/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.7509039]

Are comic books an inherently inferior art form to literature, or are they just incidentally inferior due to the producers and consumers?

[Anonymous No.7509056]

Why do you need to label them as inferior or superior? What is the context for the comparison anyway? I think "enjoyable" is a way more relevant attribution of value and they can both be that in different and in similar ways. Try transmetropolitan, it's a great one.

[Anonymous No.7509069]

>>7509056
You do understand the difference between base pleasure and higher pleasure, yes? Like, the difference between the pleasure of jacking off, and the pleasure of reading Pindar?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SNw-DxkEY0

[Anonymous No.7509083]

>>7509056
Transmetropolitan is shit. Fucking Hunter Stockton Thompson ripoff nonsense. I felt ashamed reading it.

>>7509039
The best comics don't come close to the best literature.

Clowes, Moore (occasionally), Burns, & Ware are the heights of comics—Gorey isn't quite comics, but definitely better than those 4.

[Anonymous No.7509091]

>>7509069
pindar is a horrible poet. jacking off is much better.

[Anonymous No.7509104]

>>7509069
I do. I also understand that a depressingly high percentage of those who claim one art form is "superior" than the next are using it as a proxy to proclaim their own superiority. Their great and oh-so-higher taste allows them the narcissistic pleasure of calling others plebs.
Look I enjoy both books and comics. The one in the OP seems shitty I agree, but there are also countless literature equivalents such as the infamous "twilight" series. There are also qualitative comic books like the one I recommended.

My point is that hearing classical music doesn't make you better than the pop-consuming plebs and art is not something that should be used for dick-measuring. You are seeking the wrong things is my humble opinion and should care more about extracting subjective value rather than compare art for some kind of arbitrary objective value that isn't there.

Happy feast of Winterveil :)

[Anonymous No.7509115]

>>7509083
"Ripoff"? What is wrong with a character being inspired by a real person?
I also remembered another great one: Sandman by Neil Gaiman

[Anonymous No.7509118]

>>7509104
You don't know the difference yet. There is a huge difference.

What would you submit as a shining example of sequential art?

[Anonymous No.7509119]

>>7509039
I hope that is someone editing over the original text, fuck me.

[Anonymous No.7509125]

>>7509039
1) Use the fucking archives
2) There is just as many shit comics as there are shit books and their quality runs the same gamut. The best of comics and literature are worth reading, whether you "like" one better than the other is a personal problem.

>>7509083
>Clowes, Moore (occasionally), Burns, & Ware are the heights of comics
My fucking sides

[Anonymous No.7509134]

>>7509083
>Clowes, Moore (occasionally), Burns, & Ware are the heights of comics
forgetting LaBelle

[Anonymous No.7509138]

>>7509115
It's not inspired, it's HST with goofy glasses in the future. I wanted to like it. It's garbage.

I also wanted to like Sandman. It has its moments like when they cut off that tranny's face and nail it to the wall—that was interesting. But outside of children's books, Gaiman is really bad. He even ruined Miracleman. "These smiley face buttons will let everyone fly just like me!" Come on.

[Anonymous No.7509141]

They have a lot holding them back. It's really difficult in the medium to pull it off. You could have incredible art direction but dumb writing, or maybe the writing and art are good but the story's about a dude in spandex. Or maybe it's an immature talent trying really hard to be "artistic" instead of just being good at their craft. It generally never happens right, and it doesn't have much pull or currency.

[Anonymous No.7509142]

>>7509118
Sandman by Neil Gaiman as I said here >>7509115

If you are going to call me out on shouting on top of mount stupid, you could at least elaborate rather than merely claiming. Enlighten me oh sage!

[Anonymous No.7509143]

>>7509125
Who would you submit, then? I'm always on the lookout.

[Anonymous No.7509146]

>>7509119
nope, that's actually what's was approved of and published.

[Anonymous No.7509150]

>>7509134
No. But I forgot Bechdel.

[Anonymous No.7509158]

>>7509142
Pick a book off the top row of the /lit/ chart. The best comic is nowhere near as good. I mean it's laughable. Not to say comics are shit, they aren't.

[Anonymous No.7509168]

>>7509134
>not Mafalda

[Anonymous No.7509171]

>>7509134
Assigned Male is making my head spin.

[Anonymous No.7509210]

>>7509143
My favorite digital author is Evan Dahm. Since his first book, Rice Boy, he's gotten increasingly better and his latest ongoing work is very good. http://www.rice-boy.com/ Dave Sim's Cerebus is a mammoth work that demands respect and is not easily tackled. Inio Asano I think will produce more work the quality of Goodnight Pun Pun, which is very beautiful. Obviously Michael deForge is a rising talent and the best example of the new weird comics, now becoming very imitated unfortunately. These aren't really hidden talents or anything, my point is that there is no height of comics. Ware is interesting and the others have good work but they aren't nearly representative. The best time to be paying attention to comics is now, the digital age is producing interesting and diverse works that will be highly influential.

[Anonymous No.7509226]

>>7509210
Thx. Digital age?

[Anonymous No.7509243]

>>7509210
This is like seriously recommending One Piece as quality television.

[Anonymous No.7509259]

>>7509243
i hope you do know that one piece is not the only anime out there

[Anonymous No.7509273]

[Anonymous No.7509276]

>>7509091
Pindar is a horrible poet in English because of the complexity of his meter, his change in Greek dialectic, and his frequent use of puns that don't carry over into English.

[Anonymous No.7509278]

>>7509243
Well One Piece does what it sets out to do beautifully. It's like judging Black Beauty for being a simple child's story. It does that very well, just as One Piece really perfected the shounen adventure story.

[Anonymous No.7509280]

>>7509226
No problem. Digital age would be contemporary comics, what's being made now. Computers and the internet have changed not just physically (how they're made, how they're accessed, etc.) but also as a market. Comics was always an everyman kind of art and now it's much easier for people to make, produce, and live off of comics. Not incidentally this means both a large quantity of shit comics but also great comics that would've never seen the light of day otherwise.

>>7509243
Not even almost.

[Anonymous No.7509287]

Can anyone here help me out? I'm trying to remember the name of a sort of comic book (for lack of a better word) that I read a while back. It was serialized online I believe. I remember it either had no text or very minimal text but had very interesting distinct art. I think it was just black and white pen and ink style with lots of detailed thin line work. It sort of followed this guy in this very dream like state, following after a girl or something in this bizarre maze-esque world through rooms long corridors and rooms with boilers and lots of piping and I remember him coming out at some point to like a beach or lighthouse or something. It was really bizarre but it's been several years since I saw it and I don't believe it was finished at the time. Please if anyone has an idea what I'm talking about and wants to be a bro, that'd be awesome.

[Anonymous No.7509290]

>>7509039
Reading Oyasumi Punpun made me believe the only reason the whole comic book scene produces "inferior art form" is due to the consumers. It was by no means the best thing evurr but it was a solid read, and I would recommend to anyone that has some prejudice against manga/comic books. It can be a decent book with pretty images, or a shitty book with braindead fight scenes, but people buy the second option a lot more.

[Anonymous No.7509321]

>>7509287
Might be Nihei's Blame!

[Anonymous No.7509330]

>>7509280
Ok so... Those aren't even attempts towards meaningful art. Urrrrr define Meaningful, they're meaningful to me! Touching on being human, the depth of being alive, of facing impending death. Not escapist la la woo woo.

So, Clowes, Moore, Ware, Burns, & Bechdel—your sides? smdh

[Anonymous No.7509342]

>>7509321
while that does actually look kind of cool, that's not it. It definitely wasn't a manga style of art. Much more western in tradition and minimal in style. And seemed more slow paced. Not really any action. Thanks for responding and making that suggestion though!

[Anonymous No.7509401]

>>7509104
But that only reflects on the people who hold those opinions, not on the things in question.

>My point is that hearing classical music doesn't make you better than the pop-consuming plebs
You're right only in that the act itself of listening to classical music doesn't make a great person but a well souled person is going to prefer great over mediocre music.

[Anonymous No.7509454]

Not lit.

[Anonymous No.7509697]

>>7509158

Well to be fair we are comparing one medium which has been around for ~100 or so years vs one that is has been around for literally thousands.

[Anonymous No.7509704]

>>7509697
Comics have been around longer than film.

[Anonymous No.7509707]

>>7509704

Sure, hardly the point i was trying to make though.

[Anonymous No.7509717]

>>7509707
Film had masterpieces of cinema right up there with great literature when it was still in the silent era.

[Anonymous No.7510392]

>>7509697
Graphic sequential art has been around longer than the written word. Holy fuck, are you that much in the dark? You can see the downslope on the other side of Mt Stupid now?

>~100 or so years
Pic related is from before 1100 AD. It's even a 4chan meme.

Sorry for being hostile but you're being retarded.

[Anonymous No.7510659]

>>7509146
I have seen gods face, and it was cringing.

[Anonymous No.7511396]

>>7509134
>Writes comics about being a trans
>Complains when someone points out that they're trans

What the fuck is the end goal here?

[Anonymous No.7511441]

The best comics are European, it's mostly American trends giving the medium a bad name. Growing up with Marvel/DC rehashes is an entirely different experience to reading awesome shit like Asterix, Dylan Dog and Alan Ford as a kid

[Anonymous No.7511496]

>>7511441
>Alan Ford
Moj cigan

Anyway, this thread is shit filled with pretentious faggots attacking an art form to prove their superiority and plebby faggots trying to disprove their claims with reddit-tier comics as examples of good art.

The only problem with comics is their immaturity - they have been treated as a serious art form for like 30 years, they simply couldn't have developed enough. There have been a couple of great and radical comics that are paving the way for even better and more complex ones. In 200 years, absolutely nobody will question comics' inherent value. Instead, people will study them as other arts are studied now.

[Anonymous No.7511914]

>>7509401
>well souled

Oh ffs.

[Anonymous No.7512001]

good comics are good comics, good lit is good lit.
V for Vendetta and Watchman would not work as books.
I loved transmetropolitan, yes its HST on crack in the future, but cleverly. I kind of liked Sandman, but I think Gaiman is seriously overated; his novels are meh tier(Coraline maybe my favourite) and I read the comic version of the graveyard book ( couldn't be bothered with the book) what a cringe worthy piece of shit was that, like cultism for 5 year olds, Jack offs all trade, made me die a little.

Voice of the fire was good. Gunmachine was ok,Other Warren Ellis stuff ( global frequency, RED, Planetary is PKD tier; short, original, disturbing, not the most complex)
Spiderman, etc is Twiglight tier: rehashed shit for the uneducated. Still, each medium has its place.

tl;dr; all mediums have good and bad things, quality can be found everywhere, but lit will always be the purest form of art.

[Anonymous No.7512045]

>>7511496
And among the pretentious faggots and plebby faggots you are the one true patrician faggot, yes? The one looking at the rest of us fro high up there? Are you sure you're not sitting on top mount stupid? lol go frag yourself you arrogant cunt.

[Anonymous No.7512084]

>>7509134
>Sandrx
>that wig

[Anonymous No.7512160]

>>7509273
Blegh.

[Anonymous No.7512804]

>>7509717
>masterpieces of cinema in the silent era
Such as?

Anyhow there are many factors as well as huge financial incentives supporting the mass-production of films. Comic book have/are largely restricted to specific cultures and genres. It's probably fair to say that quantity precedes quality.

[Anonymous No.7512833]

>>7510392
>Graphic sequential art
This is quite a reach from Comic books. Don't know how you pulled this out from what I was talking about.

The OP was about whether comic books are inferior to literature as an art form. Do you suppose current artists take any sort of inheritance or inspiration from tapestries or hieroglyphics? Comic books as an 'art form' have been in the public consciousness for ~100 years or so.

>Although comic books have some origins in 18th century Japan and 1830s Europe, comic books were first popularized in the United States during the 1930s.

[Anonymous No.7512877]

>>7512804
City Lights and Modern Times comes to mind.
If you don't agree with me you're a contrarian cuck.