Following my enjoyment and review of Logicomix it was lovely to hear from the writer Apostolos Doxiadis with a few thoughts on the position of not only Logicomix but the whole field of successful crossover comics.
Rather than put it on as a comment on the review I thought it might be more interesting for you all to see it as a main post. And here’s what he had to say……
“Interesting what you say about the comics community’s response to LOGICOMIX. Although we have been no. 1 in the NYT bestseller list for graphic novels for six consecutive weeks (all but the last, in which we are 2), it appears that most of those sales are from outside the comics community.
There seems to be a conflict here, that antagonizes the acceptance of graphic novels as a legitimate part of *books* pure and simple: a) Comics can’t break out of the niche where the culture-at-large has consigned them unless there is a critical mass of many strong non-superhero, non-fantasy titles that achieve significant sales and, b) The comics community, which does tend to be rather insular and xenophobic –perhaps like all small communities that have lived for decades in seclusion– tends to promote the growth of its own, home-grown genres, mostly superhero and its own particular brand of fantasy.
And as for books like MAUS, PERSEPOLIS, BLANKETS and so on, that have achieved a nice-but-not-huge break-out into the non-comics world, these are the exceptions that prove the rule, as they all seem to belong to a common, autobiographical sub-genre, that of *misery memoirs*.
I think that it is this particular dimension in these works, of (high-quality) “graphic grumbling” (to paraphrase T. S. Eliot calling the Waste Land “rhythmic grumbling”) that appeals to to the comics community, and not their content, political or otherwise. So, in fact, though readers in the mainstream, non-comics market, may be attracted by their theme, political or otherwise, it is their authors’ sense of being underdogs in the culture that speaks to comics readers’ hearts, and makes such books also rather popular among comics fans.”
Interesting stuff there, particularly the idea of “misery memoirs” being most likely to crossover to mainstream success. Thanks to Apostolos for sending it in and kindly giving us permission to post it up.
Now, as for that festive treat I promised, how about a three page new Logicomix strip. It aired in Publisher’s Weekly this week:
December 24th, 2009 at 7:35 am
Forbidden Planet: The Author Writes a few comments about break-out comics and their problems http://tinyurl.com/yegqf2x