Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site!
Smart Sayings and Learned Opinions On Comics From the Folks Who've Actually "Been There, Done That"
Every once in a great while -- not so often as to prove disconcerting or discouraging; but every rare now and again -- I receive a communiqué from some reader out there to the effect that THE CHEEKS THE TOY WONDER HOME PAGE has a "negative" outlook on comics, in general... and on modern-day comics, in particular.
No. Really. I'm dead serious. 
The gist of the bleatings to this effect -- when pared down to their intellectual essence -- generally translates, in effect, to:
a.) "You like Silver Age comic books more than you like the stuff being produced today";
b.) "You continually point out what miserable fiscal shape the comics industry is in today";
c.) "Only a sour, unhappy old comics-hater could possibly hold to the former, or publicly state the latter";
d.) "Therefore: you are An Enemy of the People."
This is -- to parse it as charitably as is possible -- just a great, whopping
load o' donkey doody.
In alphabetical order, then:
a.) -- Yeah; I generally do. Darn me to heck for
indulging in a decided preference for coherent plotting; "characterizations"
which aren't ludicrously overblown; and artwork provided by such miserable,
talentless hacks as Jack "King" Kirby; Steve Ditko; Gil Kane; Carmine Infantino;
Gene Colan; and Dick Dillin. I blame society, ultimately.
While we're at it: I grovel, abjectly, for daring to hold to an opinion
at variance with that of the average fanboy. God alone knows what
I was thinking.
b.) -- Yeah... I do that, too.
News flash: the problem won't get any better if we all mutually agree to just... y'know... kick back, and ooooh and aaahh our collective ways through the latest issue of STARMAN, or ASTRO CITY.
You don't just resolve, from this day forward, to skitter your way around the huge, gaping hole that's suddenly opened up in the middle of your kitchen floor, folks.
I'm just sayin'.
c.) -- No one who doesn't flat out llove, cherish and adore the comics medium would spend a solid year-plus setting up a one hundred-and-fifty page site devoted to the glory days of the industry.
Come on, people.
d.) If this industry is so palsied and enfeebled -- fiscally and/or creatively -- that my actually stating so ccan help bring about The Collapse of the Empire...
well, then: that pretty much proves my point, f'chrissakes.
Positive (adj. & n.) -- 1.) formally or explicitly stated; definite; unquestionable (positive proof). 2.) constructive; directional (positive criticism). 3.) dealing only with matters of fact; practical.
*Ahem.*
As per the summary judgment of the good folks over at the Meriam-Webster Company... this site, by definition, IS "positive."
So let's have no more of that turnip juice, then. If you
please.
Now: I'd guesstimate that a good 99.99% of you who've taken the time
to contact me, re: this site, have (judging from the contents of your
e-mail communiqués) already figured out the bulk of this for yourselves.
So don't think even for one instant I'm looking at you guys funny.
However: there's still that remaining .01% out there who steadfastly refuse to allow even so much as the possibility that one might best and most ably show their "love" for this benighted art form by stating, plainly, what is readily apparent to all and sundry.
Which is why, in turn, I've decided to recruit me a li'l big league help,
in this matter.
What follows is a series of quotes from such respected Major League Comics Heavyweights such as Kurt Busiek; John Byrne; Neil Gaiman; Alan Moore; and a horde of other good folks. ALL of whom, indisputably, "love comics."
If the few straggling naysayers out there refuse to believe me... then maybe they'll give these guys a bit more credence.
... and, remember, kids: the only true "negativity" lies in refusing
to admit that there's any sort of problem(s) at all.
1.) "I really think comics are worse now. Of course, they were worse in the '40's than they were in the '60's. I think the stuff in the '60's is really 'the Golden Age.' When [fanboys] talk about 'the Golden Age,' they don't know what the f*** they're talking about."
-- Harlan Ellison
THE COMICS JOURNAL #53
.2.) "Without singling out any titles in particular, I find the great
bulk of super-hero books [nowadays] miserable, pretentious, not really very
illuminating [...] I see a lot of the same licks; I don't see a lot of new
ones, and that's disappointing."
-- Alan Moore [SWAMP THING; WATCHMEN]
THE COMICS JOURNAL #138
3.) "I was looking at a book of DC's 1950's comics the other day, and I was really enjoying it, Gary! They were really stupid, dumb little stories... but actually, on their own terms, they made sense. Had a plot. They weren't just sequences of heavy, intense violent actions strung together by a few linking panels!"
-- Alan Moore [SWAMP THING; WATCHMEN]
THE COMICS JOURNAL #138
4.) "... they were stories. That's the thing; I look at those little eight page Martian Manhunterstories and, yeah, they're contrived, they're mainly to do with characters trying to work out where the criminal will strike next from a series of contrived clues, or escaping from traps in a contrived manner, But -- despite everything -- somebody had actually sat down and thought their way through all that contrivance. And sometimes, as with a well-written farce, contrivance can be quite entertaining."
"These days, it's just... fights! This is [now] the whole point of the story -- the fight. In those old '50's and '60's DC stories, what you'd get is a rather gentlemanly sock on the jaw. The last panel would have the villain behind bars, saying: 'Curses, foiled again,' while Batman stood off to one side and said: 'What gave you away was... blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.' They'd be more... I don't know if cerebral's the word, but the stories were far more to do with thinking than just excuses for people blasting each other with their unlikely cosmic ray powers for twenty pages."
"There aren't really any plots, anymore. There's no real stories; there's just all of this violence with a few panels linking it, that serve instead of a story."
-- Alan Moore; ibid
5.) "I find too many comics these days simply are completely unreadable. You look at the word balloons; you look at some of the pictures; you go: 'Why am I holding this object'...?"
-- Neil Gaiman [SANDMAN]
THE COMICS JOURNAL #163
6.) "... I remember when I was eight or nine and I was stuck at one end of the school and I knew class was down at the other end of the school and I was late, and I thought: 'Boy, I wish I could run like the Flash, and I could be there just like that.' That's the proper function of adolescent wish fulfillment. 'Gee... those girls are laughing at me, I bet. But if I foiled a bank robbery tomorrow, and I did it in some kind of mask... then they might laugh at me, but they'd be going: "Wow, it's that guy that did the bank robbery," and it would be me.' It's a very strange eight-, nine-, ten-year-old thing."
-- Neil Gaiman; ibid
7.) "I suppose I come from a specific period, where what I think's good about super-heroes isn't around anymore. And the thing I like about super-heroes is the fact that they wear ridiculous costumes; do absurd things; turn into ants. That sort of thing just doesn't happen anymore [...] I just love the absurdity of them. I don't think [they] need any more rationale than that."
"... I'm more interested in the sheer, ludicrous, garish wonder of them, and I really despise the kind of reductive approach that's been taken in the past few years. Even things that seemed good at the time, like WATCHMEN. So much of it's just been reductive and miserable, and it's tried to reduce this splendid concept to drab, human terms."
"And it's not, you know. It's for children; it's outlandish, it's bright, and it should be done that way, with fantastic imagination, and it should be fuel for the minds of children and teenagers."
-- Grant Morrison (JLA; ANIMAL MAN)
THE COMICS JOURNAL #176
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