Review: The Comics Journal Library: The Writers

The Comics Journal Library Vol. 6: The Writers
Edited by Tom Spurgeon
Published by Fantagraphics Books. $19.95 USD

The first modern, intentional time capsule was premiered at the 1939 World's Fair, the same year Batman appeared in Detective Comics. Almost 70 years later, Fantagraphics has published their own sort of time capsule, this anthology of interviews with many of the most celebrated superhero comics writers of the 1970s, such as Chris Claremont, Denny O'Neil, Marv Wolfman, and Steves Gerber and Englehart, the interviews culled from these early days of The Comics Journal magazine.

That these names are utterly out of place with the creators TCJ has been interested in over the past 15 years or more is indicative of the evolving tastes of guiding editors Gary Groth and Kim Thompson (and probably the departure of cofounder Michael Catron), as well as the fact the magazine found it could sustain itself with only covering superhero comics and their creators minimally, and often disdainfully. So it really is a time capsule of a somewhat more naive, broader Comics Journal, and there would have been more charm in this looking back if Jacob Covey's ugly, slapped-together design, that seems almost like an editorial mandate to make the book as un-Fantagraphics-like as possible. The covers, with their dashed lines, three simple colors (primaries blue and yellow and their union, green) and little formatting bullseye icons scream "GALLEY!", a rough edition of something that would be more properly designed and enlarged for final publication, yet here it is. In addition, the book is in a normal trade novel size, unlike the preceding five Library volumes of gorgeous, full-color coffee table size. The Comics Journal, in publishing this book this way, makes an implicit statement that these popular writers' work is not worthy of the same respect and production effort and resources as previous giants like Jack Kirby, Frank Frazetta and Wallace Wood, or even of later lions like Frank Miller, all of whom have received focus in previous volumes, among others. I wouldn't argue about the respect part, but if you're going to publish these old interviews, at least do it right and offer some full color examples of their best work. Alan Moore gets the luxury of two black-and-white pages from Swamp Thing, as does Gerry Conway for his "death of Gwen Stacy" scene from Amazing Spider-Man, with others getting a page, half-page or nothing at all. It's hard to get into the book when the reader feels the publisher doesn't have faith in it; it seems to be just an idea to make some money off old work from which Groth and Thompson have intellectually distanced themselves. The choice of reprinted word balloon on the cover ("Something is wrong! Something is killing us all...! Some hideous moral cancer is rotting our very souls!) is hard not to take as an analogy to modern superhero comics, or even superhero comics when these interviews were conducted.

Covey does further damage with the pages before each interview, listing the subject's name in a different hideous font, usually one for the first name and another, uncomplimentary font for the last name. Spurgeon provides a half-page Introduction summing up the writer in question, and then the interview is presented as it was in the magazine (minus art), with no recent follow-ups or essays or notes to provide context on what these writers are up to now, how things they said then have or haven't come to pass (Englehart wonders aloud at one point whether anyone would be able to sit for a 250 page comic, and now we know they will, and then some, though the quote is used out of context on the back cover to make him appear un-prescient and he goes on to say he would like to try to write a book like that), or even if the subjects have changed their minds on anything they said before. Provided the subjects chose to let their past statements stand, certainly a writer such as Spurgeon could have filled in the gaps, but his effort here is minimal, and frankly, wanting. I'm not sure if he even reread the copy, as there are some terrific errors borne of transcribing tape--one writer talks of practicing "Scribble-do," with do then explained as the word for "the way," the heart of Buddhism, but the word is actually "tao," pronounced "dow," and almost certainly misheard by the original transcriber. There are other strange errors, like "arid" used mistakenly for "and," that make some sentences puzzling.

Despite the direct-to-dvd feel of this volume, there are some good things here. It's amusing to see the enthusiasm Groth and Thompson have for something like Wolfman's Teen Titans that they probably cringe at now, and all the writers come off reasonably intelligent and passionate about their work. It's interesting that many of the predominately Marvel writers talked, even in the late '70s or early '80s, about an era having passed, about Marvel changing and becoming a machine focused on profit and editorial overseeing rather than innovation and trust in the creators, while Claremont, whose fame and success was still growing, has at the time of the interview not lost any enthusiasm and talks at great length about his characters. One bonus about the book is that many of the interviews are not conducted by Groth, although he contributes questions to many of them. It's not that he isn't the best interviewer TCJ has had; he is. But it's nice to have different kinds of questions and a different tone when you're reading interview after interview, with many of the writers having worked on the same characters or type of material. In fact, Groth's loathing of Stan Lee is a frequent distraction and impediment to more interesting lines of questioning. Groth's intellect shines like a star, but a star with only one point is really just a shiny wedge. He's especially contentious in the Harlan Ellison interview, derailing the fascinating author several times. It should also be noted that as good as the Ellison interview is--for better and worse, a signature moment in Journal history--Ellison's contributions as a comics writer are so small that he really doesn't merit inclusion here. It's the longest interview, and it should be in some other book collecting Journal highlights, so one can't help but see the inclusion as an editorial misstep. I mean, I'm not saying an interview with Larry Hama or some other popular '70s or '80s writer would have been as good--certainly not--but it would have at least made sense given the premise of this book. You might as well throw Stephen King in here for writing the comics adaptation of Creepshow in the early '80s, right?

Despite the lack of respect given most of these authors--Spurgeon has some acclaim for Goodwin and Moore, but more often credits the others for popularity and sales rather than skill or individual styles--one thing that does come through in the book is that these writers, to a man, come off as more thoughtful than nearly any current comics writer, though whether some of the blame lies in TCJ rarely doing interviews with superhero comics writers anymore, leaving it to lesser magazines and fawning websites is certainly an argument that can be made. Even Gerry Conway, much reviled by other Marvel writers of the same era in the book, seems pretty sharp and not as egotistical and hype-driven as much of the current crop of scribes.

Despite what appears to be every attempt on Fantagraphics' part to convince you to overlook this book, those who have an interest or affection for this era of superhero comics and the most popular writers of that era will probably find just enough in here to justify purchasing it. It doesn't quite achieve failure.