Broken Frontier

Last week when discussing Endless Nights, I made a comment that a friend of mine, former reviewer for Broken Frontier and fellow comics advocate, John Jakala, took some offense to. I stated, "Like Watchmen, like Maus, Sandman is something you cannot be a true comic fan until you’ve read a significant portion of it." My intention with these words was to signify the importance of Sandman, that it was quintessential comics reading.
John however took this comment a different way; to him it seemed overly elitist. He said, "I still bristle at absolutist language like ‘You cannot be a true comic fan until you’ve read X.’ It strikes me as too rigid and exclusionary." I agree with John that too often we use a person’s reading credentials (or lack thereof) as the basis of a hierarchy of fandom, and that position is in no way one I am promoting.

But his reply got me thinking about how difficult it can be to distinguish between what one fan classifies as a favorite work and the works that we all can recognize as the perfect embodiment of what comics are capable of. Where do we draw a line between what is a fanboy’s "Top Ten Graphic Novels" list and a literary canon of sorts for the graphic narrative?

Establishing that canon, I think, is a worthwhile pursuit, because having works that we can easily point to as the best of the best makes it easier for us to challenge claims that comics aren’t worthy of study. A canon can be a tool for advocacy then, providing ready proof of the greatness comics can be as an argument against people who say comics are for kids.

Besides, we shouldn’t hold ourselves to a higher standard than other media, which are constantly being analyzed and scrutinized in such ways. Every publication devoted to a certain medium has done a "Best Of" issue at some point, including Entertainment Weekly’s yearly breakdown of the best in each of the many entertainment formats it covers. TV Guide similarly jumped on the bandwagon a few years back and released their picks for the 50 best shows of all time. While these examples are based more on popular choice, organizations such as the American Film Institute still categorize what are considered the 100 greatest films in much the same way, albeit in a much more critical manner.

All of these examples are simply following the model of the literary canon which we English professors are always going on about. In the case of literature, often the canon is not as clearly established as the aforementioned lists. It is more ephemeral with great literature; it seems everyone knows what is in the literary canon without anyone ever having had to be told what the canon was. Still, it too is an example of fans getting together and deciding which works they admire most and deserve to be elevated above the others; it’s just that, in this case, the "fans" are scholars with doctoral degrees.

So how do we follow these models, retaining a critical perspective without engaging in fanboy snobbery? Well, our first task is to completely remove any hint of personal preference from the process. If we refuse to allow our subjective feelings color what should be a completely unbiased and objective process, we can establish a canon of graphic novels based on the greatness of the works and nothing else. A movie fan, for example, might dislike Citizen Kane, but the film’s brilliance is undeniable. You can prefer other Kurt Vonnegut novels over Slaughter-house Five (I personally like his book Breakfast of Champions much more), but it is Slaughter-house Five that is considered a classic.

Therefore, rather than spotlight works we personally enjoy over others, we would establish a canon by focusing instead on quantifiable criteria, easily defined characteristics that everyone can agree that a great work of illustrated literature must have. A quintessential work in the medium of comics then must have wide appeal, be open to many different types of readers, not just the hardcore fans; otherwise, the work’s place in this canon, and the canon’s role as a tool for advocacy, would be useless. It also has to be innovative, explore new areas of storytelling as no other comic before had in such a way that no other comic since has done quite as well. Most importantly, a canonical graphic novel must have depth of theme, well-rounded characters, and beautiful art that services the story; to be a classic, the work itself has to be excellent.

We must finally avoid the idea that these are ALL the works of merit that comics have to offer. For this same reason, many people are opposed to the literary canon. They feel it excludes any author who is not a dead white guy, and they think it disparages other works by other authors. To be honest, sometimes it can do those things, but that’s no reason to throw the whole idea of a canon out. If we can distinguish that the canon is merely a representation of the best comics, not the ONLY good ones there are, then establishing a canon is a worthwhile pursuit.

So now that we’ve determined our criteria, what comics then belong in our canon? Well, rather than tell you what I believe should be canon, I’d like to hear what you think. Stop by my message boards and weigh in on this topic over the course of the next few days, and next week I’ll run down my picks here.