What makes a bunch of disposable children's comics of yesterday into part of the literary canon? Is it the culture insight or the historical value, the in universe canonicity, or a marketing push?
What makes a bunch of disposable children's comics of yesterday into part of the literary canon? Is it the culture insight or the historical value, the in universe canonicity, or a marketing push?
Historical significance. We probably won't see any of this happening for the lesser comic houses of the era, or the forgotten superheroes, until it becomes more popularly asked for or studied....
Historical significance. We probably won't see any of this happening for the lesser comic houses of the era, or the forgotten superheroes, until it becomes more popularly asked for or studied. Popularity really is a huge factor in what becomes part of literary canon, along with firsts. Not all of them are good, but all of them are notable.
For example, apparently one of the first instances of detective fiction is Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White. It's part of the literary canon and is studied in many places for its historical and literary significance.
It sucks. I hated that book. It was clearly written to be as long as possible since it was the era of Victorian fiction where things were published serially, and paid per word. There's a ton of literary classics from the era that are significant but filled with purple or redundant prose so the author could get a fatter paycheque. Also the story is boring and the mystery is dull.
But such is what a canon is. It's not a mark of quality, it's a mark of significance. I don't think anyone could really argue at this point that Marvel and DC character origins are not significant literature anymore just because they happen to be kind of childish, cheesy superhero stories. There's a lot of wild stuff in literary canons already—Marquis de Sade's entire body of work is also literature.
Makes sense, I finally dug up this interview from the editor and publisher on why this became a thing, and how it treated the educational value of Early Marvel....
Makes sense, I finally dug up this interview from the editor and publisher on why this became a thing, and how it treated the educational value of Early Marvel.
I actually find old comics fun to read. The first issues of Action Comics have a crude charm, Superman is kind of a dick lol. 1970s Spider Man has some great stories. The one thing I've been...
I actually find old comics fun to read. The first issues of Action Comics have a crude charm, Superman is kind of a dick lol. 1970s Spider Man has some great stories. The one thing I've been finding hard to read is 1980s mainline Batman, because old-school mainline Batman was very much an irresponsible vigilant with no hint of self-criticism and little regard for the law. Something that sticks out like a sore thumb in 2022.
ah yes, "Captain America…Commie Smasher" a literature classic.
What makes a bunch of disposable children's comics of yesterday into part of the literary canon? Is it the culture insight or the historical value, the in universe canonicity, or a marketing push?
Historical significance. We probably won't see any of this happening for the lesser comic houses of the era, or the forgotten superheroes, until it becomes more popularly asked for or studied. Popularity really is a huge factor in what becomes part of literary canon, along with firsts. Not all of them are good, but all of them are notable.
For example, apparently one of the first instances of detective fiction is Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White. It's part of the literary canon and is studied in many places for its historical and literary significance.
It sucks. I hated that book. It was clearly written to be as long as possible since it was the era of Victorian fiction where things were published serially, and paid per word. There's a ton of literary classics from the era that are significant but filled with purple or redundant prose so the author could get a fatter paycheque. Also the story is boring and the mystery is dull.
But such is what a canon is. It's not a mark of quality, it's a mark of significance. I don't think anyone could really argue at this point that Marvel and DC character origins are not significant literature anymore just because they happen to be kind of childish, cheesy superhero stories. There's a lot of wild stuff in literary canons already—Marquis de Sade's entire body of work is also literature.
Makes sense, I finally dug up this interview from the editor and publisher on why this became a thing, and how it treated the educational value of Early Marvel.
https://nerdist.com/article/penguin-classics-marvel-comics/
And I'd imagine that Marvel now publishing through Penguin Random House helped out things a lot in that respect.
I actually find old comics fun to read. The first issues of Action Comics have a crude charm, Superman is kind of a dick lol. 1970s Spider Man has some great stories. The one thing I've been finding hard to read is 1980s mainline Batman, because old-school mainline Batman was very much an irresponsible vigilant with no hint of self-criticism and little regard for the law. Something that sticks out like a sore thumb in 2022.