In the type of coincidence that only happens in real life, Steve Ditko just recently posted a philosophical blog at the conservative media site Big Hollywood. It's in response to a piece he posted months ago:
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/blash/2009/04/06/steve-ditkos-toyland/
And the new piece:
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/blash/2009/11/21/steve-ditkos-the-ever-unreachable/
Just a warning: these are not really comic-related essays. They use some examples from comic books, but they're mostly about the socio-political atmospheres and philosophies that underlie comic books. And, admittedly, they can be dry reading. But if you want to know what Steve Ditko thinks about society today, go for it.
And before anyone asks, I agree with some but not all of his conclusions. Mostly, though, I do agree that public policy based on consistent logic is more desirable to public policy based on emotional fervor. (A country of laws vs. a country of men, and all that.)
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You know, I find it contradictory that in the first essay Ditko goes on a rant about how Joe Quesada's willingness to " break toys " diminishes society morally by undermining the nature of the hero, then goes to say this in his second ( point #48 following a discussion of the invention of the automobile )...
ReplyDelete" 48. It all took better minds, knowledge, those willing to risk and fail. Some who failed couldn’t compete, blamed others, the “system”. There were the envious accusing the successful of being selfish, greedy exploiters, profiteers and worse, but the majority, even the protesters, benefited. "
The arts work under the same principles, even the commercial arts like comic books. Not to defend House of M or Civil War ( individual stories that were terrible ), but it seems to me that dealing with questions of moral structures would work especially well in fiction, since people won't be unanimous on anything in reality ( despite what an Objectivist perspective would desire ), and at least doing a comic about a Civil War doesn't kill real people.
I don't necessarily see that as a contradiction, because one doesn't have to use established heroic characters in deconstructive fiction. Granted, doing so gives the work added emotional depth, but in the hands of a poor writer, it can smack of emotional manipulation. Which, again, brings back up Civil War....
ReplyDeleteYou don't have to use them in your story, and if you do that with an established character, you do risk fucking it up in countless ways. But I don't like the notion that they should be off-limits, which Ditko seems to be projecting ( not by enforcing that nobody deconstruct heroes, but by his Objective perspective on Truth, and which contradicts the notion that you need an element of risk for success ).
ReplyDeleteCivil War stunk because it was written superficially; the idea could have worked, but the craft was so poor in the main series, and all the stuff tied into it suffered as a result.