TAKE YOUR BEST OF LISTS AND SHOVE 'EM

At the end of every year, the comics world seems to spew forth 'best of' lists faster than a porn site spawns pop-ups. Whenever I see a 'Best Comics Ever' or a 'Best of 2004' list, it reminds me of a time I listened to Bob McKee (he of the screenwriting cult) rant about the film industry's constant need to create lists of The Best Films Ever. "Why do we do it?" he asked. "Because as an industry we're not even a century old and we're still trying to convince ourselves that what we do is art. So you get these lists. Ten best films ever! And awards! Look, everyone! Art! We produce art! Art, art, art!"

Are films art? They can be, despite Stephen Sommers' best efforts to the contrary. Are comic books art? If the creators do a good enough job. Should they be? Well, it's worth striving for. Art is, to me, something that achieves a degree of immortality. The story remains, long after the people involved in creating it have moved on. Something in it touches us, and we remember it. DARK KNIGHT RETURNS. Bendis' DAREDEVIL. SUPERMAN: BIRTHRIGHT. SANDMAN. And why be involved in the ridiculous ups and downs of the creative life, unless you want what you create to be remembered?

Yet people tend to look down on comics ? including some comic artists themselves ? producing a similar desperate need for self-validation (also known as The Comics Journal).

'Art is something that achieves a degree of immortality. The story remains.' A young comic artist friend of mine still froths with anger at the very mention of Sean Phillips' name, because at a comics panel in Bristol several years ago he heard Phillips say that he was going to give up drawing comics soon, so he could "do proper art". Now I quite like Phillips' comic art, but it seems a shame that anyone would be toiling away in an industry as small as comics just for the crappy paycheque, while seemingly despising the work they produce. I mean, hell, if you're going to look down on what you do, you might as well go off and do something which pays you large amounts of money.

But, aside from his ill-considered convention comments, at least Phillips shuts up and lets his work speak for itself. He doesn't spend hours bitching on message boards about how a fellow writer or artist has ruined, I say ruined his beloved Gwen Stacy.

The funny thing about comics is that in most other art forms, people paint or write or make music because they have stories they want to tell or things they want to express. Many people become involved in comics because there have a specific character they want to write or draw. And in the way that ? to paraphrase Henry Rollins ? a Bono fan will fly 25 hours from Australia to spray-paint "WE LOVE YOU, U2!" on the wall of Windmill Studios in Dublin, writers and artists will sacrifice much just to be able to have their name on an issue of SUPERMAN. And then - and this is where my patience grows thin - they hit the message boards, telling everyone how their version of SUPERMAN is (or would be) better than everyone else's, rather than letting readers judge for themselves in peace and quiet.

REPENT, WARREN! SAID THE TICKTOCKMAN

I started thinking about the nature of art in comics recently after reading a thread on the John Byrne forum where Byrne slates Warren Ellis, calling him unprofessional for not delivering PLANETARY on a monthly basis. Specifically, he said:

"How about if we just think of it this way: PEOPLE WHO MISS DEADLINES ARE LAZY, ARROGANT, UNPROFESSIONAL C*CKS*CKERS WHO ARE IN NO SMALL WAY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEATH OF THE INDUSTRY. AND THE 'FANS' WHO SUPPORT THEM ARE BRAINDEAD ELITIST MORONS."

No, really. John Byrne said that. Byrne: shut up! Give us good comics again, not cheap insults. Sometimes I think message boards are the worst things to happen to comic writers in the past ten years. Maybe I'm unusual, but the ravings of John Byrne and Mark Millar on their boards have made me think far less of them.

And the Bendis Board, where the pathetic behaviour of its participants (including a thread where they divided up female comic creators according to whom they'd fuck, marry or kill), has reflected poorly on Bendis. If you throw a party in your house, you have an obligation to make sure the guests don't act like the monkeys in issue #31 of POWERS.

''People who miss deadlines ? [are] responsible for the death of the industry.'' Sorry. Byrne's comments about PLANETARY got me really angry. Every writer and artist has a few books they work on that they really care about, above all others. You can tell which ones they are; it's fairly easy to see when someone has put their heart and soul into something. And these books take time. They usually come out from smaller publishers, so they barely pay. The creators will have to do them in and around other jobs. They're hard to write, and hard to draw. When you're pushing your limits as a storyteller, it's thin-ice territory.

Yeah, I'd like PLANETARY more often, because I think it's a great book. But I'd rather have it come out at its current leisurely schedule if that is the only way that Messrs. Ellis & Cassaday can keep up the quality and still pay for rent/school fees/futurephones/tequila.

It amuses me to see Byrne pissing all over PLANETARY, because long after Byrne's DOOM PATROL fades into obscurity, I'd wager PLANETARY will still be in print. I wish people like Byrne would look beyond the petty point-scoring and support creators who try to do groundbreaking work ? no matter how long it takes them, and how many obstacles they have to surmount to do it. Don't like the schedule? Wait for the trade. There's already enough hackwork that comes out monthly, regular as clockwork.

READY OR NOT, HERE COMES 2005

I've been a bit down on comics recently, as there hasn't been anything to interest me on the shop shelves for a good three months. I'm waiting for the SLEEPER trade (sorry, Ed Brubaker, my local comic store still won't stock WildStorm titles) and I read my flatmate's copies of JLA: CLASSIFIED. I've finally given up on LUCIFER.

But the first half of 2005 is looking like it might renew my sagging faith in the medium. First, Keith Giffen and JM DeMatteis' I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S NOT THE JUSTICE LEAGUE, which is actually JLA: CLASSIFIED #4-9. I love Giffen and DeMatteis, and will bore on command about my adoration of their JLI.

They got those stories so right. On the surface, it was funny, soap-opera comics ? but the stories never got dull the way some of the current attempts at high-school melodrama comics do. The reason was that some very nasty things happened in JLI, and the stakes for the characters were always high. Their JLA: CLASSIFIED run will be an oasis of fun in an otherwise grim, gritty and dull DCU.

'The first half of 2005 might renew my sagging faith in the medium.' Next, Grant Morrison and A Bunch of Cool Artists' SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY. I can't wait to see Morrison unleashed, with (for once) decent art, on a bunch of d-list characters where he's not hamstrung by continuity. Although, if the death of Klarion the Witch Boy's cat becomes a major plot point, I'm personally going to Morrison's house and we're going to have a word about his pussy fixation.

I'm vaguely interested in the Morrison/Quitely SUPERMAN, but I'm worried that DC won't schedule for Quitely's notorious tendency to blow deadlines, and two issues in we'll see Quitely yanked off and some hack put on so that the book can stay monthly.

I'm also looking forward to Peter Milligan on X-MEN. I like him best when paired with Jamie Hewlett (in that bizarre hybrid beast, "Hewligan"), so I'm hoping Milligan will actually forget he's writing The Holy X-MEN and just turn in something utterly bonkers. I'll pick up Adam Warren's LIVEWIRES, because Warren is insane in the best possible way, and seeing him on his own project bodes well indeed. I'm told there are also a bunch of crossover events in 2005, but I shall just close my eyes, click my heels and say "there's no place like home" until the nasty CRISIS goes away and normal service resumes.

On the Filthy European and Manga front, Naoki Urasawa's MONSTER should finally be coming out in English from Viz. It's basically SILENCE OF THE LAMBS with a neurosurgeon, and it's utterly amazing. Volume two of Colin Wilson and Matz' DU PLOMB DANS LA TETE is out in time for Angouleme. It's a French RESERVOIR DOGS, and I've been told the carnage level gets turned up to 11 in this album.

I'm also going to pick up the first few volumes of SILLAGE (THE WAKE, out in the US from NBM) when I go to Angouleme, as it looks like some good sci-fi. That's about all I'm reading these days. Maybe Bilal will publish the last part of his DORMANT BEAST series this year. Maybe Travis Charest will finish his first album of his thing with Jodorowsky. But even if they don't, I think it's going to be a good year for comics.

Alex de Campi is a comics writer whose projects include the Eisner-nominated SMOKE with Igor Kordey and the forthcoming KAT & MOUSE with Federica Manfredi.

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