So one of my little side projects is to see if I can make a timeline of the DCU. I found a site the other day called TimeGlider that seems to be a decent, free, timeline creation web-software, so I am slowly adding DCU events to it and messing around with the software to make it more clear what's going on. It is a work in progress! Someone has probably totally done this before...OH WELL.
MY DCU TIMELINE
This week's Wednesday wasn't very "weak-willed." I basically forced myself to go in, pick up the new issues of the comics I subscribe to and not look around and end up buying 20 other things. If you're interested in knowing the details of my life (I am quite interesting!), you can check out my list Comics I Bought In 11/2010. Instead of a new blog post and a new list every time I buy comics, I decided to just to make a list for every month and add things to it as I bought them and include the date of purchase in the comments.
Also, last night, after finishing The Invisibles Volume 1: You Say You Want a Revolution, I started a Transgender Characters list. So far, I've only come across two that I remember. But, I have a bad memory - one reason I started the list. If you know of a transgender character that I haven't added yet, let me know! And since the articles on the two trans characters I know about aren't really written with proper terminology or respect to transgender people, I'll be using the comments section of my list to talk about the characters from a trans-feminist perspective. Editing the articles to change inappropriate or incorrect things doesn't seem to be a viable option, so, you do what you can do...
Really, the title says it all. But I'm sure I can muster up a few paragraphs of a nice old fashioned rant.
Time and time again I encounter near (and full) outrage from a person when they hear me spout the blasphemous phrase "I don't like Watchmen." Just the other day I had a friend say something like "I'm still completely at loss as to how you can not like Watchmen." But, I, as well, am completely at loss when people are shocked at my dislike of Watchmen and Alan Moore, in general. Sticking with Watchmen, since it's a nice easy target and perhaps Moore's most famous work, it seems to me to invoke what I'll call the "Citizen Kane Effect" in people. To quickly define the CKE, it's when a person conflates historical importance with "Greatness" in all areas.
Now, had I been alive and sentient in 1941, Citizen Kane would have probably blown my mind. I could have potentially dubbed it the Greatest Film of All Time. Similarly, were I sentient and reading comics in 1986, Watchmen could very well have had the same effect in the realm of comics. However, I was a year old when Watchmen started being published and obviously less than a year old when Citizen Kane came out. And it wasn't until I was 16-18 that I started reading comics, so a nice 15 year buffer between me and Watchmen.
Now, historically, I'll assume Watchmen ushered in the modern era of comics. Gritty, dark, fucked up stories. And Citizen Kane ushered in a new era of film making. Innovation, experimentation, and courage. These are great and to be respected. But being the first on the scene doesn't make you the best on the scene. Watchmen may have changed comics, but in doing so it made it easier to be dethroned from it's position of "Greatest" (if it ever was or if there is such a thing as "greatest"). And to make things clear, I love the themes in Watchmen: mental illness, moral ambiguity, etc. But, it bores the shit out of me. Moore accomplished all of this and more, in my opinion, in a lot less pages in The Killing Joke - the only thing of Moore's I love.
Now, on a recent-ish post by another comicvine user, it seemed to be suggested that some rather popular ("overrated") authors who openly cite Moore as influence, owe him quite a lot and that it may be difficult to discern where these authors begin and Alan Moore ends - or to put it another way: They're just regurgitating Alan Moore. However, if I understood the argument correctly, I definitely disagree. Let's use Neil Gaiman as the example - and I won't hide my bias, Neil Gaiman is my favorite author in the medium of comics as well as other forms of literature. Now, Gaiman has definitely been influenced by Moore. Gaiman has been influenced by Lord Dunsany as well. And probably Snorri Sturluson as well, but to be safe I'll just say Norse mythology in general. And a million other things. However, to say that Gaiman is regurgitating (regurgitating is my word, not used by any other poster, by the way) Moore, Dunsany, Sturluson, Homer, etc...would be, to me, a very odd opinion and one difficult to demonstrate. There's a key difference in simple copying and using an idea or a character and making it your own and Gaiman, to stay with my example, has always - in my opinion once again - fallen into the latter camp. Even with Stardust, a straight up homage to Lord Dunsany, it's very much a Gaiman story.
Perhaps one day my opinion of Alan Moore will change. But for now, Alan Moore stands in my book as the most overrated author in the comic book industry.
And remember kids! Don't fall prey to the CKE! Historical importance is just that and does not imply anything beyond it! The French Nouvelle Vogue made better films than early Hollywood did. Certain New Hollywood films made better films than certain Nouvelle Vogue films. And certain modern films are better than New Hollywood film. Each movement inspired the next and artist build upon the works of their influences, not simply reproduce it.
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