I’ve always loved Michael Kupperman’s work, and I loved this. I laughed. But I couldn’t suppress the niggling complaint that it seemed to want something both ways. To have the cake of seriousness and also stick out a tongue coated in cake and bits of frosting. And in this it seemed far from alone, but part of a long tradition.
Now you could read Kupperman’s strip as a takedown of the mere question “Are Comics Serious Literature?” As if the question were so ridiculous as to be beneath asking, so that the only possible reaction would be to foreground that ridiculousness, treat it with the ridicule it deserved. Or you could read this as a takedown of people who still refuse to consider comics serious literature. Either way, a dismissal is involved, but not a refutation. We are serious; take us seriously, we say. Well, why should we? they reply. And we say, Nyah, nyah. » Read the rest of this entry «