It's funny because it's sad.
Недели полторы назад у меня случился довольно любопытный разговор, в ходе которого мой собеседник, читавший тогда Supergods - эпический труд Гранта Моррисона об истории, значении и смысле супергероев - сказал, помимо прочего, что скорее всего именно вокруг изложенного в этой книге будет в ближайшие несколько лет закручена большая часть околокомиксного дискурса. В ответ я, не читавшая книгу, усмехнулась.
Потому что нет.
Возможно Грант Моррисон написал по-настоящему умные, глубокие и интересные вещи (я сказала возможно), но если я чего-то и знаю о мире комиксов, так это коньюктуру. Нет, комиксы Моррисона отлично продаются, и тут перемен не предвидится. И да, его всё ещё обожают и будут обожать простые фанаты.
Но заслуживающее внимания дискуссионное пространство создают не они. Те же, кто делает это, испытывают всё меньше и меньше желания всерьёз слушать Гранта Моррисона.
В чём же дело?
Как мы все знаем, в этом году как-то особенно сильно заполыхал не затухающий как минимум с конца восьмидесятых годов прошлого века конфликт между авторами комиксов и издателями, так называемая проблема "прав создателей". DC всё-таки решило издать Before Watchmen, Marvel заработало огромные деньги "Мстителями", не переставая при этом судиться с семьёй Джека Кирби, одного из оригинальных создателей команды, от Большой Двойки один за другим начали сваливать создатели с Именами (особо отличилось тут DC, к недовольным которым недавно добавился ещё и Грег Рака, но и Marvel потеряло, навскидку, хотя бы Эда Брубейкера), что дало повод для комментариев о том, что, возможно, время Имён, работающих над франчайзами, прошло, при этом профессионалы индустрии наконец-то научились активно использовать ресурсы Интернета, и стали ещё менее зависимыми от Большой Двойки. Всё это привело к оживлению разговора о том, как издательства обращаются с фрилансерами и о правах оригинальных авторов больших франчайзов. И люди, говорящие и пишущие об этом медиуме то, что стоит слушать и читать, единодушно, хоть и в разной степени, встали явно не на сторону корпораций.
А что же Грант Моррисон? Грант Моррисон, один из успешнейших и популярнейших комикс-сценаристов последней четверти века? Грант Моррисон, любимец фанатов, о чьём творчестве притом не стыдно говорить всерьёз? Грант Моррисон, чудак и эксцентрик, любитель магии и левого анархизма?
Гранту Моррисону плевать.
Или даже хуже.
Огромные цитаты и множество ссылок
В этом месте начинаются огромные цитаты и множество ссылок, так что будьте готовы.
Итак.
Сперва немного о сути и проблемности позиции Моррисона:
Большая цитатаOf the book’s four sections, The Golden Age is the shortest at 56 pages, and the least personal, mainly because these foundations date from before his time as a reader or writer. While he brings some fresh readings to the birth of Superman in Action Comics No. 1 in 1938 and the rest of the Forties pantheon, his version of how 23-year-old Clevelanders Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster sold all rights to their creation Superman to National Comics (now DC) for a mere $130, or $10 per page, seeks to downplay any injustice. He asserts they “were creating a product to sell” and “imagined they’d create other, better characters.” In his original unedited draft which I read some months ago, Morrison asserted “...they wanted to be bought” (the italics were his), but this got pruned.
Morrison goes on to suggest that “by 1946, they realized how much money their creation was raking in”. In fact, as revealed in the fascinating study of Creators of the Superheroes by Dr. Thomas Andrae (Hermes Press, 2011), as early as September 1938, Siegel was already requesting a raise in their rates to take on an extra syndicated Superman newspaper strip and being fobbed off. DC publisher Jack Liebowitz replied intimidatingly to Siegel on September 23, 1938, insisting, “Our company has very little to gain in a monetary sense from the syndication of this material… Also bear in mind that we own the feature ‘Superman’ and that we can at any time replace you in the drawing on that feature.”
Which is exactly what DC did, when Siegel and Shuster filed a lawsuit against them in 1946 and their contracts were not renewed. Creators’ rights were little better when it came to Batman. Andrae again points out that young Bob Kane‘s father was a union man who worked in the printing department of the New York Daily News. He and his son fought hard to secure rights to the hit character. The snag was that writer and co-creator Bill Finger was left out of the deal, kept invisible by Kane, who made sure he secured sole credit. He could have done so much more for others, but never did. Kane finally landed a one million dollar buyout from DC in 1967 and an ongoing percentage from Batman subsidiary income. You can imagine how much moolah that meant. In contrast, Siegel and Shuster were reduced to poverty, and only after a campaign publicising this injustice were granted in 1975 their credits on the character and a pension of $20,000 a year. Morrison does mention this but curiously, comparing the proof to the finished book, has put the whole sorry affair inside parentheses, like a footnote. He also mentions, “Today a prolific and popular comics writer could make the same amount in a week.” No doubt DC makes that same amount in a day, an hour, maybe less?
How easy is it for fans and pros today, so hypnotised since childhood by these ubiquitous, constantly repromoted properties, to ignore their tarnished histories? I’ve talked recently to some fan readers who are troubled when I mention this horrific, disfigured portrait lurking beneath the polished profiles, masks and capes, hidden in the attic, but who can’t seem to help themselves from still wanting to follow these perfect-looking, super-powered Dorian Grays, no matter what. Morrison prefers to elevate the superhero as an indestructible concept, almost an independent, self-actualising entity, acknowledging only slightly its murkier commercial side, but glossing over the exploitation rife in this business, then and now. Unlike earlier ‘public domain’ gods and goddesses from antiquity and religious faiths, Superheroes are as much Superbrands, properties that must make profits for DC, part of Time-Warner-AOL, and Marvel, bought by Disney. While Morrison and his ilk earn tidy sums from endless, spiralling makeovers of these franchises, both publishers are aggressively fighting lawsuits over ownership against the estates of Siegel and of Jack Kirby, joint architect of the Marvel Universe.
Там же есть ссылка на последнее письмо Джоан Сигел Time Warner. Это... да.
Вот ещё одно высказывание Моррисона, на этот раз из приуроченного к выходу книги интервью:
Well, to me it's never been honestly what's interesting about this stuff. I think the stories outlast all of those complications. You look at the people who created those characters, and they're all dead. But the characters will still be around in 50 years probably – at least the best of them will. So I try not to concern myself with that.
Да, позиция Гранта, как можно догадаться, сразу же вызвала много вопросов. Вот, например:
Unfortunately, Morrison’s treatment of Siegel and Shuster’s treatment is even more depressing in context; far from not wanting to comment on something that happened before he was born or not being interested in the subject, he devotes several paragraphs providing a counter-narrative to the conventional wisdom that the young creators got screwed over by the savvy and experienced suits at National Comics.
...
Holy shit. Twenty-thousand dollars…in a week?
Is that what Morrison pulls down? Because he’s one of the four most popular superhero comic book writers (along with Geoff Johns, Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Millar), and perhaps the third most prolific of the four.
Wait. That can’t possibly be right. Because 52 times $20,000 is $1,040,000 dollars. That’s a million bucks a year. Is Grant Morrison a fucking millionaire? Because, if so, that makes his dismissal of Shuster and Siegel’s screwing over seem not just impolitic—given his current gig writing Action Comics and the success he’s had with the character in JLA and All-Star Superman—but almost monstrous.
Особой яркостью отличалась реакция Мэтта Сенеки. Сперва Мэтт написал слова. Потом он снова написал слова. Потом он написал ещё слова. Потом он поджарил свою копию Supergods на барбекюшнице и съел.
Ооокееееей.
Тема для отдельного разговора: чего в Мэтте Сенеке больше - показушничества или истерики?
Тема для отдельного разговора-2: Мэтт Сенека и Роджер Иберт как примеры того, почему хорошим критикам лучше держаться подальше от творчества в "своём" медиуме.
Бодрое барбекю Сенеки привлекло внимание всего Интернета. Почему-то.
Внимания было так много, что история докатилась до самого Моррисона, и он, усмехаясь, вспомнил о ней в своём недавнем интервью. Интервью это, впрочем, оказалось примечательным не только упоминанием сожжённой книги - в нём Моррисон говорил в том числе и о своих творческих планах (Чудо Женщина!), но сосредоточимся на основной теме этого поста:
Большие цитатыMorrison perhaps felt this most keenly when in Supergods, his history of superhero comics infused with his own autobiographical adventures, he discussed the always controversial case of Siegel and Schuster, the two men who created Superman and sold the character to DC Comics for a small sum. Superman went on to become a national sensation, with the creators left out of pocket and seeking legal recompense. Their names are now frequently invoked when fingers are pointed at the publishing giant. Morrison's take was more pragmatic: that the men had been pitching a product to sell, that this was business as usual, and that as creators they no doubt thought they would have better and brighter characters to come.
The backlash was swift and merciless: clearly Morrison was no more than a DC stooge, an industry apologist. He couldn't possibly just be a writer with his own opinion, frustrated that his words were stripped of intent and context, twisted and gnarled into the readers cynical interpretation. One disgruntled reader took it a step further.
“[The] guy that ate Supergods!” Morrison laughs. “Cooked it and ate it on the basis that it was my fault that people couldn't find alternative comics in their local comics stores. And I was standing in the way, pretending to be the face of alternative comics, and how I actually stood for corporate this or corporate ... you know, I’m the man – again as I say, I’m a freelance writer, I'm not on staff at any company. But this guy ate the book!”
...
Morrison is keen to point out that he is leaving on good terms with DC, and still has work in the pipeline with them for the next year.
“We have disagreements,” he acknowledges, “but to me disagreements are things that you deal with, problems are things you solve, and everyone stays friends, and negotiations are done. So I kinda felt that.. it just began to feel too unpleasant to work within a comic book fan culture where everyone was mad at you all the time and giving you responsibility for legal cases and things that Ihaveve got honestly nothing to do with in my life and will shortly have zero connection with.
“But I felt that. There was a sense of, a definite sense of the temple was being burned down and it was time to run away.”
...
“That's what you did. If you want to own something you go and own it. So I don't understand how you could get yourself into the position where you don't own it and you're angry about it. And again, it's not a position I would endorse, other than saying, 'I really feel sorry for you, for genuinely getting this wrong and being regretful,' but honestly am I gonna leave my job and protest on your behalf? Of course not.”
Is it a slightly classist thing, I wonder, the idea that you can just drop your job at work as a protest?
“Yeah, it's the idea that you don't have to work and that everything will be okay,” he agrees, “and what you just phone your dad and he'll come down and dump a bunch of money on you? So no, it's like, yes, I blame the middle classes for everything.”
I can almost hear the finger-wagging storm that is approaching, but Morrison grew up working class in Glasgow, an origin that instils a high work ethic that extends long past your own financial security. He may now have a home in Los Angeles too, and he probably didn't have to scramble for loose change down the back of his sofa for a bus ride to the interview, but he's still a world apart from those born into financial comfort.
...
And that's the Glasgow boy again, swirling his drink and smiling at the enthusiastic leaflet ninjas who keep hovering on the sidelines of our table. He's written the greatest comic characters in the world, created his own highly acclaimed works, and won a clutch of Eisners, Eagles and Harvey awards. Factor in his other work as an award-winning playwright, and his various screenplays (including the upcoming Dinosaurs vs Aliens), it's perhaps no surprise that he was nominated for an honour from the Queen.
“I just felt it's really nice to be acknowledged at all!” he laughs. “I was so shocked... I don't even know who put me up for it. Is it some weird Lib Dem guy who's been reading The Invisibles all these years?”
It seemed to me like many of the detractors were coming from a distinctly middle class perspective.
“I couldn’t help notice that myself,” Morrison says. “There’s a particular miasma of totems and taboos surrounding contact with the trappings of high privilege that appears to arise from specifically middle class prejudices. In Glasgow, there’s also an element of working class sectarian bias in the condemnation, so it’s not all about the middle. I noticed also that previous histrionic public refusals of medals and honours had achieved exactly nothing.”
...
“It's okay because it's no biggie, honestly you're not buying into anything - because you can't. By your intrinsic nature, who you are and where you were born, you can't buy into that system. They don't get it, you know, we'll never buy into it. We're the common people, as Jarvis Cocker said, and they'll never understand that.”
Давайте-ка сразу определимся с одной вещью: то ли из-за недоинформированности, то ли по какой-то другой причине Грант изрядно исказил позицию Сенеки. Да, Мэтт действительно недоволен доминированием мейнстримной супергероики на рынке, и да, лично я считаю, что значительная часть борцов за "права создателей" использует их как повод для отработки своей фрустрации популярностью супергероев, но в конкретном тексте в отношении Supergods эта мысль проговаривается им почти походя и очевидно не представлена как основной повод для недовольства:
Не особо большие цитатыThe book positions superhero stories as the only kind of comics that really count (or exist, for that matter), the evolutionary triggers for the coming real-life transformation of humanity into superhumanity. Supergods begins, naturally enough, with the story of Siegel and Shuster creating comics’ first costumed crimefighter, Superman. What follows is nothing less than a virtuosic rhetorical performance, as Morrison manages to remove the guilt of working with a property so heinously wrested from its true owners by putting the blame on Siegel and Shuster themselves, who according to the Man of Steel’s eventual inheritor totally knew what they were doing!
“Like so many artists, musicians, and entertainers,” Morrison tells us, “they were creating a product to sell,” and once the ink hit the back of that check any immorality on the part of the buyer was no longer of consequence. To Morrison, Siegel and Shuster seem to be romantic bits of history, not actual ruined lives. Superman clearly matters more to him, and the idea that he might be in the wrong for participating in the continued unethical use of the character is never brought up. Over the course of the book, however, it becomes clear that someone as smart and self-promoting as Morrison is incapable of playing ignorant for too long. As any good writer would be, Morrison sees the tragedy of Siegel and Shuster -- and simply refuses to care. “Leaving his fathers far behind on the doomed planet Poverty,” a memorable passage runs, “Superman… flew into the hands of anyone who could afford to hire him.” This might sound like a call to arms if it was coming from anyone but a beneficiary of the events being detailed, but for Morrison it’s just another dramatically potent tidbit to drop into the latest bestseller. When the fact that the total amount Siegel and Shuster were ever paid for their creation is about as much as today’s big-name comics writers make in a week, it’s cited not as something the industry deserves to be ashamed of, but “an example of how far the business has come”.
...
Supergods is an immensely distressing book in its own right, but more distressing still is the way it puts the lie to all the revolutionary rhetoric of Morrison’s previous works, All Star Superman very much among them. Before 2011, it was possible to view Morrison the way he presented himself, as an agent of a better future doing the dirty-but-necessary job of infiltrating the rotten hive of superhero comics in order to change it from the inside out. There may even have been a time when that was really how things were. But as Alan Moore reminded us in Watchmen -- shortly before leaving DC in disgust rather than continue on there as Morrison has -- when you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also. And then, at least in Morrison’s case, it swallows you whole and spits you back out to spit out its poisonous creeds and hypocritical justifications.
Интервью Моррисона... вызвало отклик. Возможно не особо активный, но досточный для того. чтобы увидеть, как на наших глазах образ Моррисона в глазах людей, учавствующих в Большом Разговоре О Комиксах, окончательно изменился далеко не в лучшую сторону.
Джей Кейлеб Мозокко, критик, время от времени пишущий в том числе для Comics Alliance:
Большие цитатыI disagree with Laura Sneddon's characterization of reaction to Morrison's retelling of comics' "original sin" in Supergods.
(I also disagree with the her story about Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster; it wasn't "DC Comics," it was "a publisher that would eventually become known as DC Comics," and it wasn't "a small sum," but "$130" dollars. I can see why she condensed the first bit down to "DC Comics," for brevity's sake, but why on earth use the vaguer, less-specific and loger "a small sum" for "130" dollars. Oh, and they didn't sell Superman for that amount, that's one of the things still being argued about. The company that would eventually become known as DC Comics bought a 13-page story from them for $10 a page. That wasn't the price they paid to own Superman; it was the price they paid to run that story. Who owns what wasn't decided upon until the various parties started going to court. But whatever, back to Morrison and "fans and critics alike" pouncing upon, dissecting and recycling that poor professional writer's words...)
...
Well, maybe not the doe-eyed ingénues bit, but "capitalist" and "blooksuckers" sound about right...as I mentioned above though, I don't remember them selling the copyright and/or ownership of Superman; they sold a story featuring Superman for a page rate, and that's why there's still a Superman-related legal fight.
...
Instead of the characterization of Morrisons fans and critics as the bad guys and the writer as the good guy, why couldn't Sneddon just ask, "Hey man, why did you write that? Do you believe that? Why do you believe that?" You know—questions!
As to the economic issues Morrison discusses, I sure hope to God "class" means something totally different in the UK than it does in the USA, and that they're talking about lords and ladies and dukes and some medieval British shit, because do remember that, like Siegel and Shuster and Superman, Morrison himself brought up economics in an interview promoting his book, while attacking cartoonist Chris Ware/"Those Comics Journal Guys"/Everything That Isn't a DC or Marvel Superhero Comic as the work of Privileged College Kids and just don't get a working-class Scottish guy like himself (And, in his book, Morrison both trumpets his own incredible wealth while also dismissing the "fairy tale" of the actually poor young guys living in The Great Depression losing Superman due to their own negligence).
If you read Morrison's comics, he's a hard writer not to like. If you read interviews with Morrison, he's a hard person to like.
...
You wouldn't know it from the article itself, but the "guy that ate Supergods!" is Matt Seneca, a cartoonist and comics critic who has written for Robot 6, ComicsAlliance and The Comics Journal, probably the best (or "only", in some circles) respected media source wholly devoted to comics. Seneca even interviews comics creators, just like Laura Sneddon does! (Only differently).
Dismissing Seneca like that is just...weird. It would be akin to calling Roger Ebert a "disgruntled viewer." Not exactly equivalent, because Seneca is not to comics as Ebert is to movies, but, like Ebert, he's a guy who writes professionally about them. He's not just a guy who read a fucking book and didn't like it.
It's a confounding omission on Sneddon's part; would it be that much more difficult to say "one critic" instead of "one disgruntled reader"...? To note that he at the book to take pictures to illustrate a review of the book, rather than just to, I don't know, eat a book...?
Дэвид Бразерс, пишущий для того же Comics Alliance и не только:
ЦитатыSneddon, when asking about contentious points, minimizes and turns complaints against Morrison into easily-dismissed strawmen. She mentions that it seemed “like many of the detractors were coming from a distinctly middle class perspective” and Morrison agrees with her and goes on about middle class prejudices against the “trappings of high privilege.” (what?) Earlier in the interview, she writes: “Is it a slightly classist thing, I wonder, the idea that you can just drop your job at work as a protest?” (what?) She asks Morrison about comics critic Matt Seneca grilling and eating (part of) a copy of Morrison’s Supergods. Instead of Seneca’s weird performance being an act with some type of point, it’s used as evidence that “Fans are crazy and cynical and stupid.” Dissent is never treated as reasonable, only as aberration, and a de-fanged aberration at that.
...
The most aggravating part of the interview is the quote at the top of the post. That is a grown man asking why people believe the things that come out of his mouth. He wants to know why, after he says things, people care about them and hold him to his word. “Why can’t I just say things willy-nilly without having people look at my position?” he’s essentially asking here.
That is laughable, because he has built a career, in part, on people paying attention to, falling in love with, and believing his words. He set himself up as a counter-culture type of guy by producing works that embraced the counter-culture and drew on classic counter-culture subject matter and authors. He’s given at least one rock starred out speech at DisInfocon, and his letters pages let interact with a specific subset of comics readers.
He built this personality, this image of Grant Morrison-as-King Mob. That didn’t come from the fans or critics cruelly picking apart his words. No, we took him at his word and at his work, just like we’ve done with everyone from Stan Lee to Frank Miller to Dave Sim to Alan Moore. When confronted with the fact that King Mob prefers to defend a corporation over creators, describes a certain subset of fans as “voluminous Goth girls, victims of some unspeakable abuse,” and generally isn’t who he sold himself to be, I (and others, sure, but this is all about me-me-me-me-me) reacted with surprise, and then frustration.
It’s my fault, of course. I believed the hype. I believed in what Grant Morrison said and wrote, so I just set myself up for disappointment. Judging by this interview, what I should have done, were I not a weary cynic ready to burn down the temple (“the temple!”), was to assume that Morrison was just a cog in the machine and not take him so seriously, I guess.
В комментариях там были сказаны интересные вещи о классовой принадлежности:
Много цитатI have to say, I kinda get where they’re coming from with the whole middle-class thing. A lot of comics politics seems to be based on the idea that we can or should expect these corporations to behave ethically, that the fact that they’ve ripped off the people who built their universes out of sheer meanness is something we should be upset about. Stereotypically, that kind of thing is a more middle-class perspective, especially when contrasted with the idea that the game is always rigged and you should look out for yourself, without expecting any consideration from these companies.
...
Like Ali, guys like Moore, Miller, Sim and Neal Adams used their cultural cache as a bully pulpit to further creator rights. Morrison however seems to be interested in furthering himself.
The key difference between Morrison and Jordan is Jordan’s public persona was always one of a bland cipher. Any expactations of him were simply wishful thinking. Morrison may not have deliberately cultivated his counter culture status, but he has certainly fed into it and only recently started disabuse himself from it with this rash of statements.
...
I think some of the differences between how the debate on ‘class’ is framed on this side of the Atlantic and over there in the States might contribute toward your confusion in the second paragraph there. That the trappings of success are embraced by the working classes whilst resented by the middle classes is a truism. Privilege and a comfortable upbringing where hard graft may not be required to get on can often result in a backlash against that very culture. Think public-school (meaning private, fee-paying schools like Eton and the like) educated plastic revolutionaries like Joe Strummer from The Clash or Damon Albarn as opposed to someone like Noel Gallagher, who grew up poor and worked menial jobs before getting to the top. Gallagher was heavily criticized in the 90′s for attending a tea party at the prime minister’s house, something it’s unlikely you would ever have seen Strummer do. When asked why he went he said, “Because they asked me to.”. He, like Morrison, didn’t see declining such an invitation as a deadly blow to The Establishment, and that doing so would be a largely futile gesture.
Similarly, the idea that you would quit your job in protest over the treatment of fellow employees 70 years ago implies that you don’t really ‘need’ that job to make ends meet, a mindset totally alien to someone who considers themselves working class. Morrison clearly regards Seigel and Shuster as fellow professionals and their business decisions, however badly they skewed in the end, as a bed they made for themselves so to speak. Some critics, the aforementioned Matt Senaca for example, describe Seigel and Shuster like borderline simpletons, unable to grasp the gravity or consequences of their decisions. Which position would you describe as more respectful to Seigel and Shuster?
...
The class element is weird and misplaced because on what planet is Morrison a working class hero? He’s probably the most secure dude working at DC. He doesn’t NEED DC. In fact, he’s leaving DC now because he’s “tired of doing superheroes” or whatever. That’s so working class. I know I can totally just leave my job because I’m “tired of it”. Meanwhile, he’s turning around and blasting on someone like Chris Roberson(if we are going to name names here, that’s who we are basically talking about) who left because he was considered with how DC treat creators NOW(Before Watchmen isn’t 30 years ago, it’s NOW. And if Alan freaking Moore can’t get treated with class–what chance do you have?). Roberson would seem to me to be making a judgement about his own career and the kind of ownership he wants over them. Morrison is just making a judgement on his random ass whims.
And somehow Roberson is basically Mitt Romney, and Morrison is this working class hero?
It’s really bizarre how 1) that’s an element of the discussion and then 2) that it has been framed in such a weird way.
It’s funny because most comic creators outside DC’s walls are poor, not particularly well taken care of, but still doing the damn thing. Because they believe that much in what they are doing. You want working class heroes, those are the people to go interview. Not Grant freaking Morrison.
I don’t have huge huge problems with Morrison–but don’t try to sell him to me as some sort of working class Jesus. It is offensive as hell. Like at this point he could relate in any way to struggling or maintaining a belief against impossible odds.
Как вы, наверное, заметили, тут не то чтобы сильно спрятан отдельный и крайне интересный разговор о классизме, деньгах и привилегиях. Моррисон, человек, с почти презрением глядящий на создающих "высокохудожественные" комиксы интеллектуалов из среднего класса, возможно действительно происходит из социального слоя, лишённого иллюзий о возможности всеобщей справедливости, и, возможно, именно эти определяется его взгляд на мир, но, если так, как уже сегодняшний миллионер он представляет собой своеобразный аргумент против высокой социальной мобильности: хотим ли мы, чтобы сильные мира сего были ещё жёстче, чем они есть? Правильно ли считать, что то, в какой семье ты родился, определяет и оправдывает тебя даже когда тебе уже пошёл шестой десяток и ты как никогда далёк от своих корней? Но с другой стороны, правильно ли ожидать или даже требовать, чтобы с переходом в новый социальный слой люди полностью перекраивали себя под своё новое положение?
Джамаал Томас о Моррисоне в частности и об отношениях авторов с фандомом:
Большие цитатыMorrison managed to appeal to those who hungered for meaning from the culture they consumed while spinning an entertaining yarn.
That appeal was complemented by the public persona that Morrison constructed over the years: a new-age counter culture icon. He talked about Buddhism and aliens and psychedelic drugs. He espoused anti-corporate philosophies. He evinced radicalism. We were tempted to think of him as some kind of post-modern pop culture Gnostic visionary. A philosopher. A chaos magician. In the last year and change, Grant made a series of comments in interviews and his Supergods book that seemed to come from a different place. A guy who used to embrace the paradoxes of the human condition in books like the Invisibles and Seaguy sounded like he was more interested in the mythology around pop culture icons than the struggles of the men who created them. It felt like he was turning a blind eye to what Tom Spurgeon’s described as the original sin of the American comics industry to embrace the stories.
...
Morrison has become the master of the disingenuous bad faith argument. All of his critics are clownish strawmen. Matt Seneca’s transformed from an impassioned critic into some kind of performance artist who ate Supergods out of incoherent mania. I may not agree with all of Matt’s points, but he deserves engagement, not condescension. Morrison’s critics werent holding him personally responsible for the Siefel/Shuster suit, they were just holding him to account for the things he actually said or wrote. But I guess it’s easier to pretend otherwise.
But that’s not my favorite part. The best bit is when he doubles down on his position on the relationship between creators and the ‘Big Two’ publishers and drops a subliminal Alan Moore dis that would make Jay-Z proud. We’re supposed to ignore the fact that Moore wasn’t some yokel who signed his ideas away for magic beans, but a guy who thought that DC violated the terms of its contract with him and acted in bad faith after benefiting from a windfall (long story short: the rights to Watchmen were supposed to revert to the creators after the book went out of print. Neither party anticipated the explosive growth of the trade market). I find it hard to believe that Morrison doesn’t know that contracts are always subject to interpretation and frequently fail to address unforeseeable advances in technology or changes to the marketplace.
...
Creators are in the business of selling the cultural products they create to an audience who will appreciate them.
So it stands to reason that a rational creator would present the public with a version of themselves that’s most conducive to selling those products. It makes sense for Grant Morrison or Alan Moore to emphasize the more radical, countercultural side of their personalities when selling products to an audience that would be most receptive to those ideas. Neither man would gain from reminding the audience that they are also hard-nosed businessmen. But we forget. We confuse an advertising campaign with reality. We never should have assumed that Grant Morrison was anything more than “a freelance commercial writer who sells stories to pay the bills“.
I’m not sure if the version of Morrison that inspired a thriving online community of freethinkers and radicals represents all or any of the real Grant Morrison, and I don’t think it matters.
These interviews should inspire us to rethink the notion of fandom. We shouldn’t stop loving the books or respecting the people who create them. We can still value online and in-person interactions with creators, and pore over their interviews and profiles. We just shouldn’t be surprised or disappointed when they change their public persona. We should resist that sense of false sense of familiarity or intimacy with people who are essentially strangers.
Джамаал говорит, что фанатам пора приучаться не верить авторам, и он прав. Это мир, в котором мы теперь живём, и нет, это не только про комиксы. У вашего любимого писателя или актёра есть Твиттер? Вам нравится смотреть на фотографии со съемок грядущего блокбастера, на которых актёры веселятся и радостно общаются между собой? На коллективные интервью, где они шутят, перебрасываются добродушными колкостями и рассказывают о себе истории? На видео, которыми они поздравляют друг друга с днём рождения?
Мир так работает и, возможно, Грант Моррисон просто понял это раньше своих коллег по индустрии. Остаётся поднятый Дэвидом Бразерсом вопрос: можем ли мы верить, если при этом мы не должны верить? И устроит ли автора публика, которая сознательно и прицельно не верит?
Ну и на десерт прекрасное от Абхэя Хослы (кажется, я каждый раз пишу имя этого человека по-новому) в колонке Такера Стоуна в, внимание, онлайн-версии The Comics Journal:
ЦитатыThe interview was gross, and by the word gross, I specifically mean “horrible, grotesque, nauseating, stomach-churning, flesh-crawling”—basically, all the worst parts of the Bible. But the GOOD part is that Morrison talks about why he is going to quit writing America’s Second-Favorite Batman stories: because of comics fans. COMICS FANS. Oh, those comic fans are some mean old nasties, cold-hearted son-bitches, the very dregs of humanity (the actual dregs, not the band). Oh, somebody get him a pillow for his head, having to deal with the Grinches. Just because he tried to propagate a teeny-tiny, measly, miniscule bit of ahistoric propaganda that flattered the repeated misconduct of his long-time corporate masters and dismissed the intense suffering of the comic creators who paved the way for his current success. Damn you, comic fans. Damn the dark places you live!
...
If you have to run away from a temple you worked at because it is now on fire, on fire because even the Lord God who you falsely professed to worship himself is ashamed of your corruption, your thorough, total corruption—well, I don’t know if that’s something you really want to go bragging about to the New Statesman? “News flash! I’m too stubborn to notice God is repulsed by my corrupt mentality. Stop the presses!” Though to be fair, Grant Morrison, Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, only gave the interview, and was then given the opportunity to “review” the interview, in its entirety, and made sure to include in the interview that nothing he said in that interview or any other interview necessarily reflected his actual views, or the actual views of anyone else located in the United States or Guam, in that his views exist outside of time, space, the understood rules of causality, and thus any human capacity for critical judgment, but that if his views cause side effects, up to and including an erection lasting over four hours, with a mix of blood and semen erupting periodically such that… Look: I just don’t have the space to explain all the fine print, in full– the internet is simply too finite.
...
Rucka’s words are hard to reconcile with the divinity of Morrison’s repeated chant that “My own experience proves [DC Comics] can be reasonable and honorable, if you deal with them in an adult fashion.” Morrison’s words would thus seem to suggest that Rucka was right to be excommunicated from the Temple, for he is a most unholy child. But must Morrison go further? Must Morrison smite or indeed even smote Rucka for having defiled the Temple? Shall Morrison seek blessings to launch a Crusade upon Rucka and the other heathens? Will Rucka and Morrison together attend the next Barcelona Comic-Con? If so, does Greg Rucka expect for there to be a Spanish Inquisition? No. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
In conclusion, you have just read jokes about Dungeons & Dragons, Monty Python, and Comic Books. Welcome to my temple of life-long celibacy!
Итак, вот что произошло, хотя некоторым и кажется иначе.
Смотреть на эту ситуацию можно по-разному. Кто-то скажет, что мы наблюдаем типичные последствия проявления недостаточной почтительности к остромодной священной корове. Кто-то сосредоточится на этическом аспекте и решит, что человек, которому настолько плевать на униженных и оскорблённых, попросту не заслуживает ни внимания, ни денег. Кто-то же отметит, что, как бы там ни было, мягкое игнорирование бушующего до сих пор и едва ли не ключевого для формирования индустрии конфликта в любом случае не может не обернуться невозможностью полноценного анализа, а стремление глубоко цеплять своим творчеством как на эмоциональном, так и на интеллектуальном уровне едва ли сочетаемо со стремлением быть одинаково принятым публикой после каждой смены шкуры.
Грант, конечно, будет в порядке. Его новый проект собирает неплохие отзывы, народ в восторге от его конвенции, а сам он за достижения прошедшей недели справедливо получает от лично меня премию имени Скотта Снайдера ("Заткнись уже!").
В конце концов то, что для внятных критиков и теоретиков медиума его имя теперь находится всё ближе и ближе к имени Стражински, можно и пережить, так?
Потому что нет.
Возможно Грант Моррисон написал по-настоящему умные, глубокие и интересные вещи (я сказала возможно), но если я чего-то и знаю о мире комиксов, так это коньюктуру. Нет, комиксы Моррисона отлично продаются, и тут перемен не предвидится. И да, его всё ещё обожают и будут обожать простые фанаты.
Но заслуживающее внимания дискуссионное пространство создают не они. Те же, кто делает это, испытывают всё меньше и меньше желания всерьёз слушать Гранта Моррисона.
В чём же дело?
Как мы все знаем, в этом году как-то особенно сильно заполыхал не затухающий как минимум с конца восьмидесятых годов прошлого века конфликт между авторами комиксов и издателями, так называемая проблема "прав создателей". DC всё-таки решило издать Before Watchmen, Marvel заработало огромные деньги "Мстителями", не переставая при этом судиться с семьёй Джека Кирби, одного из оригинальных создателей команды, от Большой Двойки один за другим начали сваливать создатели с Именами (особо отличилось тут DC, к недовольным которым недавно добавился ещё и Грег Рака, но и Marvel потеряло, навскидку, хотя бы Эда Брубейкера), что дало повод для комментариев о том, что, возможно, время Имён, работающих над франчайзами, прошло, при этом профессионалы индустрии наконец-то научились активно использовать ресурсы Интернета, и стали ещё менее зависимыми от Большой Двойки. Всё это привело к оживлению разговора о том, как издательства обращаются с фрилансерами и о правах оригинальных авторов больших франчайзов. И люди, говорящие и пишущие об этом медиуме то, что стоит слушать и читать, единодушно, хоть и в разной степени, встали явно не на сторону корпораций.
А что же Грант Моррисон? Грант Моррисон, один из успешнейших и популярнейших комикс-сценаристов последней четверти века? Грант Моррисон, любимец фанатов, о чьём творчестве притом не стыдно говорить всерьёз? Грант Моррисон, чудак и эксцентрик, любитель магии и левого анархизма?
Гранту Моррисону плевать.
Или даже хуже.
Огромные цитаты и множество ссылок
В этом месте начинаются огромные цитаты и множество ссылок, так что будьте готовы.
Итак.
Сперва немного о сути и проблемности позиции Моррисона:
Большая цитатаOf the book’s four sections, The Golden Age is the shortest at 56 pages, and the least personal, mainly because these foundations date from before his time as a reader or writer. While he brings some fresh readings to the birth of Superman in Action Comics No. 1 in 1938 and the rest of the Forties pantheon, his version of how 23-year-old Clevelanders Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster sold all rights to their creation Superman to National Comics (now DC) for a mere $130, or $10 per page, seeks to downplay any injustice. He asserts they “were creating a product to sell” and “imagined they’d create other, better characters.” In his original unedited draft which I read some months ago, Morrison asserted “...they wanted to be bought” (the italics were his), but this got pruned.
Morrison goes on to suggest that “by 1946, they realized how much money their creation was raking in”. In fact, as revealed in the fascinating study of Creators of the Superheroes by Dr. Thomas Andrae (Hermes Press, 2011), as early as September 1938, Siegel was already requesting a raise in their rates to take on an extra syndicated Superman newspaper strip and being fobbed off. DC publisher Jack Liebowitz replied intimidatingly to Siegel on September 23, 1938, insisting, “Our company has very little to gain in a monetary sense from the syndication of this material… Also bear in mind that we own the feature ‘Superman’ and that we can at any time replace you in the drawing on that feature.”
Which is exactly what DC did, when Siegel and Shuster filed a lawsuit against them in 1946 and their contracts were not renewed. Creators’ rights were little better when it came to Batman. Andrae again points out that young Bob Kane‘s father was a union man who worked in the printing department of the New York Daily News. He and his son fought hard to secure rights to the hit character. The snag was that writer and co-creator Bill Finger was left out of the deal, kept invisible by Kane, who made sure he secured sole credit. He could have done so much more for others, but never did. Kane finally landed a one million dollar buyout from DC in 1967 and an ongoing percentage from Batman subsidiary income. You can imagine how much moolah that meant. In contrast, Siegel and Shuster were reduced to poverty, and only after a campaign publicising this injustice were granted in 1975 their credits on the character and a pension of $20,000 a year. Morrison does mention this but curiously, comparing the proof to the finished book, has put the whole sorry affair inside parentheses, like a footnote. He also mentions, “Today a prolific and popular comics writer could make the same amount in a week.” No doubt DC makes that same amount in a day, an hour, maybe less?
How easy is it for fans and pros today, so hypnotised since childhood by these ubiquitous, constantly repromoted properties, to ignore their tarnished histories? I’ve talked recently to some fan readers who are troubled when I mention this horrific, disfigured portrait lurking beneath the polished profiles, masks and capes, hidden in the attic, but who can’t seem to help themselves from still wanting to follow these perfect-looking, super-powered Dorian Grays, no matter what. Morrison prefers to elevate the superhero as an indestructible concept, almost an independent, self-actualising entity, acknowledging only slightly its murkier commercial side, but glossing over the exploitation rife in this business, then and now. Unlike earlier ‘public domain’ gods and goddesses from antiquity and religious faiths, Superheroes are as much Superbrands, properties that must make profits for DC, part of Time-Warner-AOL, and Marvel, bought by Disney. While Morrison and his ilk earn tidy sums from endless, spiralling makeovers of these franchises, both publishers are aggressively fighting lawsuits over ownership against the estates of Siegel and of Jack Kirby, joint architect of the Marvel Universe.
Там же есть ссылка на последнее письмо Джоан Сигел Time Warner. Это... да.
Вот ещё одно высказывание Моррисона, на этот раз из приуроченного к выходу книги интервью:
Well, to me it's never been honestly what's interesting about this stuff. I think the stories outlast all of those complications. You look at the people who created those characters, and they're all dead. But the characters will still be around in 50 years probably – at least the best of them will. So I try not to concern myself with that.
Да, позиция Гранта, как можно догадаться, сразу же вызвала много вопросов. Вот, например:
Unfortunately, Morrison’s treatment of Siegel and Shuster’s treatment is even more depressing in context; far from not wanting to comment on something that happened before he was born or not being interested in the subject, he devotes several paragraphs providing a counter-narrative to the conventional wisdom that the young creators got screwed over by the savvy and experienced suits at National Comics.
...
Holy shit. Twenty-thousand dollars…in a week?
Is that what Morrison pulls down? Because he’s one of the four most popular superhero comic book writers (along with Geoff Johns, Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Millar), and perhaps the third most prolific of the four.
Wait. That can’t possibly be right. Because 52 times $20,000 is $1,040,000 dollars. That’s a million bucks a year. Is Grant Morrison a fucking millionaire? Because, if so, that makes his dismissal of Shuster and Siegel’s screwing over seem not just impolitic—given his current gig writing Action Comics and the success he’s had with the character in JLA and All-Star Superman—but almost monstrous.
Особой яркостью отличалась реакция Мэтта Сенеки. Сперва Мэтт написал слова. Потом он снова написал слова. Потом он написал ещё слова. Потом он поджарил свою копию Supergods на барбекюшнице и съел.
Ооокееееей.
Тема для отдельного разговора: чего в Мэтте Сенеке больше - показушничества или истерики?
Тема для отдельного разговора-2: Мэтт Сенека и Роджер Иберт как примеры того, почему хорошим критикам лучше держаться подальше от творчества в "своём" медиуме.
Бодрое барбекю Сенеки привлекло внимание всего Интернета. Почему-то.
Внимания было так много, что история докатилась до самого Моррисона, и он, усмехаясь, вспомнил о ней в своём недавнем интервью. Интервью это, впрочем, оказалось примечательным не только упоминанием сожжённой книги - в нём Моррисон говорил в том числе и о своих творческих планах (Чудо Женщина!), но сосредоточимся на основной теме этого поста:
Большие цитатыMorrison perhaps felt this most keenly when in Supergods, his history of superhero comics infused with his own autobiographical adventures, he discussed the always controversial case of Siegel and Schuster, the two men who created Superman and sold the character to DC Comics for a small sum. Superman went on to become a national sensation, with the creators left out of pocket and seeking legal recompense. Their names are now frequently invoked when fingers are pointed at the publishing giant. Morrison's take was more pragmatic: that the men had been pitching a product to sell, that this was business as usual, and that as creators they no doubt thought they would have better and brighter characters to come.
The backlash was swift and merciless: clearly Morrison was no more than a DC stooge, an industry apologist. He couldn't possibly just be a writer with his own opinion, frustrated that his words were stripped of intent and context, twisted and gnarled into the readers cynical interpretation. One disgruntled reader took it a step further.
“[The] guy that ate Supergods!” Morrison laughs. “Cooked it and ate it on the basis that it was my fault that people couldn't find alternative comics in their local comics stores. And I was standing in the way, pretending to be the face of alternative comics, and how I actually stood for corporate this or corporate ... you know, I’m the man – again as I say, I’m a freelance writer, I'm not on staff at any company. But this guy ate the book!”
...
Morrison is keen to point out that he is leaving on good terms with DC, and still has work in the pipeline with them for the next year.
“We have disagreements,” he acknowledges, “but to me disagreements are things that you deal with, problems are things you solve, and everyone stays friends, and negotiations are done. So I kinda felt that.. it just began to feel too unpleasant to work within a comic book fan culture where everyone was mad at you all the time and giving you responsibility for legal cases and things that Ihaveve got honestly nothing to do with in my life and will shortly have zero connection with.
“But I felt that. There was a sense of, a definite sense of the temple was being burned down and it was time to run away.”
...
“That's what you did. If you want to own something you go and own it. So I don't understand how you could get yourself into the position where you don't own it and you're angry about it. And again, it's not a position I would endorse, other than saying, 'I really feel sorry for you, for genuinely getting this wrong and being regretful,' but honestly am I gonna leave my job and protest on your behalf? Of course not.”
Is it a slightly classist thing, I wonder, the idea that you can just drop your job at work as a protest?
“Yeah, it's the idea that you don't have to work and that everything will be okay,” he agrees, “and what you just phone your dad and he'll come down and dump a bunch of money on you? So no, it's like, yes, I blame the middle classes for everything.”
I can almost hear the finger-wagging storm that is approaching, but Morrison grew up working class in Glasgow, an origin that instils a high work ethic that extends long past your own financial security. He may now have a home in Los Angeles too, and he probably didn't have to scramble for loose change down the back of his sofa for a bus ride to the interview, but he's still a world apart from those born into financial comfort.
...
And that's the Glasgow boy again, swirling his drink and smiling at the enthusiastic leaflet ninjas who keep hovering on the sidelines of our table. He's written the greatest comic characters in the world, created his own highly acclaimed works, and won a clutch of Eisners, Eagles and Harvey awards. Factor in his other work as an award-winning playwright, and his various screenplays (including the upcoming Dinosaurs vs Aliens), it's perhaps no surprise that he was nominated for an honour from the Queen.
“I just felt it's really nice to be acknowledged at all!” he laughs. “I was so shocked... I don't even know who put me up for it. Is it some weird Lib Dem guy who's been reading The Invisibles all these years?”
It seemed to me like many of the detractors were coming from a distinctly middle class perspective.
“I couldn’t help notice that myself,” Morrison says. “There’s a particular miasma of totems and taboos surrounding contact with the trappings of high privilege that appears to arise from specifically middle class prejudices. In Glasgow, there’s also an element of working class sectarian bias in the condemnation, so it’s not all about the middle. I noticed also that previous histrionic public refusals of medals and honours had achieved exactly nothing.”
...
“It's okay because it's no biggie, honestly you're not buying into anything - because you can't. By your intrinsic nature, who you are and where you were born, you can't buy into that system. They don't get it, you know, we'll never buy into it. We're the common people, as Jarvis Cocker said, and they'll never understand that.”
Давайте-ка сразу определимся с одной вещью: то ли из-за недоинформированности, то ли по какой-то другой причине Грант изрядно исказил позицию Сенеки. Да, Мэтт действительно недоволен доминированием мейнстримной супергероики на рынке, и да, лично я считаю, что значительная часть борцов за "права создателей" использует их как повод для отработки своей фрустрации популярностью супергероев, но в конкретном тексте в отношении Supergods эта мысль проговаривается им почти походя и очевидно не представлена как основной повод для недовольства:
Не особо большие цитатыThe book positions superhero stories as the only kind of comics that really count (or exist, for that matter), the evolutionary triggers for the coming real-life transformation of humanity into superhumanity. Supergods begins, naturally enough, with the story of Siegel and Shuster creating comics’ first costumed crimefighter, Superman. What follows is nothing less than a virtuosic rhetorical performance, as Morrison manages to remove the guilt of working with a property so heinously wrested from its true owners by putting the blame on Siegel and Shuster themselves, who according to the Man of Steel’s eventual inheritor totally knew what they were doing!
“Like so many artists, musicians, and entertainers,” Morrison tells us, “they were creating a product to sell,” and once the ink hit the back of that check any immorality on the part of the buyer was no longer of consequence. To Morrison, Siegel and Shuster seem to be romantic bits of history, not actual ruined lives. Superman clearly matters more to him, and the idea that he might be in the wrong for participating in the continued unethical use of the character is never brought up. Over the course of the book, however, it becomes clear that someone as smart and self-promoting as Morrison is incapable of playing ignorant for too long. As any good writer would be, Morrison sees the tragedy of Siegel and Shuster -- and simply refuses to care. “Leaving his fathers far behind on the doomed planet Poverty,” a memorable passage runs, “Superman… flew into the hands of anyone who could afford to hire him.” This might sound like a call to arms if it was coming from anyone but a beneficiary of the events being detailed, but for Morrison it’s just another dramatically potent tidbit to drop into the latest bestseller. When the fact that the total amount Siegel and Shuster were ever paid for their creation is about as much as today’s big-name comics writers make in a week, it’s cited not as something the industry deserves to be ashamed of, but “an example of how far the business has come”.
...
Supergods is an immensely distressing book in its own right, but more distressing still is the way it puts the lie to all the revolutionary rhetoric of Morrison’s previous works, All Star Superman very much among them. Before 2011, it was possible to view Morrison the way he presented himself, as an agent of a better future doing the dirty-but-necessary job of infiltrating the rotten hive of superhero comics in order to change it from the inside out. There may even have been a time when that was really how things were. But as Alan Moore reminded us in Watchmen -- shortly before leaving DC in disgust rather than continue on there as Morrison has -- when you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also. And then, at least in Morrison’s case, it swallows you whole and spits you back out to spit out its poisonous creeds and hypocritical justifications.
Интервью Моррисона... вызвало отклик. Возможно не особо активный, но досточный для того. чтобы увидеть, как на наших глазах образ Моррисона в глазах людей, учавствующих в Большом Разговоре О Комиксах, окончательно изменился далеко не в лучшую сторону.
Джей Кейлеб Мозокко, критик, время от времени пишущий в том числе для Comics Alliance:
Большие цитатыI disagree with Laura Sneddon's characterization of reaction to Morrison's retelling of comics' "original sin" in Supergods.
(I also disagree with the her story about Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster; it wasn't "DC Comics," it was "a publisher that would eventually become known as DC Comics," and it wasn't "a small sum," but "$130" dollars. I can see why she condensed the first bit down to "DC Comics," for brevity's sake, but why on earth use the vaguer, less-specific and loger "a small sum" for "130" dollars. Oh, and they didn't sell Superman for that amount, that's one of the things still being argued about. The company that would eventually become known as DC Comics bought a 13-page story from them for $10 a page. That wasn't the price they paid to own Superman; it was the price they paid to run that story. Who owns what wasn't decided upon until the various parties started going to court. But whatever, back to Morrison and "fans and critics alike" pouncing upon, dissecting and recycling that poor professional writer's words...)
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Well, maybe not the doe-eyed ingénues bit, but "capitalist" and "blooksuckers" sound about right...as I mentioned above though, I don't remember them selling the copyright and/or ownership of Superman; they sold a story featuring Superman for a page rate, and that's why there's still a Superman-related legal fight.
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Instead of the characterization of Morrisons fans and critics as the bad guys and the writer as the good guy, why couldn't Sneddon just ask, "Hey man, why did you write that? Do you believe that? Why do you believe that?" You know—questions!
As to the economic issues Morrison discusses, I sure hope to God "class" means something totally different in the UK than it does in the USA, and that they're talking about lords and ladies and dukes and some medieval British shit, because do remember that, like Siegel and Shuster and Superman, Morrison himself brought up economics in an interview promoting his book, while attacking cartoonist Chris Ware/"Those Comics Journal Guys"/Everything That Isn't a DC or Marvel Superhero Comic as the work of Privileged College Kids and just don't get a working-class Scottish guy like himself (And, in his book, Morrison both trumpets his own incredible wealth while also dismissing the "fairy tale" of the actually poor young guys living in The Great Depression losing Superman due to their own negligence).
If you read Morrison's comics, he's a hard writer not to like. If you read interviews with Morrison, he's a hard person to like.
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You wouldn't know it from the article itself, but the "guy that ate Supergods!" is Matt Seneca, a cartoonist and comics critic who has written for Robot 6, ComicsAlliance and The Comics Journal, probably the best (or "only", in some circles) respected media source wholly devoted to comics. Seneca even interviews comics creators, just like Laura Sneddon does! (Only differently).
Dismissing Seneca like that is just...weird. It would be akin to calling Roger Ebert a "disgruntled viewer." Not exactly equivalent, because Seneca is not to comics as Ebert is to movies, but, like Ebert, he's a guy who writes professionally about them. He's not just a guy who read a fucking book and didn't like it.
It's a confounding omission on Sneddon's part; would it be that much more difficult to say "one critic" instead of "one disgruntled reader"...? To note that he at the book to take pictures to illustrate a review of the book, rather than just to, I don't know, eat a book...?
Дэвид Бразерс, пишущий для того же Comics Alliance и не только:
ЦитатыSneddon, when asking about contentious points, minimizes and turns complaints against Morrison into easily-dismissed strawmen. She mentions that it seemed “like many of the detractors were coming from a distinctly middle class perspective” and Morrison agrees with her and goes on about middle class prejudices against the “trappings of high privilege.” (what?) Earlier in the interview, she writes: “Is it a slightly classist thing, I wonder, the idea that you can just drop your job at work as a protest?” (what?) She asks Morrison about comics critic Matt Seneca grilling and eating (part of) a copy of Morrison’s Supergods. Instead of Seneca’s weird performance being an act with some type of point, it’s used as evidence that “Fans are crazy and cynical and stupid.” Dissent is never treated as reasonable, only as aberration, and a de-fanged aberration at that.
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The most aggravating part of the interview is the quote at the top of the post. That is a grown man asking why people believe the things that come out of his mouth. He wants to know why, after he says things, people care about them and hold him to his word. “Why can’t I just say things willy-nilly without having people look at my position?” he’s essentially asking here.
That is laughable, because he has built a career, in part, on people paying attention to, falling in love with, and believing his words. He set himself up as a counter-culture type of guy by producing works that embraced the counter-culture and drew on classic counter-culture subject matter and authors. He’s given at least one rock starred out speech at DisInfocon, and his letters pages let interact with a specific subset of comics readers.
He built this personality, this image of Grant Morrison-as-King Mob. That didn’t come from the fans or critics cruelly picking apart his words. No, we took him at his word and at his work, just like we’ve done with everyone from Stan Lee to Frank Miller to Dave Sim to Alan Moore. When confronted with the fact that King Mob prefers to defend a corporation over creators, describes a certain subset of fans as “voluminous Goth girls, victims of some unspeakable abuse,” and generally isn’t who he sold himself to be, I (and others, sure, but this is all about me-me-me-me-me) reacted with surprise, and then frustration.
It’s my fault, of course. I believed the hype. I believed in what Grant Morrison said and wrote, so I just set myself up for disappointment. Judging by this interview, what I should have done, were I not a weary cynic ready to burn down the temple (“the temple!”), was to assume that Morrison was just a cog in the machine and not take him so seriously, I guess.
В комментариях там были сказаны интересные вещи о классовой принадлежности:
Много цитатI have to say, I kinda get where they’re coming from with the whole middle-class thing. A lot of comics politics seems to be based on the idea that we can or should expect these corporations to behave ethically, that the fact that they’ve ripped off the people who built their universes out of sheer meanness is something we should be upset about. Stereotypically, that kind of thing is a more middle-class perspective, especially when contrasted with the idea that the game is always rigged and you should look out for yourself, without expecting any consideration from these companies.
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Like Ali, guys like Moore, Miller, Sim and Neal Adams used their cultural cache as a bully pulpit to further creator rights. Morrison however seems to be interested in furthering himself.
The key difference between Morrison and Jordan is Jordan’s public persona was always one of a bland cipher. Any expactations of him were simply wishful thinking. Morrison may not have deliberately cultivated his counter culture status, but he has certainly fed into it and only recently started disabuse himself from it with this rash of statements.
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I think some of the differences between how the debate on ‘class’ is framed on this side of the Atlantic and over there in the States might contribute toward your confusion in the second paragraph there. That the trappings of success are embraced by the working classes whilst resented by the middle classes is a truism. Privilege and a comfortable upbringing where hard graft may not be required to get on can often result in a backlash against that very culture. Think public-school (meaning private, fee-paying schools like Eton and the like) educated plastic revolutionaries like Joe Strummer from The Clash or Damon Albarn as opposed to someone like Noel Gallagher, who grew up poor and worked menial jobs before getting to the top. Gallagher was heavily criticized in the 90′s for attending a tea party at the prime minister’s house, something it’s unlikely you would ever have seen Strummer do. When asked why he went he said, “Because they asked me to.”. He, like Morrison, didn’t see declining such an invitation as a deadly blow to The Establishment, and that doing so would be a largely futile gesture.
Similarly, the idea that you would quit your job in protest over the treatment of fellow employees 70 years ago implies that you don’t really ‘need’ that job to make ends meet, a mindset totally alien to someone who considers themselves working class. Morrison clearly regards Seigel and Shuster as fellow professionals and their business decisions, however badly they skewed in the end, as a bed they made for themselves so to speak. Some critics, the aforementioned Matt Senaca for example, describe Seigel and Shuster like borderline simpletons, unable to grasp the gravity or consequences of their decisions. Which position would you describe as more respectful to Seigel and Shuster?
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The class element is weird and misplaced because on what planet is Morrison a working class hero? He’s probably the most secure dude working at DC. He doesn’t NEED DC. In fact, he’s leaving DC now because he’s “tired of doing superheroes” or whatever. That’s so working class. I know I can totally just leave my job because I’m “tired of it”. Meanwhile, he’s turning around and blasting on someone like Chris Roberson(if we are going to name names here, that’s who we are basically talking about) who left because he was considered with how DC treat creators NOW(Before Watchmen isn’t 30 years ago, it’s NOW. And if Alan freaking Moore can’t get treated with class–what chance do you have?). Roberson would seem to me to be making a judgement about his own career and the kind of ownership he wants over them. Morrison is just making a judgement on his random ass whims.
And somehow Roberson is basically Mitt Romney, and Morrison is this working class hero?
It’s really bizarre how 1) that’s an element of the discussion and then 2) that it has been framed in such a weird way.
It’s funny because most comic creators outside DC’s walls are poor, not particularly well taken care of, but still doing the damn thing. Because they believe that much in what they are doing. You want working class heroes, those are the people to go interview. Not Grant freaking Morrison.
I don’t have huge huge problems with Morrison–but don’t try to sell him to me as some sort of working class Jesus. It is offensive as hell. Like at this point he could relate in any way to struggling or maintaining a belief against impossible odds.
Как вы, наверное, заметили, тут не то чтобы сильно спрятан отдельный и крайне интересный разговор о классизме, деньгах и привилегиях. Моррисон, человек, с почти презрением глядящий на создающих "высокохудожественные" комиксы интеллектуалов из среднего класса, возможно действительно происходит из социального слоя, лишённого иллюзий о возможности всеобщей справедливости, и, возможно, именно эти определяется его взгляд на мир, но, если так, как уже сегодняшний миллионер он представляет собой своеобразный аргумент против высокой социальной мобильности: хотим ли мы, чтобы сильные мира сего были ещё жёстче, чем они есть? Правильно ли считать, что то, в какой семье ты родился, определяет и оправдывает тебя даже когда тебе уже пошёл шестой десяток и ты как никогда далёк от своих корней? Но с другой стороны, правильно ли ожидать или даже требовать, чтобы с переходом в новый социальный слой люди полностью перекраивали себя под своё новое положение?
Джамаал Томас о Моррисоне в частности и об отношениях авторов с фандомом:
Большие цитатыMorrison managed to appeal to those who hungered for meaning from the culture they consumed while spinning an entertaining yarn.
That appeal was complemented by the public persona that Morrison constructed over the years: a new-age counter culture icon. He talked about Buddhism and aliens and psychedelic drugs. He espoused anti-corporate philosophies. He evinced radicalism. We were tempted to think of him as some kind of post-modern pop culture Gnostic visionary. A philosopher. A chaos magician. In the last year and change, Grant made a series of comments in interviews and his Supergods book that seemed to come from a different place. A guy who used to embrace the paradoxes of the human condition in books like the Invisibles and Seaguy sounded like he was more interested in the mythology around pop culture icons than the struggles of the men who created them. It felt like he was turning a blind eye to what Tom Spurgeon’s described as the original sin of the American comics industry to embrace the stories.
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Morrison has become the master of the disingenuous bad faith argument. All of his critics are clownish strawmen. Matt Seneca’s transformed from an impassioned critic into some kind of performance artist who ate Supergods out of incoherent mania. I may not agree with all of Matt’s points, but he deserves engagement, not condescension. Morrison’s critics werent holding him personally responsible for the Siefel/Shuster suit, they were just holding him to account for the things he actually said or wrote. But I guess it’s easier to pretend otherwise.
But that’s not my favorite part. The best bit is when he doubles down on his position on the relationship between creators and the ‘Big Two’ publishers and drops a subliminal Alan Moore dis that would make Jay-Z proud. We’re supposed to ignore the fact that Moore wasn’t some yokel who signed his ideas away for magic beans, but a guy who thought that DC violated the terms of its contract with him and acted in bad faith after benefiting from a windfall (long story short: the rights to Watchmen were supposed to revert to the creators after the book went out of print. Neither party anticipated the explosive growth of the trade market). I find it hard to believe that Morrison doesn’t know that contracts are always subject to interpretation and frequently fail to address unforeseeable advances in technology or changes to the marketplace.
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Creators are in the business of selling the cultural products they create to an audience who will appreciate them.
So it stands to reason that a rational creator would present the public with a version of themselves that’s most conducive to selling those products. It makes sense for Grant Morrison or Alan Moore to emphasize the more radical, countercultural side of their personalities when selling products to an audience that would be most receptive to those ideas. Neither man would gain from reminding the audience that they are also hard-nosed businessmen. But we forget. We confuse an advertising campaign with reality. We never should have assumed that Grant Morrison was anything more than “a freelance commercial writer who sells stories to pay the bills“.
I’m not sure if the version of Morrison that inspired a thriving online community of freethinkers and radicals represents all or any of the real Grant Morrison, and I don’t think it matters.
These interviews should inspire us to rethink the notion of fandom. We shouldn’t stop loving the books or respecting the people who create them. We can still value online and in-person interactions with creators, and pore over their interviews and profiles. We just shouldn’t be surprised or disappointed when they change their public persona. We should resist that sense of false sense of familiarity or intimacy with people who are essentially strangers.
Джамаал говорит, что фанатам пора приучаться не верить авторам, и он прав. Это мир, в котором мы теперь живём, и нет, это не только про комиксы. У вашего любимого писателя или актёра есть Твиттер? Вам нравится смотреть на фотографии со съемок грядущего блокбастера, на которых актёры веселятся и радостно общаются между собой? На коллективные интервью, где они шутят, перебрасываются добродушными колкостями и рассказывают о себе истории? На видео, которыми они поздравляют друг друга с днём рождения?
Мир так работает и, возможно, Грант Моррисон просто понял это раньше своих коллег по индустрии. Остаётся поднятый Дэвидом Бразерсом вопрос: можем ли мы верить, если при этом мы не должны верить? И устроит ли автора публика, которая сознательно и прицельно не верит?
Ну и на десерт прекрасное от Абхэя Хослы (кажется, я каждый раз пишу имя этого человека по-новому) в колонке Такера Стоуна в, внимание, онлайн-версии The Comics Journal:
ЦитатыThe interview was gross, and by the word gross, I specifically mean “horrible, grotesque, nauseating, stomach-churning, flesh-crawling”—basically, all the worst parts of the Bible. But the GOOD part is that Morrison talks about why he is going to quit writing America’s Second-Favorite Batman stories: because of comics fans. COMICS FANS. Oh, those comic fans are some mean old nasties, cold-hearted son-bitches, the very dregs of humanity (the actual dregs, not the band). Oh, somebody get him a pillow for his head, having to deal with the Grinches. Just because he tried to propagate a teeny-tiny, measly, miniscule bit of ahistoric propaganda that flattered the repeated misconduct of his long-time corporate masters and dismissed the intense suffering of the comic creators who paved the way for his current success. Damn you, comic fans. Damn the dark places you live!
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If you have to run away from a temple you worked at because it is now on fire, on fire because even the Lord God who you falsely professed to worship himself is ashamed of your corruption, your thorough, total corruption—well, I don’t know if that’s something you really want to go bragging about to the New Statesman? “News flash! I’m too stubborn to notice God is repulsed by my corrupt mentality. Stop the presses!” Though to be fair, Grant Morrison, Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, only gave the interview, and was then given the opportunity to “review” the interview, in its entirety, and made sure to include in the interview that nothing he said in that interview or any other interview necessarily reflected his actual views, or the actual views of anyone else located in the United States or Guam, in that his views exist outside of time, space, the understood rules of causality, and thus any human capacity for critical judgment, but that if his views cause side effects, up to and including an erection lasting over four hours, with a mix of blood and semen erupting periodically such that… Look: I just don’t have the space to explain all the fine print, in full– the internet is simply too finite.
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Rucka’s words are hard to reconcile with the divinity of Morrison’s repeated chant that “My own experience proves [DC Comics] can be reasonable and honorable, if you deal with them in an adult fashion.” Morrison’s words would thus seem to suggest that Rucka was right to be excommunicated from the Temple, for he is a most unholy child. But must Morrison go further? Must Morrison smite or indeed even smote Rucka for having defiled the Temple? Shall Morrison seek blessings to launch a Crusade upon Rucka and the other heathens? Will Rucka and Morrison together attend the next Barcelona Comic-Con? If so, does Greg Rucka expect for there to be a Spanish Inquisition? No. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
In conclusion, you have just read jokes about Dungeons & Dragons, Monty Python, and Comic Books. Welcome to my temple of life-long celibacy!
Итак, вот что произошло, хотя некоторым и кажется иначе.
Смотреть на эту ситуацию можно по-разному. Кто-то скажет, что мы наблюдаем типичные последствия проявления недостаточной почтительности к остромодной священной корове. Кто-то сосредоточится на этическом аспекте и решит, что человек, которому настолько плевать на униженных и оскорблённых, попросту не заслуживает ни внимания, ни денег. Кто-то же отметит, что, как бы там ни было, мягкое игнорирование бушующего до сих пор и едва ли не ключевого для формирования индустрии конфликта в любом случае не может не обернуться невозможностью полноценного анализа, а стремление глубоко цеплять своим творчеством как на эмоциональном, так и на интеллектуальном уровне едва ли сочетаемо со стремлением быть одинаково принятым публикой после каждой смены шкуры.
Грант, конечно, будет в порядке. Его новый проект собирает неплохие отзывы, народ в восторге от его конвенции, а сам он за достижения прошедшей недели справедливо получает от лично меня премию имени Скотта Снайдера ("Заткнись уже!").
В конце концов то, что для внятных критиков и теоретиков медиума его имя теперь находится всё ближе и ближе к имени Стражински, можно и пережить, так?
@темы: Grant Morrison, Ссылки
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05.10.2012 в 01:05-
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05.10.2012 в 01:16И книга ценна именно этим, и именно в этом разрезе должна и обсуждается в основном.
Ну вот я как-то видела отзывы двух типов - восторг на ступень выше чисто фанбойского и то, что я тут цитировала. Но это может просто не удалось наткнуться, вполне допускаю.
А уж если моррисону потребуется вкинуть тему для обсуждения этих ваших комиксов, он с этим(вспомним бэтмана-гея) справляется замечательно и без написания длиннющих трактатов.
Оу камоооон. Я уже мониторила атмосферу, когда он выкинул эту штуку с геем-Бэтменом. Инфоповод был отличный, даже мейнстримные СМИ встрепенулись - правда поменьше, чем от гей-свадьбы в Людях Икс, новой ориентации Алана Скотта или спаривания Супермена с Чудо Женщиной - фанбои потрепыхались, гы-гы: Бэтмен - гей, все хором вспомнили весёлые старые комиксы и фильм Шумахера, но всего обсуждения вышло - одна статья на, ЕМНИП, Комикс Альянсе и всё.
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05.10.2012 в 01:43А касательно отзывов -- ну фанбойские понятно, но вот все остальные отзывы, что читал я, в том числе во всяких гардианах, были ближе к моей точке зрения ) А вот отзывов, вроде процитированных, я почти не видел, и мне кажется, что их тоже стоит относить к фанбойству, вроде тех трепетных ценителей, которые обижаются на моррисона за то, что он принял титул рыцаря империи, хотя вроде как когда-то был анархистом. Ну да, позиция на жизнь право имеет, но мне кажется это не совсем адекватное поведение )
А про гея -- ну так никто не говорит, что это обязательно надо обсуждать серьёзно. В конце концов, не тот это жанр, что бы в нём было МНОГО такого рода толкователей. Но так сказать Общественная Дискуссия вполне развернулась, то есть если надо -- вполне себе у него получается выносить вещи на обсуждение )
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05.10.2012 в 02:20Ну, тот же Пол Грэветт (первая ссылка под катом) общую рецензию написал вполне благожелательную и именно про это.
А вот, взявшись за конкретный момент, он сказал уже другое...
То есть одно другому в общем не противоречит.
А мейнстримная пресса как бы не очень в курсе конфликта (хотя в этом году их несколько просвятили скандалы с Муром и Кирби, Ларри Тай и Шон Хауи), так что в том, что они не придрались к фактологии и трактовке событий, нет ничего удивительного. Если же принять изложенную версию событий за чистую монету, то проблем и вправду нет.
А вот отзывов, вроде процитированных, я почти не видел, и мне кажется, что их тоже стоит относить к фанбойству
Ну, The Comics Journal - это если и фанбои, то явно в другом смысле).
То есть нет, я вижу там взьерошенные перья, конечно же. И, как я написала, вся эта борьба "за создателей" местами дурно пахнет. Мэтт Сенека так и вообще истерик. Но мне в их аргументах всё равно видится смысл.
про гея -- ну так никто не говорит, что это обязательно надо обсуждать серьёзно. В конце концов, не тот это жанр, что бы в нём было МНОГО такого рода толкователей. Но так сказать Общественная Дискуссия вполне развернулась, то есть если надо -- вполне себе у него получается выносить вещи на обсуждение )
Да, вынести вещь на обсуждение он может с легкостью. Мало того: обозвать одного из культовых супергероев геем в интервью мейнстримному СМИ? Это толсто как бревно, для этого Моррисоном быть вот вообще не надо.
Но это же скучно!
Там из всего обсуждения - хорошо если пара весёлых холиваров да три с половиной смешные шутки. А остальное - поверхностное пережёвывание тривиальностей, корнями вросших ещё в Вертхема. Эта шутка была старой, когда меня ещё не было на свете!
То есть нет, если народ это развлекает - почему бы и нет, меня оно тоже время от времени развлекает.
Но ничего нового или даже просто интересного про медиум сказано не было, понимание его не продвинулось ни на микрон и иже с ним - я не зря в первом же абзаце вспомнила страшное слово "дискурс", он вовсе не равен Общественной Дискуссии. Это не интересный разговор, это перекидывание внутренними шутками за пивом в весёлой компании. Именно за пивом - болле крепкий алкоголь либо уничтожает разговор, либо выруливает его в глубины. Что очень круто, очень весело и очень расслабляет, но... не дискуссия. Как перессказ шутки про, допустим, новую скульптуру Церетели "Геракл раздирающий пасть писающему мальчику" не является дискуссией о скульптуре.