As far as graphic novels go I really like daniel clowes. Maus and Watchmen were pretty great. Currently reading black hole.

[Anonymous No.3583603]

nay

[Anonymous No.3583687]

Does it even matter? High art is nothing more than a label, it doesn't change anything.

[Anonymous No.3583694]

>>3583479
please guys

[Anonymous No.3583696]

>>3583479
Depends on what kind of manga you want really. Here's a chart though.

[Anonymous No.3583722]

>>3583696
this is really awesome, I'd totally forgotten about Junji Ito.