Every few years, a new dogmatic essay is published (usually in Harper's Magazine) that attracts the attention of novelists, accusing them of failing to uphold the standards the tradition of the form has set for them, or to live up to our time in history and address the issues and concerns that have been raised, or something else that is written in such an obnoxiously impenetrable manner that only a handful of people are able to grasp it, and written by people who can't meet the lofty ideals they set forth in their own essays.

The truth is that they're often blown out of proportion and misinterpreted (like Jonathan Franzen's poorly written and obnoxious piece for the aforementioned Harper's) or they're interesting ideas by writers who don't approach the standards they claim to uphold (Tom Wolfe's obnoxious essay for Harper's). Very few people care, and a month or two after they get published, the essays tend to be forgotten until the author's next book is published and journalists bring it up as an interview question.

Something similar happens in comics. Every few months someone will write an essay or give an interview in which they argue that comics need to be about more than just superheroes.

It's not quite the same, is it?

'Comics are too busy trying to be an adolescent medium.' The problem is that comics are too busy trying to be an adolescent medium. Now, if that actually meant that comic book companies were targeting teenagers, it would be one thing. Because there's a lot of them, and quite frankly they have disposable income. Hell, it's all disposable; it all goes on boys and/or girls, gas, music, clothes and whatever is cool this week. With music now more or less free for millions of people who have stopped buying CDs, it seems a capitalist imperative to keep these teenagers from throwing their money into a bank.

But no. Comics are adolescent because they still don't know quite what they want to be, and are still in the process of figuring out what they can do. And if that point needs to be proved, people need look no further than the reaction to the recent Jeph Loeb/Jim Lee run of BATMAN. Are people praising it for being Earth-shattering, new, bold, and the best Batman story ever?

No. It's praised because it's entertaining, well written and drawn.

The very fact that people will praise comics for not sucking is a sign of just how far this medium has to go. Shouldn't every comic be well written and drawn? Or is that too much to demand?

The problem is that too many people will damn a comic with faint praise. 'Oh, it's good for a comic.' And not just elitist snobs who look down on the medium, but comic fans who demand less of comics than they do from other work.

One thing that really made me pause was an interview Craig Thompson gave to The Pulse where he named his influences. "I'm a huge enthusiast for French cartoonist Edmond Baudoin's work, and Japanese illustrator Taro Yashima, and Miyazaki cartoons ... and Vladmir Nabakov is my favorite novelist. I'm also keen on theology professor Elaine Pagel's books - the Gnostic Gospels, etc. And the Muppets."

Too many comics are influenced by other comics. We have a medium that cannibalises itself. One reason that Craig Thompson is able to create work that is as deep and meaningful and thoughtful as BLANKETS is that he's drawing on resources and inspiration deeper and wider than some GREEN LANTERN team-up he read when he was eight.

'Shouldn't every comic be well written and drawn?' Comics need to think bigger. They need to try harder and be bolder.

We need creators who know that creativity doesn't mean thinking up a new Batman villain every month. That every year the X-Men shouldn't be shuffled off to the Savage Land before they fight Magneto, before Scott and Jean have a fight that almost ends their relationship.

We need creators who are willing to draw from their own lives, from the collected artwork of hundreds of cultures over thousands of years. Because if they're making something obnoxious and funny, then it should be as funny as possible. And if it's something for their grandmother to cry over, then they should pour their heart into it. And if they want some twelve year old kid to read it and be jerked Keanu-like from a haze of bad pop on his headphones to stare at the page going "whoa", then they need to have the balls to do it.

And they need to be able to say, fuck Hollywood.

I'm not saying people should turn down option money or the chance to write for TV or the movies. Far from it. I'm all for people doing different things and getting money for doing nothing (it's my ambition). But we need creators who aren't creating stories and characters to serve as a multimedia platform for their agent to shop around. People who aren't using their comics to get another job.

They're creating a comic.

'Creativity doesn't mean thinking up a new Batman villain every month.' Yes it's a lot of work, and making more money and not having a day job would be nice. But that's not unique to comics. How many frustrated novelists and short story writers and screenwriters and playwrights and musicians are out there who make some money from their art, but not enough to live?

We need creators whose goal is to see comics not as a stepping stone to 'real' work, but as a job they pour their heart and sweat into. All of the creators who are doing their second best work in comics because they're saving their "good" ideas for the film/book/TV show/video/whatever project they have in mind need to go and find another medium to slum it in. This is a medium of words and pictures; the possibilities are endless. If the best they're capable of thinking up is a fourth rate action flick with a spandex fetish, then they should do the readers a favour and find something else to do.

When Alan Moore talked about big, mad ideas, he wasn't referring to thinking up some fantastic villain of the month who can come back on a regular basis. He was talking about the fantastic, about finding new ways to see and approach the world through art.

We need companies that have the foresight and vision to take a risk on such projects. There's a reason that so many of the major creators who have emerged in the past few years have been published by the small or midsize publishers first. The 'Big Two' take a few risks, but too few for such large companies.

And more than any of this, we need an audience that is willing, able and excited to read these works. The potential audience for different projects is out there, such as the people who emerged from seeing GHOST WORLD or ROAD TO PERDITION or AMERICAN SPLENDOR, intrigued and puzzled that these works were originally comic books; baffled that such intelligent and interesting work could come from a comic. These are people who haven't picked up a comic since they were kids. But these are people who would love a little true art in their lives.

Alex Dueben is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer.

This article is Ideological Freeware. The author grants permission for its reproduction and redistribution by private individuals on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice.