Thursday, December 01, 2005

Is it wrong not to always be glad ?

Apparently it is splatter the icon season over at Slate. It was Billy Joel earlier this week and yesterday it is the Watchmen. The author argues that the comic is overly bleak and adolescent in its existential questioning and its overt political stances. He claims we adults have no time for such jibber jabber and "Life is too short. Frankly, we'd much rather be watching The Incredibles." He goes on to deride the entire graphic novel concept. It seems he would like to keep the boring 70s style comic. Keep in mind this person wrote a book to convince us that the Hollywood blockbuster machine is a good thing. I agree that the comic book is bleak, but it is set in a bleak world and like all speculative fiction it extrapolates trends to make us question our current political and sociological environment. I don't want all art to be political, but there is nothing wrong with political art. Unless it is Socialist Realism.

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