World Famous Comics > About | Columns | Comics | Contests | Features

COLUMNS >> Tony's Online Tips | Law is a Ass | Baker's Dozen | Cover Stories | After the Golden Age | Philodoxer | CyberDen

Schedule TODAY!
Sun, October 13, 2024

Anything Goes TriviaAnything Goes Trivia
Bob Rozakis

Buy comics and more at TFAW.com Mr. Rebates

From the Cyber Den
An online column by comics legend Denny O'Neil

Current Column >> Column Archives | Message Board

FROM THE CYBERDEN for 10/21/2005

This Morning's New York Times

This morning's New York Times had a major article on the new collection of Winsor McCay's classic, early comic strip Little Nemo. And a few days ago, the same august journal ran a major piece on the reorganization of the DC Universe.

Today, my friendly FedEx man left a package on the front porch; it contained a hardcover collection of Dr. Strange stories from 30 years ago, some of which I wrote.

The Times wasn't running stories about comics when the Doc Strange stuff first appeared. A few other papers were, but mostly, comics were not respectable yet--literature for morons.

The form hasn't changed. Oh, the creative techniques are a bit different, and the kinds of stories comics tell, and certainly the printing's not the same: gone, alas, are those behemoth presses somewhere in the midwest that churned out the comics I read as a kid and the first ones I wrote as...well, maybe "adult" wouldn't be exactly the right word. Let's use "grownup." (I was at least medium-tall and I wasn't living in my native city and I could vote.) But comics were always an art form, as a few--but a very few--establishment types realized decades earlier.

Jazz was once considered by many to be lowlife music. Movies...er--I mean cinema did not quite qualify as art when I was in college.

Now--ye gads--they're teaching comic books in big, brand-name universities. The New York Times, in reporting on comics, has conferred the Establishment Imprimatur on the form. Comics are getting the kind of recognition that, a while back, was belatedly accorded cine...no, to hell with it--movies! And jazz.

For me, this respectability is a mixed blessing. I was pretty comfortable working in a kind of publishing that was, in the opinion of many of my parents' generation, pretty damn disreputable. I didn't exactly know who I was, back then, but I did know that Authority and I did not get along, and I don't think I quite understood what the Establishment might want from me. So--I stumbled into an arena that was pretty much ignored by the arbiters of respectability and found, if not a home, at least a place to be--to do what I wanted to do, which was write. It gave me something to be interested in--at times, to be absorbed by--and a lot of other perks, like travel, meeting interesting people, and telling stories to a lot of people at once. I took those things as they came and I hope I'm properly grateful for them.

But, respectability? That, I didn't expect. It sort of snuck up on us. We looked one day, and there it was. I didn't exactly open my arms in welcome. But I guess it's okay: Respectability has been in the house for quite a while now, and it hasn't bitten anyone yet.

Denny

<< 07/27/2005 | 10/21/2005

Discuss this column with me at my Denny O'Neil Message Board.

Recent Installments:
NEWESTThis Morning's New York Times (10/21/2005)
07/27/2005Jim Aparo may not have known how good he was.
06/22/2005Is it okay to talk about it yet?
04/27/2005So Where the Hell Have I Been?
12/01/2004From the Den's Mrs.
11/01/2004Well, I'm back again. Sort of.
Archives >>

Current Column >> Column Archives | Message Board


COLUMNS >> Tony's Online Tips | Law is a Ass | Baker's Dozen | Cover Stories | After the Golden Age | Philodoxer | CyberDen

World Famous Comics > About | Columns | Comics | Contests | Features



© 1995 - 2010 Justin Chung. All rights reserved. All other © & ™ belong to their respective owners.
Terms of Use . Privacy Policy . Contact Info